Fuzzy Observations

Some general observations is about all I can piece together at the moment.

• The pain killer Oxycontin completely destroys one's ability and desire to do pretty much anything, including reading, writing, thinking clearly, following anything on TV, doing puzzles, and knitting. So no, I'm not getting lots of knitting time in. In fact, over 9 days in hospital, all I managed was this solitary baby beanie (knit round and round and round and round).

• Having your femoral nerve 'irritated' during THR surgery causes a great amount of pain and weakness in one's thigh and knee, and it can take months to recover. It's a higher risk injury for THR patients with dysplasia, because of our abnormal anatomy. Damn, bugger, and blast.

• Warfarin is rat poison. Carefully balanced rat poison. Squeek squeek.

• DVT stockings are really hot. Not in the sexy way, either.

• It's no bloody use having a long-handled grabber when it's impossible to carry it around with you when you are on crutches. Why aren't there grabbers that can click on to crutches? And if they exist, why don't I have one?!

• What do you do when your grabber falls onto the floor?

• Crutches don't work well as huge "chop sticks".

• A nurse on the orthopedic ward told me that walking with crutches uses about four times the energy of walking. I believe her.

• How did Dr Petal (Acu-Puppy-Pressure Specialist and Lick Therapist) get to be so cute? And when can I stop sleeping with a pillow between my legs?!

• My surgeon is awesome, he just called to answer some of my questions in person. How cool is that?

• My physiotherapist is awesome too. He diagnosed the femoral nerve palsy, which everyone else missed.

• My left leg is a bit longer now (it was short before) and this means when I sit down my left knee sticks out further than my right.

• I can't work for the life of me, but hopefully there's nothing urgent coming up, cos I'll make a dog's breakfast of it! I think I'll have to keep the business closed for another few weeks.

• I don't understand why people would think taking Oxycontin for fun was - well - fun. Apparently my tablets have a huge street value :/ All it does it make you doped out, sleepy, unmotivated and constipated.

• I can get back to the swimming pool for hydrotherapy in a couple of weeks, yay!

• Cooking dinner while on crutches is almost impossible, everything takes three times as long when you can only carry one small thing at a time, can't bend down, and can't use both hands at the same time.

• It's great being able to get out of bed at night, go to the loo, and get back into bed, without having to wake my husband to help anywhere along the process.

• I'm the youngest patient at the Joint Replacement Exercise Class at hospital. By about 2 decades.

• This whole Recovery Process thing is taking much longer and being much harder and more painful than I was expecting, and I'm pretty fed up with the whole thing.

• Dotter is awesome, I'm so proud of her. She's enrolled in the Advance Diploma of Games Programming at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, probably the only woman in the course. Starts Feb 2010.

• Both all my own work - the girl (9 months in utero, 18 years of parenting) and the outfit (weeks to sew). Seen here with a friend from school :

• She was photographed by The Canberra Times at her Year 12 Formal, and was interviewed by the reporter last week, as a Year 12 student who stood out from the crowd (funny that!) - will be in this Sunday's Canberra Times, I gather.

• I stumbled upon this rather cool page of free knitting pattern links ... has some good ones I hadn't found before. Not that I have the brains to knit anything at the moment ... but I can dream!

That's all I can think of for the moment ... over and out.