Getting the Boot

 These are currently my favorite boots.They're about 3 years old, and, as usual, I fear that they will be at their most comfortable right before they're worn out.

I have other boots; boots are my favorite footwear. No heels, though - I hate heels. Not on other people, just on me. Heels are pretty, but they hurt.

They might hurt less now; I had surgery on my feet to correct congenital bone deformations a few years ago. The receptionist asked me, as I left after getting my cast removed, "Are you going to go out and buy some great high heels now?" My answer was a resounding NO. I am all about comfort.

For most of my life, "dress shoes" meant high heeled sandals. A solid shoe had a tendency to squeeze my bunions, which was beyond painful. I bought sandals so that the bunion could stick out between the straps. Sure, it looked kind of funky, but it didn't hurt as much. My daughter did the opposite with her bunioned feet, because she was embarrassed by the bunions. No sandals, no flip flops - she wore shoes that hid her feet.

When I was in high school, these were my favorite dress shoes. (Yes, that's me wearing them.)

They were a big name brand, Candies, but I got them at a steep discount, because it was spring, and they were in fall colors. Pfft! I didn't care. I loved those shoes. But man, they HURT. If I wore them to a 2 day debate tournament, Friday and Saturday, I'd have to spend most of Sunday on my couch, off my feet. I'd limp through church, and most of that required sitting. Still, at that point, I considered it worth it, because the shoes were adorable.

At that age, I'd also deal with tight waistbands and other indignities, if I thought it looked good.

At 20, pregnancy forced me into flat shoes and clothes with stretch, and I realized that I'd been living my life all wrong. Now, if it isn't comfortable, I don't wear it, unless it's a lifesaving device.

The first time I came downstairs wearing these black boots with a dress, on my way to church, my youngest daughter informed me that I was fashionable. "That look is really hot right now, Mom! Good choice!"

That was not the response I got from my oldest daughter when I unpacked the boots at her house a couple of years ago. I'd come to attend my grandniece's naming ceremony, and was staying at my daughter's house; my nieces live about 30 minutes away from there. I'd worn sneakers through the airport, and had the boots in my luggage.

My daughter looked concerned. "Did you bring dress shoes?"

"These are my dress shoes." She looked blank, so I re-phrased. "I wear these with my dresses."

"Did you pack any church shoes?"

"These are my church shoes." Again the blank look, again the attempt to explain; "I wear these to church. (My daughter blinked.) I teach Gospel Doctrine in these shoes, every week."

"Did you bring any other shoes?"

I pointed to my sneakers. "These."

She was aghast. This is not surprising; she's despaired over my clothes, and wanted to dress me, since her age was in single digits.

She felt a bit better after we arrived at the synagogue. Another niece, the new baby's auntie, is easily the most fashionable person on that side of the family. She had on a dress and cowboy boots. My sister, the baby's grandma, is also terribly fashionable (and lovely); she had on a dress and knee high black boots.

My daughter felt better; not that she likes my boots, mind you, but because, "At least you aren't the only one." To be the only one doing anything is horrifying to her. I hope that she didn't notice that I'm the only one here in a pattern instead of a solid. Well, OK, not the only one; my niece has on a striped cardigan.

I think we all look pretty good. I certainly don't think that I look scandalous.

I am so very aware, however, that not everyone agrees with me. One of the things that frequently makes my life more difficult than it ought to be is the expectations for women's footwear, in either a business context or in a special occasion context.

My husband and I like to cruise, and cruises have formal nights. Dressing up isn't required, they won't bar you from the restaurants if you're dressed casually, but dressing up is nice. Plus, you can get great portraits on those nights. But, formal clothes are hard for me, specifically because of the shoes. I have a dress that I bought specifically for cruises. It's black and silver, from a higher end store than I usually patronize, looks good, and packs well. Yet it has never left my closet, because I can't find shoes that I'll wear and would be considered appropriate. My daughters lean on me to get ballet flats, but those are usually either too narrow or have zero arch support (or both), and as someone with collapsed arches, arch support is often a deal breaker issue.

