• WEEK 1

• WEEK 2

• WEEK 3

• WEEK 4

• WEEK 5

• WEEK 6

Back to June 2008 • Forward to August 2008 

Saturday 21 June - Got kicked just above the ankle by a horse while riding the Hat Creek 50 mile endurance ride. Had to ride another four miles to get back to camp, where I was well looked after by volunteers who wrapped me very well, carried me to a truck and took me an hour down to Redding Mercy Medical where they x-rayed my ankle and determined that I'd broken both fibula and tibia, but that it was a clean break. They splinted me with a plaster cast splint, gave me a prescription for pain-killers, a pair of crutches, and discharged me. I'd called Patrick and Ann and asked them to come and rescue me but the trouble was they were still several hours away. Luckily the hospital didn't need the bed, so I was allowed to sleep off the really strong pain shot they gave me. Ann and pft picked me up at the hospital at about 11:30 pm and took me back up to ridecamp, whereupon pft carried me to the trailer and got me up in the gooseneck for careful sleep.

Sunday 22 - Ann left early while pft packed Roop's stuff up and drove us home. It was good to be back in my own bed and to have someone to look after Roo for me.

WEEK 1:

Monday 23 - Patrick stayed home with me all week, which was very comforting. He called early in the morning and got me an appointment in the late afternoon with Dr Christensen in Auburn. After a very long wait, he saw us, sent us across the parking lot for more x-rays and after checking those out, booked me for a CAT scan to see for sure if my talus was broken. His assistant Brady put on a nice, light, waterproof (+$50), blue, fibreglass cast which felt way better than the splint which by then didn't feel very tight and I could feel the bones moving around.

Tuesday 24 - Up early to go in for a CAT scan. This showed that the talus was OK, but after some discussion we agreed that he should put a plate on the fibula. He said it was possible that it would heal on its own but that it was such an unusual break he hadn't been able to find any research on it to say for sure either way. 

Wednesday 25 - Read and sleep. Woke up at one point because I was dreaming about backing into something and stomped on the brake - and actually did it. That hurt. Since my cast is waterproof, I was able to take a shower, which was really nice. I sit on a little stool in the bathtub and use the hand-shower. I also washed my hair as I wasn't sure when I'd get a chance to do that again after my surgery.

Thursday 26 - Read and sleep. My surgery was originally scheduled for this day, but the hospital had some emergencies in, so it was postponed a day. I managed to sort some laundry, mess with the Roomba and make a sandwich today, which wiped me out and sent me back to my bed to sleep for two hours.

Friday 27  June - Surgery in the afternoon. While I was in surgery, pft got a call from Ann to say there was a fire on Andy Wolf <gulp>. It turns out it was down the ranch end. They sawed off my nice blue cast, knocked me out, put in a plate and five screws in the fibula, and replaced it with a plaster cast splint that is bulky and digs in, so I have to keep poking at it to make it bearable. The leg feels much more stable and the bones aren't moving around in there any more. Pain killers are good.

Saturday 28 - I'm on 10 mg Hydrocodone Apap painkillers, which cause me to lie very still and make me dopey. I take one every six hours. Not much moving around going on here. My toes are very hot and several times I've absentmindedly wanted to "take off that hot sock on my foot". I wish.

Sunday 29 - Woke up during the night and couldn't sleep for a few hours, and then slept on and off much of the day, and was really down when I was awake. I'm either baking hot or too cold and pour sweat when I crutch around. 

WEEK 2:

Monday 30 - Spent the whole day sleeping, despite trying hard to stay awake. I don't think I've ever slept that much before.

Tuesday 1 July - Read and slept, read and slept. My 10 mg Hydrocodone ran out, so I started on the 7.5 mg ones that I got after the surgery. I'm supposed to take "1-2 as needed every 4 hours", so I was taking 2 for a while which was a higher dose than I was on before - that knocked me out pretty well. Finally realised I could make do on one every 4 hours, but take two before bed. Per instructions, I've been sitting with ice packs under my knee and wiggling my toes to get the cool blood through the system. Sometimes I can sit with a light icepack draped across the front of my foot, but mostly it hurts too much and I can't stand it too long.

Wednesday 2 - pft got home early enough to ride Fergus down to the ranch to see where the fire was. Chili went with him, but turned around and came home after about a mile. She reappeared at home 45 minutes before pft, which was a little worrying, but they had a nice time. While they were gone, I spent some time in the barn with Roop, Mouse, and Hopi. I was trying to put Repel-X on their faces against flies, but couldn't get near them on my crutches - and couldn't crutch with Repel-X on my hand anyway. Eventually I sat on the floor and waited for them to come to me, which meant that Mouse got done and the other two got a little on them. By scootling over next to him on the ground, I also managed to pick up and prise out Roo's Hoof-It in his feet that had been in there for ten days. Stinky feet when I got it out, but it was nice and rubbery. It was really good to spend time with the pones again. I miss them. Oh, and I got to mow the lawn on the ride-on mower. 

