Yesterday I cast my walker aside and walked with just my cane. True, it was only for a little while and then the pain was too much again. But it was still a huge leap for me, a delicious taste of freedom and liberation.
It’s been another long year of pain and recovery. We look back – trying to remember when my leg took a turn for the worse. Tom and I remember how unexpectedly hard it was for me to walk around during our cruise last July. Then the next month, August, and our vacation in Santa Barbara. I remember being so proud that I could walk along a path for a short time without resting, but the pain and swelling were getting worse, not better. Then September came and another debridement, but the recovery brought no relief and the pain worsened over the next month until October came and the cane was replaced with the walker. The pain was unbearable.
It wasn’t until November that we got the diagnosis of the infection – MRSA, and the fractured tibia. Still, we didn’t put the timeline together or realize just how long the infection had been deteriorating muscle, weakening the bone, and delaying healing of the wound itself. At the time we didn’t think that a cancer recurrence could also cause these problems, which it surely can. We learned that scenario in February from a doctor with the UCLA sarcoma team. He saw the leg when healing was finally taking hold and therefore he pretty much ruled out a recurrence. Thank God we didn’t have the cancer scenario on our minds or that dread compounded with the day-to-day pain would have made matters even worse. It’s a classic case of where a little ignorance went a long way.
I’m still on daily i.v. antibiotics (five months & counting). My infectious disease doctor wants me to stay on them until the wound closes completely, which he predicts should be only a week or two, (of course he has said that for the past few months). It’s hard to imagine that this open wound, which I’ve had for 22 months now, will ever heal, but I watch it daily and it does seem to be doing just that. The infection kept the wound from healing for how long? A year? Who knows; but that is behind us now.
I’m still working to get my energy back. I’m thinking that these ultra-potent antibiotics might be zapping my strength. But I also realize that moving at one mile-per-hour for the past six months may have something to do with my loss of conditioning.
We had our family dance party last weekend where we blast the music and rock out and try to embarrass each other. I had been on the sidelines, cheering everyone else on for quite awhile now. But this time I was finally able to stand up and join in again. It is truly hard to keep your bitchin’ self going strong when you are rocking a walker. But now I am starting to feel my mojo again.
Baby, it feels good!