Narrowness is also a huge issue. Go to the store, and put women's casual and dress shoes next to each other. The dress shoes will always, always be narrower. I've seen shoes marked "wide width" whose soles are an inch and a half narrower than my actual foot. With uncorrected bunions, that was easily 2 1/2 to 3 inches too narrow. I have seen too many dress shoes whose soles are less than two inches wide. Whose foot is that made for?

Men can, and often do, pair suits with casual shoes, even sneakers, and it's considered fun and fashionable and appropriate. My husband has a pair of black tennis shoes that he frequently wears with his dress clothes, because they blend, and people don't even notice. I can't do that. I've seen too many people raise their eyebrows when I wear sneakers with casual clothes, even on vacation.

When I competed in high school speech and debate, and thirty years later when I coached high school speech and debate, the students were supposed to dress up in "business" attire, to compete. The guys often just tossed on a blazer over their T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, and they were considered well dressed and prepared. Even if the T-shirt had a design on it, or the jeans were ripped, it could be passed off as edgy and trendy. A girl dressed the same way was seen as being inappropriately dressed, not caring about herself or the event, and unprepared. Even swapping pants for a skirt, but wearing the same top and shoes she'd worn to school, was often deemed inadequate. One of my students wore brand new, deep blue jeans with her blazer, and got "inappropriado wardrobe" written on her ballot. (We are still trying to figure out what "inappropriado" is actually supposed to mean, since it's not a real word.) Many, many girls packed slippers to wear between rounds, because their "appropriate" shoes hurt. 

Business women do the same thing. How many go out to lunch in their office suits and skirts and sneakers, because their dress shoes are just for show, like for when they clock in or meet clients?

This was a constant struggle for me over decades of taking wedding photos. I could "look appropriate," or I could wear shoes that were comfortable. Sure, men sometimes face this struggle, too. I remember cringing when I heard a woman say that she "should have known" that she'd get "terrible photos" of the wedding when her male photographer showed up in sneakers. "How much of a professional could he be, dressed like that?"

This is why my husband, also a wedding photographer, always said, "I'm dressing up even if I'm the most formally dressed person at the wedding." To me, though, that's just evidence of how men and women move through life differently. It would be difficult, and often prohibitively expensive, for me to try to be the most formally dressed person at a wedding. Other women are likely to be in gowns, silk, satin, taffeta, sequins. I'm not going to be working in those clothes. I often end up climbing on chairs or benches, or getting flat on my stomach, to get the shot I want. It irks me tremendously that wearing clothes, and especially shoes, that let me do my job well is seen as being inappropriate, not caring about myself, the clients, or the occasion. I can't do my best work if I'm in pain. I shouldn't have to.

Three of my childen are married. To two of those weddings, where I was not only the parent of the bride or groom but also taking the photos, I wore boots under my floor length skirt.

Even if I was the only one in boots.

War Is Bad

I was scrolling through a social media site, and said out loud, "Oh, I'm not even gonna read that one."

"What?" my son asked.

"An article titled, '20 TV Character Deaths You Still Haven't Gotten Over.'"

My son knows me. "Henry?" he said.

"YES. Henry."

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake was the first commanding officer on TV's "M*A*S*H." I loved Henry, in spite of himself. He wasn't really the kind of person I generally admired. He was bumbling, he was easily bulldozed over by those with stronger personalities, he cheated on his wife. But putting all that aside, he was well intentioned (one of my "musts" for people), he was a good surgeon, he was a loyal friend. The company clerk may have been the organizational brains of the outfit, but you couldn't really hold that against Henry; he may have been its heart. He cared about those under his command, and he cared about the wounded who came through their hospital. He could behave like a parent frequently, and like a commander when he had to, but he was always a good doctor.

