Because I can . . .
Update: new extended edition!
Posting because I have a few friends in Hayward (-pokes them-) who'd probably get a kick out of this.
Again, it's something I wrote for class; of everything I wrote this month, this was by far my favorite.
I lost my left leg below the knee when I was thirteen, after being hit by a car when I was six. Yeah, you’d think it wouldn’t take them seven years to figure out they can’t save it, wouldn’t you? But they wanted to spare me the trauma of losing a leg. So instead, I got subjected to the trauma of repeated ankle surgery and being pretty much confined to bed for weeks on end. The hope was that my ankles would heal with as little range-of-motion loss as possible and for me to pretty much be able to forget the whole thing ever happened.
That would’ve been nice, but no such luck. I don’t even really remember the next couple of weeks, but Dad’s definitely told me about it enough times. With both legs in casts past my knees, and in so much pain I was taking drugs for it, well . . . according to him, newborns are less trouble. All I remember is being really irritable, bored, in pain, and crying a lot.
Lucky for everyone’s sanity, a little over two months later I had healed enough for lighter, smaller braces to be put on instead. I still couldn’t put any weight at all on my left leg, but the right was healed enough for me to use crutches.
. . . Then I fell trying to use them and nearly broke my arm. To my credit, I kept trying, but after a few days it became painfully obvious they were not going to work for me. A friend of the family got me a wheelchair instead, and it helped a lot. I was really happy just knowing my parents weren’t going to have to carry me around anymore. Looking back, it was a big relief for them, too! I gave them a lot of trouble around then. It was actually a little worse for them after I got the chair, but since I was finally happy and mobile instead of whining and throwing fits from pain and boredom, they were happy too. Which, come to think of it, is probably one of the only reasons Dad had for not strangling me after most of what I ended up getting into that year.
I was seven by the time I was back out of the wheelchair full-time, so obviously caution wasn’t really in my vocabulary. My left ankle was still sore sometimes, but since it didn’t hurt, I was fine. After what I’d been through, I wasn’t going to complain about a little ache! Mom worried some, but knowing about any little twinges I was having wouldn’t have helped . . . and she wasn’t about to wish I’d start complaining again.
Another break was probably inevitable, but I sure didn’t know it. The first re-break was at a party; I was running around on someone’s lawn with friends, and the ground wasn’t very even. Predictably, I tripped, and was wailing before I even felt any pain-when my left ankle broke again, I heard it.
It could have been worse, but lucky nobody actually tried telling me that at the time-I already knew how well a leg cast works as a weapon. Back in the wheelchair, back to the only part of the playground I could access from it. My friends stayed with me to cheer me up, at least, and everyone assured me it could’ve happened to anybody, this didn’t mean I should get depressed. My friends all made it a point to tell me stories they knew of people breaking bones for even dumber reasons; my favorite is still Justine’s cousin who broke her wrist falling off a dollhouse. The whole experience really wasn’t as bad as it felt, that second break was minor, but my only consolations were knowing what to expect and that this wasn’t nearly as bad as before.
That time, I could at least try to convince myself that it was only a fluke, like everybody said. I wasn’t even eight yet when it happened again-so much for that illusion. Not only was the break a lot worse than the last time, but it happened just because I jumped off a platform on the playground, playing around with friends again, and I landed wrong. So did Laura, but she just fell down; I broke my ankle again. I knew the sound of it way too well by then. I was pretty much inconsolable for days; I knew what to expect, all right. I knew this was going to keep happening again and again, which was one damned depressing thought.
I don’t know if I got over it so much as adjusted. Barbara, the family friend who got me my wheelchair, helped a lot. Since she’s a paraplegic, I didn’t really feel like I had the right to complain when she was around. She taught me all the tricks to getting around in a wheelchair and pretty much taught me to play the hand I was dealt. Sometimes I couldn’t walk, but I could still stand. And if I didn’t care about looking undignified, I could crawl or hop.
Things actually got worse for me as time went on-even when I was supposed to be all healed, it usually hurt my left ankle to walk. That was the one that usually got broken or sprained, but not always. Even worse was damaging both at once. It never got to me as much as it did in the first year, though, so I managed not to throw much in the way of pity parties when I broke or sprained one ankle or the other yet again, as happened about every couple of months. What bothered me the most was the near-chronic pain I was in by then; human bones are not meant to take that kind of damage over and over again. Even that usually didn’t get too bad, though . . . I was lucky enough to have a doctor who made sure to keep me stocked up on nice, usually non-addictive prescription painkiller. I still have friends of my parents calling me to ask what I think of such-and-such drug. I have way too many medications’ effects and side-effects memorized-I actually had to correct an intern once. Let me tell you, if you’re trying to get an opinion on how to find the best balance between semi-comfortably numb and unconscious, I’m your man.