I paid for all that later, though -  my ankle swelled up big time - and when it swells, my ankle bone presses hard against the inside of the cast which is intolerable, so I have to lie very still and pack the foot and leg in ice packs. The plaster splint is so thick that not much cold seeps through, although there's no plaster in the front, so if I can stand the weight, I can put ice packs on that part.

Thursday 3 - Leslie called me to say that Dream had her baby! Yay! 'course, I couldn't get over there to see it, since I can't drive, which was a bummer. I sat at home, wishing I could drive. :( After yesterday's activity, it's probably just as well I was stuck at home doing nothing. 

My skin has gotten upset from where they painted it with betadine (or whatever it was) has broken out in a rash which is driving me bananas. I've tried sitting on my little stool in the shower with the leg stuck out the side and scrubbing at it, but that stuff glues on. Ann thinks maybe it kills off the top layer of skin - and I fully believe it since you have to rub hard to get it off. Ice packs are my friends.

Friday 4 - Ann came over and we went to see the baby. To begin with, Leslie wasn't there, so we went on into Cool and ate, which was a nice excursion after being stuck in the house for a whole week. The baby is *tiny*. After the visit, Ann dropped me at home for a few hours (I slept) and then we went and ate BBQ fud over at the Blankenships and took Uno over there so that Ann could work with him and clean him up a bit (I haven't laid a hand on him in two weeks :-(  ). 

My ankle was quite swollen and achey from being dangled down so much during the day. The heels of my hands are sore from crutching and also my sides where the tops of the crutches rub.

Saturday 5 - Some nice people came to look at Uno, so we went over to Ann's for a few hours so they could ride him in her arena, but otherwise it was a very dull day. 

Much of the problem was related to not being able to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm taking less pain killers - still two at night because they knock me out until 7 am, but during the day I can go 6-7 hours before taking the next one. There's no sharp pain, just a dull ache. At times my ankle/front of foot feels like it has a tight band strapped around it. I don't know if there's physically a dressing on there under the splint-cast or if it just the feel of my tight skin over swollen flesh. At times I get an abrupt pain low down on the outside of my ankle which I'm guessing is from the incision. That's when I sit very still to make sure it doesn't get worse. The medial/left side also aches (I was hit on the lateral/right side), but looking at the x-rays, the tibia sticks out on the medial side, so maybe that's it. 

Two weeks after breaking the leg and a week after surgery, the down-time ahead is looming very large - I feel like I won't be able to do anything for months. I'm hoping it'll be six weeks and then I'll get a walking cast, but since the tibia is the weight-bearing bone and didn't have any hardware added to it, but am guessing that that is overly optimistic. Hopefully when I get the next waterproof fibreglass cast on I'll be a little more mobile and comfy (it's smaller and lighter) and get a little more stamina to actually be able to *do* something, instead of sitting around or sleeping all day. Even if I can't ride, maybe I can do some clicker training with Jackit and Hopi - they might benefit from my enforced sedentariness. 

The hospital screwed up and for some reason thought I was uninsured, so today we got a bill for the CAT scan which was over $2000. <yikes> Hopefully my insurance will pay much of it, but I have a feeling we're still liable for a few thousand dollars. 

Sorry this all reads so dull - it's hard to feel quirky when you're blanked out.

Sunday 6 - Another dull day. I've been trying to stay packed in ice to stop me itching - my skin is breaking out in rashes all over. I slept much of the afternoon, then went for an excursion to the other end of the house to watch TV for a bit before taking a shower - whee - leg stuck out over the side of the bath. The skin where my toes protrude out of the cast is driving me bananas, it's all blistered from rash, so I was trying to clean it up. That was tortuous, trying to stuff damp paper towel in there without making the plaster cast wet. My leg told me it didn't appreciate all the bending and contorting, so I had to give up in the end.

I think pft's starting to get sick of me as I'm frustrated at not being able to do stuff and keep asking him if he can do it for me and he has other stuff he wants to do :(

WEEK 3:

Monday 7 - Didn't take any pain meds all day and felt pretty good - just a bit fidgety, but it was ~105°F outside and really hot indoors. Figured "huh, I don't need pain meds any more". Great idea - not.

Already the jello-leg is starting...

I can attest that it takes about 26 hours for the pain meds to work their way out of your system. I went to sleep at around midnight, slept for about 45 mins before waking up and then staying awake until 3:30 am. I felt like my foot was burning up, despite packing ice packs around it and my leg. Eventually I crutched out to the front steps in an effort to cool off. That helped a bit, until the mosquitoes found me, so I went back to bed and wished for more ice packs. At 2:30 am, I finally took a pain pill but then had to wait another hour for it to kick in. I guess I won't be doing that again any time soon.

Interestingly during this experiment, the worst pain was on the inside of my tibia - possibly where the bone sticks out a little (the blow was on the outside of the leg). The incision area was also quite crunchy-pointy-painful.

Phoned the hospital billing dept. re. the $2000 CAT scan bill and gave them my insurance info again. They said they'll sort it out.