My age was in single digits when "M*A*S*H" premiered, and I was only 10 when Henry got his orders to head home.

Home; they all wanted to go home. He'd miss the men, we'd miss him, but Henry was excited to go.

Maybe the story lines were kind of heavy for a kid in elementary school. My parents kept me - all of their kids - from things they were afraid would traumatize us or be over our heads, but "M*A*S*H" didn't fall into that category. We only had one TV, so whatever was on, we watched together, and we discussed it. It was one of my favorite shows. I understood the horror of war, the great lengths they went to in order to keep the horror at bay, the humor.

I understood that Henry was going home because the actor, McLean Stevenson, hadn't renewed his contract; that made me a bit sad, but it was OK. I'd watched the cast be shuffled on shows before. We'd have all summer to get used to the idea before the show returned.

I watched Henry say his goodbyes, watched him call his wife back home. He had a child he'd never met, born while he served in Korea. "Let's not tell anyone," he said to his wife. "Let's just show up for dinner at the club." He was so excited to think about the surprise his friends would experience.

He took off his uniform - he took off his ubiquitous fishing hat - and he put on a suit. He saluted Radar, his clerk, and he climbed on to the helicopter.

That's where the script they'd all been given ended. During filming, the producers told the cast, "We have one more scene. Gary (Burghoff, who played Radar) is the only one with any lines. Just react to Gary." They set up a scene in the ER - then they handed Burghoff the script.

We, the viewers, found out through interviews that Burghoff gave afterward that he looked at the lines and felt punched in the stomach. "You sons of b*****s," he says that he told them. "You're going to win an Emmy for this."

The reaction you see when Radar walks into the ER - that's the actor's reaction to the lines he was given only seconds earlier. He walks through the door, and Wayne Rogers, taking to the direction to "react to Gary," says, "Radar, put a mask on!"

Burghoff reads the lines. I know them by heart. "Lt. Col. Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."

OH. Oh. Oh.

It was so painful. I cried then. I cry now. I cry every time I see the episode, every time I talk about that moment.

The reactions you see from the other actors - those are their actual reactions. Loretta Swit weeps.

I was not prepared for the reaction of some fans, though. The producers got nasty letters - "How could you? There was no reason for that!" "How can you treat your fans this way? We've been so loyal, and you hurt us!" "This is entertainment! We watch this show to laugh, not to cry!"

Even as a 10 year old, I understood what they were doing. This is why war is bad. This is why it is a thing to be avoided. Because people you love, people with everything to live for, people with wives and children and babies they'd never met, with friends and relatives and jobs waiting for them at home, die. Many of them are still too young to have wives and children, and they die anyway. War is indiscriminate; it takes everyone. And yes, TV is entertainment, and the show is a comedy, but it would be remiss if it didn't show that war takes lives, and not just the lives of soldiers, and not just people you don't know.

So, yeah, they ripped my heart out. Yeah, it still hurts. That's how I know they did their job. Because if there was a single sentence, with words of one syllable, that summed up "M*A*S*H," it would be, "War is bad." Because too many people die.

So, thanks, 20th Century Fox - even though it hurts.

And oh, yes - that episode won an Emmy.

Pain Management

I was deeply overconfident.

I know what to expect, I thought. I was going in for a hysterectomy. I'd had abdominal surgeries before. I've had 3 Cesarean sections and an ectopic pregnancy. I've had bone surgeries, dental surgeries, a three hour surgery to my neck. I understand pain - broken bones, labor, strep throat that hurt so much that I couldn't swallow my own saliva. I've spent 2 1/2 days on a morphine drip. The ectopic pregnancy was the worst pain I've ever had - writhing, thrashing pain that had me wishing that I'd pass out from it.

I've got this, I thought.

I did not have it. I had nothing in my wheelhouse to even prepare me for it.

