Foot's getting red

The foot was looking pretty good this week. Then this morning when getting out of the shower, I noticed a band of red starting up around the suture site on the right side. I'll be soaking it in warm water a few times today, and hopefully that'll help.

Romano's

Long time away. Glad to be back, having dinner at Romano's!

House didn't burn down

Unbelievable. Kristan and Jen walked out of the house this afternoon to leave for Dialysis, and the landscaping on the West side of our driveway was fully involved in a fire, 20 feet high. Jen jumped in her car and moved it, to avoid having it explode. Then she grabbed a garden hose, and with the help of a passing good Samaritan and our neighbor, doused it until it was completely out, then Jen's husband got here, and he doused it again, since the wind was quickly drying it out. The fire department showed up just in time to do nothing. The paint on the side of her car is all bubbled up, and the interior has little char marks all over, since the window was rolled down and sparks were blowing into it. The 10 foot dwarf Mugo Pine is only half burned to a crisp, thanks to a strong southwest wind, but probably dead anyway. The best news is, the house is untouched. It would've been on fire too, if the wind were blowing the other direction. Dumb luck that everyone is OK and we had just a little landscaping damage. I think Jen will be MUCH more aware of what she does with her cigarette ash from now on.

S-Driving!

Day 33. Drove myself to work for the first time this morning, after practicing some more yesterday, and convincing myself that yes, I really am competent driving with my left foot now. Too cool, getting around town independently! Also, per doc's orders, have been putting a little bit of weight on the injured foot at first, and have worked up, over several days, to being able to cautiously walk without aids for short distances. Now that's some real progress! :-D

S-Back at Blueberry's

Finally enjoying breakfast at Blueberry's on a beautiful Sunday morning! Even if I had to drive...

K Home

Home at last. It was very satisfying to come home after spending most of our night and day at the hospital, to find the man we'd hired to clean our gutters and windows, still hard at work. At least someone got something useful done in the past 24 hours. Our shiny clean windows make our wonderful mountain view look even better.

K Miserable

Well, things sure didn't go well for K at the ER. The paramedics gave her IV dextrose to bring her blood glucose up. When it came up, they expected her to become lucid. When she didn't (she hadn't slept in 3 days due to her sleep disorder issue), they decided she had a narcotics overdose, and gave her Narcan. This narcotic antagonist binds to the same receptors that her pain meds (and even her natural anti-pain endorphins) do, and prevents them from working. This is good, when someone is dying from an overdose. In her case, it exposed her to all the pain she could ever feel from the neuropathy, that she's been fighting for the past 15 years. She went into a terrible state of being in torturous level 10 pain for four hours, before the ER doc finally started getting it under control. They checked her into a room, so they could monitor her, and she finally fell asleep probably around 2:30am. By that time, my foot was in pretty intense pain too, as it had been down all day, especially as I was hurrying around the hospital ER, trying to advocate for her. Ken took me home, and I got to sleep around 3am. Oh, what a night...

Kristan to ER

Kristan's enroute to Littleton Hospital from dialysis. They measured her as she was coming off, and her blood glucose was 15, godawful low, and they said her heart "wasn't working right". My neighbor Ken will be picking me up in 5 minutes. More later.

S-Day 29, seems better

Day 29. The downtime seems interminable. Getting a little better each day, I think, but like watching paint dry. I started putting a little weight on it yesterday, per doc's orders. Seems to be going ok, with the occasional electric shock sensation when it twists too far, or in the wrong direction. The picture's on Facebook.

S-Day 21, back at work

Day 21. Caught rides to work the past two days. Glad the days were shorter than usual. Hard to control the edema when not just laying around with my feet up. I think it looks better, otherwise. Check Facebook for the picture.

Sleepless in Denver

K is having serious trouble getting sleep at the right time of day. It's really affecting her in many ways, not the least of which, is her inability to interact with all the people she sees in a day. When they tried to wake her after dialysis tonight, she thought she was coming out of surgery at the hospital.

I got my first shower in two weeks this morning. Heaven. Way better than all those silly little sponge baths.

S-Day 14, stitches out

Well, the stitches are out! The nurse came into the exam room, and I gave her two options for assessing my foot: 1) why the hell didn't you get in here sooner, and 2) hey, not bad. The Nurse, and the PA, and the Doc, all agreed on Option 2. Unfortunately, my friend Bill wins the previous Option Lottery (held on Facebook), with his unsolicited option 3) Looks good, but let's keep the weight off it for awhile longer. The Doc said the green tinge is expected, and should be gone soon. That was a relief. I thought the green meant my leg would be falling off soon. So it looks like I'll be laid up for another month, before I can put any significant weight on it, although I do get to start trying a little weight at a time, in two more weeks.

S-Different. Huh.

My two feet are still looking quite different, today. I wonder what the doc will say tomorrow? Options are: 1) Looking good! Let's start putting some weight on this thing! 2) Ew (a highly technical medical term). How come you didn't make an effort to get in to see me sooner?!

S-Not easy

Second day off pain and anti nausea meds. Not bad. Still off my feet (in bed) 99% of the day, after 11 days. Ugh. This is not even a little bit easy.

K Home Finally

Nice to FINALLY have her home again. She went into St Anthony hospital for a simple test (catheterization) on Tuesday, and didn't come home until yesterday afternoon.

RxMindMe

I keep missing doses of my meds, generally while I'm sleeping in the middle of the night, or sometimes when things get busy around here. I'm sure my angry red leg isn't happy that I'm missing doses of antibiotic. I'm trying a new app, RxMindMe, that's supposed to help with it. We'll see...