Tuesday 8 - Up at 6 am (after 2.5 hours sleep), but didn't feel too bad. pft drove me, Roo and Hopi over to Ann's where we transferred into her rig and loaded up Uno as well and Ann took us to Cool for shots and to get Hopi's teeth floated. It went very well, except for the part where Ann tried to clean Hopi's sheath and he kicked her in the shin. Ack. "Wouldn't it be funny if he'd broken my leg" she said. Er... no... not really.

Ann brought me and all three pones home afterwards and I'm crashed out again, but still awake. It's 2 pm and 106°F (41°C) on the front deck, 114°F (46°C) in the barn and 87°F (31°C) in the house.

I took one 7.5 mg pain pill this morning and the heel of my foot feels scalded. It the whole foot/ankle feels under pressure - not exactly swollen, just pressured.

Wednesday 9 - 12 days post-op/18 days post-break. Today was my post-surgery checkup. Ann drove me in and dropped me off at the x-ray place across the parking lot from my Dr and I went and got a fresh set of x-rays.

Dr took a look at the x-rays and was very happy. He said that he thought I'd mend just great and that I wouldn't even know that I'd broken it when all was said and done. He was very pleased with how it looked.

Brady (his assistant) then cut off my plaster cast splint (which had been like wearing a nice warm norwegian winter sock... in 114 degrees) and I got to be blissfully bare for about 30 minutes.

She said that the iodine they use for surgery works like glue and everything sticks to it - including grime. And it doesn't wash off, you have to sort of rub/wear it off. So my leg looked filthy. She used a damp cloth to unstick all the left over fluffy from my poor, wimpy, shrivelled leg. It felt wonderful.

When it was a bit cleaned up, she took out the staples in my leg. The incision was shorter than I anticipated, which was nice - no Frankenstein impersonation for me. There were 14 staples and only about 3-4 of them made me squeak when she took them out with her staple remover. Dr came and looked at that and said it looked great too.

Then she left me alone to go off and do something, so I spent a happy time rubbing iodine grime/dead skin off my leg and picking off any little bits that would get sealed up inside the next cast. There was one little crust of blood that had been jammed under the splint on the top of my foot that had been hurting all week, so it was a relief to get it all somewhat cleaned up. I also got to take a gazillion pics from all angles and inspect the whole leg minutely to see what was going on. Right now, the tenderest part is on the inside of the ankle, which is odd, considering I was kicked on the opposite side. The incision is prickly painful too, but only if I twist wrong. The bruising is still quite spectacular, esp on the inside of my arch. And astonishingly my calf muscle has completely disappeared and I have a stick leg instead. It looked so sad, lying there on the table next to my strong manly leg.

Afterwards, she put me back in a waterproof fibreglass cast. I'm allowed to shower in it in a week's time (by which time the incision will be healed shut), and in two weeks I can soak it, which I guess means I could maybe swim in it. I'm going to have this cast on for four weeks and then he'll probably put me in a walking cast (partial weight bearing, still using crutches).

This is what goes under the fibreglass (blue) 
cast - it's like lil' foamy squares glued on plastic. 
Apparently it was developed for the US Swimming Team, 
so that they could continue to swim even when they were broken:

So when I went to the front desk to make my appt,  I told them I have to go to a wedding on Aug 3, so could I have my next appt before then? (so at least I'd be a little bit weight- bearing by then -  I'll still be using the crutches though). She's booked me in for July 30th. Yay! (and I think the walking cast will look stupid with a dress. They call them "Darth Boots" because they look like something Darth Vader would wear.)

I had a really good day today and quite upright and sprightly. My pain is not too bad and I only had to take a couple of pain pills and that was mostly precautionary because I was upright with a dangle leg for so long.

On the way home, we even dropped by the supermarket in Cool and I got to drive in the electric shopper which was really fun :))))

Oh - and they decided to cancel Tevis this year because of the air quality and the continuing fire north of Foresthill Road between Deadwood and Robinson Flat. At right is what No Hands Bridge looked like at 5 pm - 107°F outside. Even though I was indoors most of the day, my throat is sore and my eyes feel prickly.

Thursday 10 - Well, yesterday's antics wiped me out. I slept a lot of today and was pretty achey. My quad on the broken leg felt like I'd done an endurance ride. Pathetic. Didn't take enough pain pills throughout the day and paid for it later. Right now I'm lying with my horse ice boot wrapped around my cast and because its the thinner cast, the cool is seeping through which feels good.

This morning we had a visit from a pack of coyotes and lost four chickens - two of them hens, of course. :(  So now we're down just to banties - two old english roosters, two seabrights and two speckled Sussexes (three hens, three roosters). It seems those get away because they can fly and get up in the trees when they're attacked. Pft and Chili rushed out when they heard the commotion, but weren't fast enough to save the other chickens. pft said there were still chickens coming out of trees half an hour later from where they'd fled.

My excursion for the day was crutching to the front deck to take some photos looking out to the east. On a clear day we can see the tops of the mountains at Tahoe. Not today, though. I'm starting to worry about the pones breathing it all in. At least my leg isn't broken during perfect riding weather.