Anyway, over seven years of too many procedures, I finally ended up in the hospital for treatment. That was actually a first-I’d been an inpatient there for surgeries before, but after a little observation they usually just sent me home to recover. I knew something a little different was happening, since I’d been using my wheelchair even around the house for almost five months, but when the doctors said my ankle was refusing to heal after the last break and surgical correction, I said something like “What else is new?” The latest surgery not working at all was new, actually, but I didn’t really get it. Just a slight variation on the same old routine.
Until we found out the bones refusing to heal in my left ankle were infected. They put me on antibiotics, intravenously, so my chances of going home soon were shot for at least two weeks. I finally got depressed over that, because, well, the hospital sucks no matter how you’re feeling, and now my mobility was being restricted again. If I wanted to get out of bed and into my wheelchair I had to transfer the IV bag from the bed’s IV pole to the one we put on my chair. Which isn’t anything like a hospital wheelchair, so we had a hell of a time getting it on-Mom actually found a way to tie it on. I spent the first week terrified it would fall off and rip the needle out of my arm.
Sometimes I look back on that stay and call it my war story. It kind of fits. For one thing, the doctors who were supposed to be helping me finally had to show mercy . . . and that was when they amputated my left foot. The antibiotics were very obviously not working, and if they didn’t do it right then I might lose most of the leg. A bunch of x-rays, consultations, meetings with my parents, and star-chart readings later, they amputated my leg, something like six inches above my ankle. Yeah, I freaked out over how much was gone when I woke up . . . I knew what was happening, but I wasn’t expecting them to take off that much.
Don’t worry, though, I got over it. I’m not any Pollyanna, but it was a big improvement over before-no more pain, and I was actually walking again with my first prosthesis by the end of the week. I impressed the physical therapist by getting to the end of the parallel bars, letting go, and walking to the wall without falling on my first try. Anything to avoid being given crutches-I was walking again, and I wasn’t going to chance screwing up my other ankle! I’m still doing my best to keep at least my right leg intact, and so far it’s okay. It’s been eight years since the surgery, and I’ve only broken my right ankle . . . what, three times? Yeah. Kind of sad that that’s an improvement, isn’t it?
ETA: anyone know how to make an LJ-cut tag that's more than one word?!
Posting because I have a few friends in Hayward (-pokes them-) who'd probably get a kick out of this.
Again, it's something I wrote for class; of everything I wrote this month, this was by far my favorite.
I lost my left leg below the knee when I was thirteen, after being hit by a car when I was six. Yeah, you’d think it wouldn’t take them seven years to figure out they can’t save it, wouldn’t you? But they wanted to spare me the trauma of losing a leg. So instead, I got subjected to the trauma of repeated ankle surgery and being pretty much confined to bed for weeks on end. The hope was that my ankles would heal with as little range-of-motion loss as possible and for me to pretty much be able to forget the whole thing ever happened.
That would’ve been nice, but no such luck. I don’t even really remember the next couple of weeks, but Dad’s definitely told me about it enough times. With both legs in casts past my knees, and in so much pain I was taking drugs for it, well . . . according to him, newborns are less trouble. All I remember is being really irritable, bored, in pain, and crying a lot.
Lucky for everyone’s sanity, a little over two months later I had healed enough for lighter, smaller braces to be put on instead. I still couldn’t put any weight at all on my left leg, but the right was healed enough for me to use crutches.
. . . Then I fell trying to use them and nearly broke my arm. To my credit, I kept trying, but after a few days it became painfully obvious they were not going to work for me. A friend of the family got me a wheelchair instead, and it helped a lot. I was really happy just knowing my parents weren’t going to have to carry me around anymore. Looking back, it was a big relief for them, too! I gave them a lot of trouble around then. It was actually a little worse for them after I got the chair, but since I was finally happy and mobile instead of whining and throwing fits from pain and boredom, they were happy too. Which, come to think of it, is probably one of the only reasons Dad had for not strangling me after most of what I ended up getting into that year.
I was seven by the time I was back out of the wheelchair full-time, so obviously caution wasn’t really in my vocabulary. My left ankle was still sore sometimes, but since it didn’t hurt, I was fine. After what I’d been through, I wasn’t going to complain about a little ache! Mom worried some, but knowing about any little twinges I was having wouldn’t have helped . . . and she wasn’t about to wish I’d start complaining again.
Another break was probably inevitable, but I sure didn’t know it. The first re-break was at a party; I was running around on someone’s lawn with friends, and the ground wasn’t very even. Predictably, I tripped, and was wailing before I even felt any pain-when my left ankle broke again, I heard it.