New boot for S

I've been so good, staying off my broken foot the past few days. And it seemed my ankle was doing better, except for a nagging sharp pain that would suddenly strike, like a trapped bumblebee under the Ace bandage. Then this afternoon, I leaned over to grab another dose of pain/nausea pills by my bed. As I stretched for it, I felt another sharp sting, and something went "pop!" Then my foot started hurting/stinging more than it had all day. I got scared, and went in for a pajama consult. The Doc said "good call" and gave me this fun boot to wear home, and some antibiotics.

S-Really Messed Up

I was walking down the hill, along the edge of our street, to get the mail Thursday night. Took the dog out to pee, multitasking as usual. The dog went the other way, and when I turned to call her back out of the street (a car was coming, saw the headlights coming around the curve, I slipped on the ice, and went down hard. My right foot folded 90° sideways and broke bones on both sides of the ankle. Bad news at Black Rock. Intense pain! Big pieces of bone pushing outwards on the skin at the sides of my ankle. I grabbed the foot firmly and gently aligned it, then massaged the ankle bones back in line with my foot. The foot was hanging down in whatever direction gravity pulled it. Nice neighbors driving by helped me drag myself out of the cold, back to the house, called 911. Paramedics took me to nearby Littleton Hospital ER. I did such a good job of aligning things, that the paramedics and the ER doc insisted it could just be a dislocation. "Hah!" I said, "take an X-Ray!" The X-Rays confirmed bones broken on both sides. Luckily, an Orthopedic surgeon and an operating room freed up at the same time, so he put in a plate and 7 screws on the right side, and 2 screws on the left side, to hold everything back together, within hours of the accident. The Doc said the surgery went well. Sent me home Friday morning, with orders to avoid weight bearing and driving for two weeks. Now I'm just writhing around in bed, between being in intense pain every time I move, and being so nauseous (from the pain medication?), that I can't keep any food down.

My first new doc of 2012

I visited my first non-Kaiser doctor in decades, today. Thanks to Mikele, I've already got some appointments lined up, with the dermatologist today, and my new primary care physician on Friday. Today's doc did some of the usual freezing, then recommended Levulan Kerastick for future treatment of AK spots. I guess I'll probably go for it, if our new insurance covers it.

Mikele and Bob gone

I dropped Mikele and Bob at the airport early this morning. We had a nice breakfast at Pour La France in the Denver main terminal, and they headed off to their gate with lots of time to spare. I called Ken for a later morning walk to Blueberry's for coffee, and we found out the hard way, that they started closing Blueberry's on Sundays, two weeks ago. Boo. That was the last place we could walk to with the dog, and sit inside with her, on a cold snowy Sunday morning. I guess we'll have to rethink our morning walks on those bad weather Sundays.

Better

K's left foot is starting to look much better than it did a week ago, when I was getting worried it was degenerating into another infection, right around the surgery site.

The Last Toe

Surgery day. Mandy already knew something was up, in the morning. This surgery removed her only remaining toe, which had already developed a wound. The Ortho doc said there were no complications. I discovered that driving from my new work location in the Denver Tech Center, to the new hospital (St Anthony), up I-25 to 6th Ave, is perhaps the most crowded route in Denver in the evening. The supposedly 25 minute drive (estimated by Google Maps) took me well over an hour. The rest of the drive, out 6th to Simms/Union wasn't so bad. I tried a different way home, and found myself disoriented in little neighborhoods with lots of loose deep snow. Big adventure!

Mikele's here!

Sher left on the 2nd, and my sister Mikele arrived on the 3rd! Mikele has offered to help us with the painful transition from Kaiser Permanente to Anthem. Then her hubby Bob will arrive on the 15th, and hopefully, we'll all get to play a little.

Bye Bye, Marie!

We found out this week, that Marie Callender's has just closed their restaurant on South Broadway near us. Big disappointment. Huge. :-( Their tasty hot comfort food has sustained us through many a cold winter evening.

Company!

Our good friend Sher arrived today for a short visit!

Home at last

Welcome home, Kristan! The garage stairs were easily navigated this first time: I carried her up, piggy-back! :-) Probably can't do that every time, but it worked fine, once.

Coming home

Kristan's coming home today! I get to pick her up after dialysis tonight, and bring her home.

Snow snow snow

The snow's really coming down, forecast is maybe eight inches tonight. Silly me: I quickly shoveled the two inches of accumulating snow off the driveway and Mandy's spot on the grass. Took Mandy out for a quick pee. Gathered up the mail. Jumped in the car to go visit K at Cherrelyn. And just remembered this is her dialysis night. She's probably snoozing away, over across town at DaVita right now. So I decided to stop here (Romanos), for a nice hot Italian dinner at our favorite local place. :-)

Home Eval

I picked up Kristan and the two Physical Therapists at lunchtime, and took them to the house for a home evaluation. Good news: once inside, she can get around inside the house with her scooter, and use all the necessary facilities. Bad news: she can't navigate the stairs from the garage into the house on one foot. Good news: she can skooch up one stair at a time right now, so maybe she can come home sooner rather than later. Better news: I may be able to have a vertical lift installed, and then she would be able to ride up. I'm meeting with the Accessible Systems guy in a half hour, to find out if it's possible, the way our garage is laid out, and if so, when they can get it done. Best news: Mandy was ecstatic to have her home in the house, even if it was for only a few minutes.

PT

Mandy and I watched K doing physical therapy yesterday. Randy the PT worked her pretty hard. We're very disappointed that she has to go through at least two more weeks of this, before she'll be safe to come home.