I'm not a wuss. I actually handle pain quite well. It's not unusual for me to take nothing but Tylenol after a surgery. I tend to wake up in recovery saying, "When can I go home?" I walked through ancient ruins and Disneyland with brand new surgical screws in my feet. I was still unprepared for the first, fierce 24 hours after my hysterectomy.

When I woke up in recovery, I couldn't move or open my eyes. All I knew was that my back hurt, I couldn't breathe, and I wanted my husband. I have a "restricted airway" (read: throat that's smaller than normal), and being intubated creates lots of sticky phlegm, so unless I keep clearing my throat, it closes up and feels as if I can't breathe. (My nose is no help; it's chronically swollen.) I kept clearing my throat and calling for my husband, and someone - I had no idea who, but they seemed to be handling me - kept shushing me and telling me that, "There's no Dan here."

Now, I dislike being the kind of person who tells others how to do their jobs (mostly because I hate being told how to do my job). I'm sure that the recovery nurses have handled more loopy, drugged and irrational patients than I have. But here's how I see it: those who are sick or in pain should be handled the same way that small children and the mentally ill should be. If someone's calling a name, ask who it is. "Is Dan your husband?" If I say "Yes," say, "He'll be here soon." If it turns out that, say, you find out that he's a stalker and I live in fear of him, say, "He can't get in here." The whole point is to comfort, not to panic, the subject. Just telling me that he's not there and I should hush is not comforting.

In fact, it was so panic inducing that I later had trouble with him going to the rest room, because he was out of my sight. This is very uncharacteristic for me, and it is not good. Just a heads up.

Before I could move anything, I became aware of more pains, and things began to make sense. I remembered where I was, and why, and realized that the surgery was over. Someone put something in my mouth - I still don't know if it was just a sip of water or medicine, and I said, "Can't swallow."

"Yes, you can." Well, OK, but not easily.

I tried repeatedly to form coherent thoughts, but full sentences were difficult. "Scoliosis. Back hurts. Need to sit up."

"You can do that later."

"After you get to your room, the bed will be more comfortable."

The back pain is still the worst part of the whole experience. I expected abdominal pain, but it felt like the entire three hour plus surgery had been spent in the worst possible position, and my back screamed.

After they took me to my room - and, thank heaven, my husband was allowed to come with me - the first thing I asked the nurse was, "Can I sit up?" I could. "Can I lean way forward?" Yes, I could. "Can I pull my legs up and lean up like this?"

The best thing my first nurse, Rodger, said to me was, "Well, you're going to just love me, because I'm full of all kinds of 'yes' tonight." Oh, thank heaven.

What I really wanted was to straddle the bed like a horse, or a surfboard, with my legs down either side, then lean all my weight up onto my hands or elbows, but I couldn't quite do that. I was worried about putting my weight on the incision site, but Rodger's "yes" meant that I could. I pitched forward and finally got my back to stop screaming quite so loudly. "Oh, much better. Much better."

Rodger was puzzled. "Your back must have really hurt."

"Scoliosis. Dear heaven. You have no idea."

The problem with hospital beds, beach chairs, recliners - anything made for the comfort of the average person - is that leaning back like that puts pressure on the place in my spine where it kinks to the side, and it makes everything hurt. It also cuts off circulation to my left side. I need to do what causes most people pain, and pitch forward. Sometimes, efforts to make me comfortable will have exactly the opposite effect.

The next three days were all about moving just enough to ease the pain in one part of the body in order to experience some slight relief, but it just transferred the pain to another body part, so soon I'd have to move again. The next 24 hours were a fog of frustration and pain. Every time I started to fall asleep those first few hours, the pulse oxygen monitor - the little clip with the red light that went over my index finger - set off an alarm. Apparently, my breathing slows when I sleep, and the machine shrieked if I dropped below 90% oxygen saturation. (I thought it was overreacting. I never got below 82%.) It also went off if the clip got bumped the tiniest bit off center. More than once, I found myself beating the pulse ox clip against the bed rails, wailing, "Shutupshutupshutupshutup!"

