Bi And Large

Frantically Waiting for the next stage in life just describes me to a T these days. And it is exhausting! It crossed my mind today that I think I owe just about every single friend I have an email.... for that I am sorry. It's coming, give me a few minutes to clear my head.

OK, let's see where I left off. Mom... mom is ok. I don't think I posted photos here of her leg, but when they did the reconstruction (early September was the original surgery) they put her in a cage brace, you know, like the kind with posts and wires that looks like Frankenstein, you sometimes see them used for bone lengthening procedures? It involved 7 rods of various diameters drilled through her tibia and talus to stabilize things. So she finally got the cage taken off that last week of January and they put a heavy strap brace / boot on her foot and ankle, the kind sometimes used after a cast or for a sprain.

SO, my mom was down at her parents, because my dad was away for the week, and she was sitting on the couch minding her own business and she turned to say something to her mother while sitting on an old saggy couch, with this heavy boot on. Remember all those holes in her tibia? 60 year olds with long term diabetes don't rebuild bone very fast. And suddenly there was all this torque, and.... snap. She fractured it good. Now just a couple weeks after FINALLY getting out of her cage and the wheelchair, she is back in it with a cast up to her hip and a lot of pain. The good news is, they didn't have to amputate anything, and there doesn't appear to be any infection, and I guess now they know. But sheesh.

The plan: Even after only a few weeks out of the cage, mom's foot was starting to supinate / turn inwards at the ankle just a little bit again. Much of the "bone" structure in her foot is now made of metal, but it is built with joints to flex and move like a normal skeleton would. It's so flexible and her remaining bone is decomposing so fast, she was already seeing problems again. Plus, this fracture happened mainly at one hole in the tibia left by 1 rod from the cage. That leaves 6 others that maybe could break in the future, right? So they are planning on doing ANOTHER surgery this week, and placing a steel (or titanium, or whatever it is they use) rod along her tibia to support it, and to extend it all the way down into her foot at the calcaneus / heel. Then that ankle can't fold very well, can it! Plus her leg will be strengthened. She is laid up for a minimum of 8 weeks already anyway, so might as well do a surgery now and at the end of the 8 weeks be stronger for it.

I can't imagine how much fun plane flights are going to be, getting through security, with this woman in the future :)

In other news we got socked by a blizzard today, which was kind of fun. Everything shut down early, and I had to leave work and go find the kids and trek home. Now, my commute is all of about 4 miles. No stress. But there is something deeply appealing about finding your children in a strong storm, windy and snowy and cold and dangerous that shuts down the city, holding them and bringing everyone safely home. MN State patrol was reporting after the evening commute 245 crashes and 318 vehicles off the road, which is a lot for an area that deals with snow pretty much 9 months out of the year! So you know it was a powerful storm. As Amy said today looking out the window, "What is this, some kind of North Pole???"

Not much else to report other than that I am out of my mind with running around, fixing cars, going to doctors, organizing kids stuff, cleaning house, running errands, and just generally exhausting myself. I am done and need a day off! I request vacation time effective immediately. I've also noticed the past week, as I have been more stressed out than usual, that a significantly larger number of kids than normal have been letting me know I am fat. (Well, duh, nice powers of observation there Inspector Spyglass!) When I am taking care of myself and am healthy and happy, even though I am clearly still quite fat, kids are more likely to tell me I am beautiful, if they say anything at all. So I must be projecting an especially unkept vibe right now. It's time to do something. Fingers crossed for the end of winter, the start of being able to get outside again coming up soon so I can shed my hibernation plumage, and start resting and taking time for myself. And maybe not beating myself up so much if I don't get quite *everything* done in a day. I'm starting to show the bruises!