It could have been worse, but lucky nobody actually tried telling me that at the time-I already knew how well a leg cast works as a weapon. Back in the wheelchair, back to the only part of the playground I could access from it. My friends stayed with me to cheer me up, at least, and everyone assured me it could’ve happened to anybody, this didn’t mean I should get depressed. My friends all made it a point to tell me stories they knew of people breaking bones for even dumber reasons; my favorite is still Justine’s cousin who broke her wrist falling off a dollhouse. The whole experience really wasn’t as bad as it felt, that second break was minor, but my only consolations were knowing what to expect and that this wasn’t nearly as bad as before.
That time, I could at least try to convince myself that it was only a fluke, like everybody said. I wasn’t even eight yet when it happened again-so much for that illusion. Not only was the break a lot worse than the last time, but it happened just because I jumped off a platform on the playground, playing around with friends again, and I landed wrong. So did Laura, but she just fell down; I broke my ankle again. I knew the sound of it way too well by then. I was pretty much inconsolable for days; I knew what to expect, all right. I knew this was going to keep happening again and again, which was one damned depressing thought.
I don’t know if I got over it so much as adjusted. Barbara, the family friend who got me my wheelchair, helped a lot. Since she’s a paraplegic, I didn’t really feel like I had the right to complain when she was around. She taught me all the tricks to getting around in a wheelchair and pretty much taught me to play the hand I was dealt. Sometimes I couldn’t walk, but I could still stand. And if I didn’t care about looking undignified, I could crawl or hop.
Things actually got worse for me as time went on-even when I was supposed to be all healed, it usually hurt my left ankle to walk. That was the one that usually got broken or sprained, but not always. Even worse was damaging both at once. It never got to me as much as it did in the first year, though, so I managed not to throw much in the way of pity parties when I broke or sprained one ankle or the other yet again, as happened about every couple of months. What bothered me the most was the near-chronic pain I was in by then; human bones are not meant to take that kind of damage over and over again. Even that usually didn’t get too bad, though . . . I was lucky enough to have a doctor who made sure to keep me stocked up on nice, usually non-addictive prescription painkiller. I still have friends of my parents calling me to ask what I think of such-and-such drug. I have way too many medications’ effects and side-effects memorized-I actually had to correct an intern once. Let me tell you, if you’re trying to get an opinion on how to find the best balance between semi-comfortably numb and unconscious, I’m your man.
Anyway, over seven years of too many procedures, I finally ended up in the hospital for treatment. That was actually a first-I’d been an inpatient there for surgeries before, but after a little observation they usually just sent me home to recover. I knew something a little different was happening, since I’d been using my wheelchair even around the house for almost five months, but when the doctors said my ankle was refusing to heal after the last break and surgical correction, I said something like “What else is new?” The latest surgery not working at all was new, actually, but I didn’t really get it. Just a slight variation on the same old routine.
Until we found out the bones refusing to heal in my left ankle were infected. They put me on antibiotics, intravenously, so my chances of going home soon were shot for at least two weeks. I finally got depressed over that, because, well, the hospital sucks no matter how you’re feeling, and now my mobility was being restricted again. If I wanted to get out of bed and into my wheelchair I had to transfer the IV bag from the bed’s IV pole to the one we put on my chair. Which isn’t anything like a hospital wheelchair, so we had a hell of a time getting it on-Mom actually found a way to tie it on. I spent the first week terrified it would fall off and rip the needle out of my arm.
Sometimes I look back on that stay and call it my war story. It kind of fits. For one thing, the doctors who were supposed to be helping me finally had to show mercy . . . and that was when they amputated my left foot. The antibiotics were very obviously not working, and if they didn’t do it right then I might lose most of the leg. A bunch of x-rays, consultations, meetings with my parents, and star-chart readings later, they amputated my leg, something like six inches above my ankle. Yeah, I freaked out over how much was gone when I woke up . . . I knew what was happening, but I wasn’t expecting them to take off that much.
Don’t worry, though, I got over it. I’m not any Pollyanna, but it was a big improvement over before-no more pain, and I was actually walking again with my first prosthesis by the end of the week. I impressed the physical therapist by getting to the end of the parallel bars, letting go, and walking to the wall without falling on my first try. Anything to avoid being given crutches-I was walking again, and I wasn’t going to chance screwing up my other ankle! I’m still doing my best to keep at least my right leg intact, and so far it’s okay. It’s been eight years since the surgery, and I’ve only broken my right ankle . . . what, three times? Yeah. Kind of sad that that’s an improvement, isn’t it?
ETA: anyone know how to make an LJ-cut tag that's more than one word?!