For a while, life condensed down to the 10 minutes between times that I could hit the morphine button. Keeping my eyes open was hard. Sometimes, especially if I already feel bad, any sensory input - sight, sound - will result in an overload similar to motion sickness. You can tell if I'm not feeling well when my communication becomes very staccato. My youngest two kids came to see me, and my youngest daughter kept sharing things that happened that night at youth group, and I'd find myself saying, "Sounds like fun. Now sshh. Too many words." Watching my husband walk across the room caused me to throw up.

Morphine, of course, is notorious for causing nausea and headaches, but I couldn't have oral painkillers until my digestive system started working again. My sinuses felt refrigerated from the oxygen tubes, but removing them made the oxygen monitor shriek.

In general, I hate to be touched when I'm in pain. This is hard for loved ones who try to rub my back or my arm. I tend to bark, "Don't touch me!" I can't stand to have collars ride against my throat, so I left the back of my gown untied and unsnapped. It bothered my husband that it sometimes hung, a la Flashdance, off my shoulders. He'd try to "fix" it, and I'd wrestle the fabric away from him. I'd rather wander topless down the hall than have it ride on my throat. Yeah, good times for everyone.

I try not to be, as my sister calls me, "a curmudgeon." I would hear her voice in my head as I cursed the machinery or the drugs. She'd talked to me just before I went in for surgery. "Remember, they're just trying to keep you alive!" I'm actually a usually reasonable and cooperative patient, and when I know that I won't be, I try to apologize. Having to receive shots in my stomach, I warned the nurse, "I hate to have my tummy touched even when I feel good. I will make weird noises. It's not you, and it doesn't hurt."

Asked if the urine in the catch basin in my bathroom was a normal color, I said, "I'm a woman. I normally see it mixed with water. How the heck would I know what shade it normally is?" By day three, I had a bit of a sense of humor back. My nurse made sure my gown was closed over my rear end, and my response was, "Yeah, everybody'll want one if they see mine." Waiting for me to pass gas - one of those post op milestones that every patient has to hit - I said, "I've spoken to my digestive tract about this. It just isn't listening to me right now." Luckily, my nurse found me amusing.

My nurses and aides were pretty uniformly outstanding. God bless them. My husband offered to take a photo of my last nurse, Sam, and send it to my sister "so she'll be jealous." Young, dark haired and good looking, he was also funny and efficient.

Five days later, I'm home, showering, wearing real clothes and feeling more like a human being. Life is much more pleasant and manageable. I'm stiff, slow and in pain. I'm bruised. Sometimes the abdominal gas feels like a weasel loose inside me. Still, all this is doable. Now I've got this.

After I had my youngest daughter (sixteen years ago) I said to my mother, "I tell myself that I'll never again have to be a patient in a hospital. I know that I'm lying, but it makes me feel better." She humored me. Now I just hope against hope that this was the worst it will ever get.

Because I do NOT want to have to readjust, again, what a 10 on the pain scale feels like. (I use now my friend Steven's swear phrase: "Sweet fancy Moses.")

I won't have to go back to a hospital again, right? I mean, I'm done now, aren't I?

I think I speak for many of us when I say, "I hope so."

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again..."
- "The Sound of Silence," Simon & Garfunkel

This feeling is familiar, and yet new. I've been struggling to categorize and catalog it for months, with no luck.

Mostly, it's exhaustion.

I have to finally come to terms with the fact that these last years are kicking my butt.

Part of the problem is that I'm very good in an actual crisis. Calm, clear headed, efficient, helpful, unflagging - you want me around when there's trouble. It's after the trouble itself has passed and the danger is gone, or the trauma is past, that I come undone.

Part of it is that there's nothing tragic going on. This is just normal stuff, a normal life. But, objectively, I have to admit that things are adding up.

Arbitrarily, let's pick the mark of three years ago. I've had three major surgeries in three years. They all went well. I recovered nicely. Still, I'm in residual pain, and fundamental things - for instance, how I walk - are forever altered. My endocrine system is shot, and my body chemistry has been forcibly altered. Those things are tiring, in and of themselves.

I have ongoing health issues, and I'm developing a deep, unwanted hostility and hatred for insurance companies. Not helpful.

My mother is gone. We'll soon come up on the second anniversary of her death. I have been unable to attend church on Mother's Day since she passed. So often, I want to call her, want to visit her, and I can't.

My childhood best friend passed away; he was 48. If you want to know how tightly someone is woven into your life, pull that thread loose. Sometimes it feels like everything will unravel. He touched everything in my life, from the time that I was 14.

My son left for college hundreds of miles away. It was easier than sending his sisters, because he's the third child, and we've Been There, Done That. It was also harder, because his older sisters attended public school and left the house at 6:30 am, often not returning until 10 pm or later. My son was homeschooled, so even when he worked 5 or 6 hours a day, he was home with us for hours a day. His absence is more noticeable.

Part of it is that I've been down the rabbit hole, and I'm together enough to recognize that I'm not there. I remember that a bit too vividly. Twice in my life I've had breakdowns so complete that they blackened the sky, choked the air with ash, just consumed everything in their path. This is not one of those times. (And for this, I thank God.)

There are times of great joy and deep contentment, and lots of normalcy, and I honestly think that I've handled everything well, but do you know how I can tell that I haven't? Or, maybe I have, but that hyper competent period is wearing off. Stuff I should be able to shrug off doesn't shrug. It gnaws at my extremities like some annoying, rabid animal.

"Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains."

The other day, I was thrown into mourning for the fact that my two closest girlfriends moved away after high school. I mean, I handled this clear back in 1984, and suddenly my middle aged self is in tears. What gives?

OK, maybe that's easy to diagnose. I keep seeing in my head two absolutely beautiful smiling brunet high school boys, and all the memories shared with them, and they're both dead now. As time goes on, there will be fewer of Us left, the ragtag community, the family we created for ourselves, the group of former kids who were my life in high school, who still populate my life now. We'll all leave each other sometime. I've become (probably annoyingly) effusive, reminding them how much I have always adored them. I fear becoming clingy and syrupy and maudlin.

Circumstances are preventing me from doing a lot of otherwise normal stuff, like auditioning. I was in a show, had just started rehearsals, when my mom passed away. I had the presence of mind to step down from a major role to a chorus role, but I had no business being in a show. My head was not in the game. I need solitude when I'm hurt - I'm like a canine who needs to find a den and lick my wounds. I stayed because I've never dropped out of a show, and I also hoped that doing normal things would help. During times of stress, I crave normalcy. I hoped that it would feel normal. I didn't even tell anyone that my mom had passed away until we were performing, and then I told all of four people in a cast and crew of dozens.

It never did feel normal. Months of rehearsal, and it never felt right. It felt empty. And good heavens, let's not even talk about the work I did. The work stunk. I also, for the first time in my lifetime, since I started acting at 12 years old, missed an entrance - missed an entire scene - during a performance. That's just unacceptable. That's more humiliating than being naked in public. It's horrifying to even admit. And yet, I think that maybe three people even noticed. I was only in two freakin' scenes - crowd scenes. I was so unnecessary and expendable, yet knocking myself out trying to do a decent job. Yet I was not thinking clearly enough to see that I should have bowed out entirely.

I hear that being intoxicated is like that - you honestly can't tell whether or not you're functional.

I recently looked back at the photos I shot of the show, and I was pleased to discover that they were good. That part of me continued to function quite well. That was nice to know.

I'm finally reaching the point that maybe I could handle a show. But, months of being wheelchair bound, and more time with my feet in casts, means that it's not an option. If I can't even drive, I sure as heck can't rehearse or perform.

Since I can't work on anything, I'm even less inclined to watch anything, because it's painful. So, I don't even see most of my friends' shows, which means that I'm missing out in all kinds of ways.

Maybe I'm not ready for a show yet. Ordinary human behavior is too difficult for me right now. People will be inconsiderate, annoying, self centered - you know, human - and it's just too much. I finally understand about "the straw that broke the camel's back." You just can't handle one more freaking thing. Any rudeness or nastiness or even just annoyingness pushes past the breaking point. And, you know and I know, life is FULL of rudeness and self centeredness.

I've always been very Greta Garbo, but I need to be alone even more now. It's exhausting to be with people. EXHAUSTING. Not depressing or unfulfilling, just so tiring.

It's not that I don't like you. Chances are, I do. I like people in general. I deeply love many people, personally. I just like them at a distance. Don't take it personally.

I'm perfectly OK with being flawed. (I mean, have you seen my housekeeping? Please.) But here's what I'm going to do, what will preserve my sanity and keep me from unleashing the dogs of war on random passers by, or people in my family who simply chose the wrong moment to be insensitive. Sometimes, I am not going to cope well. I'm just not.

I will burst into tears when the radio is on - some days, not at all, and some days, with virtually every song. And here's the thing - I'm going to stop being embarrassed or upset by it.

I don't want you to comfort me and tell me it'll be OK. I really, truly, don't. I don't want you to get manic in your efforts to cheer me up, trying to get me to laugh. It will just annoy me.

Most of the time, I am fine. Everything is great. Even things that hurt are small potatoes. I sit here in a climate controlled house that I own, eating every day, sleeping in a bed, showering - life is luxurious. I have family. I have friends. I love what I do, and I pretty much set my own hours.

And yet. Sometimes, life will shatter at a moment's notice. That's as normal and predictable as the sun rising. Sometimes, I will break.

Sometimes, I will also sleep too much or eat too much sugar. And you know what? I will not feel guilty.

And sometimes, I will regret having said all of this, because people still won't understand, and I'll feel exposed, and everyone will be awkward, and good grief, can I just live on a deserted island?

Sometimes, I just need quiet.

"And the sign said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered
In the sound of silence."

Counting Down

In 10 days, I should be able to walk again. I haven't walked a single step in almost 5 weeks. Right now, nothing sounds better than being able to go up and down the stairs in my own house.

I have a huge, unwieldy cast on my left foot, up to just below my knee. It's not the kind of cast I expected - plaster or fiberglass. It's a huge steel, padding and Velcro contraption that comes on and off. For the first 3 weeks, the foot and ankle were also wrapped in gauze, stretchy bandages and a thin "sock" covering. The cast strapped on over that. I had to take it off several times a day to put ice packs on my foot, and again to shower, with a waterproof rubber boot over the wrapping.

On the one hand, it's nicer than the fiberglass or plaster cast. I don't have the unbearable itch issues that I hear are unavoidable with those. On the other hand, while there's a half inch steel plate, about 14 inches by 6 inches, under my foot, on top of my foot there's little more than padding and straps to protect the area with broken bones. If something hits it, falls on it, steps on it, the results would be painful and catastrophic, so I'm extremely protective of the entire leg.

And geez, is this thing heavy and awkward! It extends so far past my toes in order to protect my feet. I get it - so many times, I've had that part of the cast whack walls and door frames. I've even had it be stepped on in the movie theater. I know why it's there. Still, imagine having a half inch thick slab of steel on your foot. Even simple stuff like sleeping is awkward. Imagine sleeping in a steel soled snow boot, and you'll have some idea what this is like.

Since the stitches came out at three weeks, I no longer need the rubber shower boot. My family finds my new foot both creepy and fascinating. It's much narrower and straighter than it was before. I can't quite get used to the big toe's nail facing upwards. The incision sites still look pretty gruesome (my middle daughter refuses to look), but that "train track" look will fade. I've had so many stitches; I am not worried about scars on my feet.

I've explained what I've had done so many times in the past few weeks. I'm tired of repeating, but thankful for people's concern.

I had most of the bone structure in my foot rebuilt. I had bunions, collapsed arches, overlapping toes, a big toe turned at a 45 degree angle, bone spurs, and shortened tendons. That's the shortened version. Apparently, almost half of the bones in my foot were not load bearing, even though they were designed to be. My podiatrist took hold of my foot and folded it lengthwise, flapping it like a wing. "See that?" he said. "It's not supposed to do that."

What I'd noticed most, of course, was the pain. I've known that I had bunions since I was 9. The collapsed arches were diagnosed about two decades later, and suddenly so many things about my feet made sense.

I have a lot of small skeletal issues. I had TMJ (joint issues in my jawbone) as a kid. I'm knock kneed, plus my knees bow backwards. Since I was 13 and fell off of a horse onto it, one knee has been noticeably worse than the other. It aches in the cold, and both knees will occasionally collapse when overstressed. I have a mild S curve scoliosis. Its major contributions are making my hips uneven, and therefore one leg longer than the other, and causing muscle pinches in my shoulder that occasionally need treated.

Of course, any time I said, "my feet hurt" or "my back hurts" for most of my life, I'd get patronizing advice to "lose weight and exercise more." Or I'd hear, "Well, so do my mine, but I'm going out dancing anyway." The older I get, the more convinced I become that our parameters are vastly different. What some people call "pain," I call "normal" or "uncomfortable." By the time I say "pain," it's knifing, and I can barely stand to let my feet touch the ground.

I hated, too, being told that my feet would feel better if I went barefoot. "It's healthier! It's the natural state of your foot!"

"But it hurts," I'd say, and thus unleash a lecture on toughening up, or giving it a chance, or something else equally annoying. I need practically orthopedic shoes with astonishingly good arch support before my feet feel better. It's in my bone structure; whether or not the soles of my feet would toughen up was not the point.

Well, let's hope that's past tense now - "needed" orthopedic shoes. I'm hoping that the new bone structure will be fabulous.

I needed bones cut and repositioned, tendons lengthened, screws and rods and a plate installed. The doctor estimated that it would take an hour and a half; it took almost three hours. "Things were a bit more complicated than we thought," he said. "That toe gave me a hard time."

I thought that cutting the bones would be the worst part, but it wasn't. Rotating that big toe really ached. I told him that at my three week checkup, and he said, "We took out and threw away the parts of the bone that hurt. They're gone now." Oh. OK.

The doctor told me that the post-op pain would be about equivalent to a broken bone. I've had those before, so I had some sense of that. The first two days would be agonizing; after that, it would get better. That's about how it worked, too. The first two days, I didn't want anyone to even breathe on me. I couldn't let the bedclothes touch the cast - the weight was too awful. The second day, a towel fell off the rack onto my foot, and you should have heard the noise I made - "AAAAAHHHH!!!!!" How ridiculous is an existence in which a falling towel hurts? Of course, part of that reaction was also shock, and the realization that other, heavier things might fall on me.

Luckily, the only other thing that's fallen on me is a plunger. The cast was off - I was getting out of the shower - so it smarted, but I wasn't terrified. It had been over a month by then.

My worst fear was messing things up while we were still waiting for the ends of the cut bones to grow together and knit. If I ripped out the screws, or tore the healing ligaments, or something else hideous, the damage might be too great to repair. The longer it's been, the more I relax. I haven't been in any significant pain since the first week, and now, in week 5, I think that things are pretty well solidifying in there.

The worst part has been the patience of waiting this long to be able to put any weight on it. I can't put any weight at all on it until I get x-rays in another week and a half, and get the OK. While I'm not in pain, and I'm getting around really well for someone with one working leg, I am practically counting the hours until I can WALK again.

Soon, though, we'll go through the whole thing again, for my right foot. While I want it done, I can't really even think about that right now.

Tick tock!