Days of lasts
Mar. 10th, 2009 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterWell, the brief period of calm before the storm ends today.
Tomorrow at approximately 1 p.m. we will drive for Columbia, five hours away. We will check into a hotel and stay the night, then early Thursday morning, they will check me into the hospital where I will be put under and have the old hardware yanked out of my leg and have new hardware put in. This new hardware will be what is called a Taylor spatial frame. If you're curious what it will look like, Google Image Search has a number of instructive pictures.
Because of what it looks like, I have been and intend to continue calling it my "medieval torture device." But I suppose I could just as legitimately call it my own personal chunk of exoskeleton. (One of my Twitter friends suggested that I should have a Heim-Dröscher drive attached to it so it could be a "Taylor hyperspatial frame".)
So, this has been a week of "lasts." Most notably, the last uncomplicated shower and last bath I will take for six months or so, because the Taylor frame can't be allowed to get wet. So I gather I'll have a plastic sleeve to wear over it in a shower, or if I take a bath I'll have to prop it on a tray across the tub so it stays out of the water. The last dinner in my own apartment for over a month (as after a week or so of recovery at home, I will be returned to Columbia to stay with relatives for a month). Pretty soon I'll put on real pants for the last time, as I'll have to wear shorts or half-pants during the six months I'm stuck in the frame. It's a little gloomy to think this way, but that's just how I am.
I expect to be in a lot of pain the next few days after the frame is put on. They're going to have to saw through my bone and separate it so that it can heal straight under the influence of the frame—as well as drive pins directly through my skin and flesh and into my bone for attachment to the frame. I'm told that most patients adjust to this "relatively quickly"—by which they mean "within a few days." (Given the amount of pain I was in last time, I'm having a little trouble reconciling those two terms.) The plan is for me only to spend a couple of days in the hospital and be released on Saturday or Sunday at the latest. Then I get to be driven five hours home in the back of the new family Suburban. Which promises to be a bit of a painful experience if I'm not fully acclimated to the frame yet. Yay.
Speaking of the new Suburban, it's rather nice. My folks bought it to replace their old one, as the front differential on that one conked out last week, and it's a lot fancier. It's a 2005 model, with a lot of extras. It even has a radio with both casette adapter and CD slots (the original owner had gotten that custom-installed) so that I can use a cassette adapter with my iPod instead of having to fiddle with an FM radio transmitter. (It even has OnStar, though it is doubtful my parents will care to pay the $200 a year the service would cost them.) When we were out and about in town today, dropping me by the Career Center so I could make my 4-week report, I played some of the audiobook that we had been listening to as we travelled: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. I've just put Men at Arms on my iPod for after we finish that on the trip tomorrow.
Right now, I'm enjoying what may be my last scotch and soda before going into the hospital, and probably my last for a while after that too, depending on how many painkillers I'm needing to take in its wake. After that, I'll go to bed for the last time in my parents' house without having to worry about how to keep the covers from pressing down on my frame.
I suppose I should try to concentrate on the positive. I shouldn't need to be hospitalized for the over a week they had me in when I originally broke it. And in a week or so I'll get to have an (extended) visit with my aunt & uncle, whom I haven't seen in a while. Maybe I'll get to show them some of my favorite movies. I hope that the pain will pass soon and the frame will become a mere inconvenience. Just have to see, I guess.
I'm just kind of sad: I've gotten used to being able to hobble around on my own, and now it's back to square one. I'm not even sure when I'll be allowed to put any weight on the leg at all. Back to the walker and the wheelchair again? Or maybe I'll at least be able to use my crutches from square one given my experience with them.
But enough maundering. Time to finish my drink and get to bed. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep well and not insomne tonight.
Tomorrow at approximately 1 p.m. we will drive for Columbia, five hours away. We will check into a hotel and stay the night, then early Thursday morning, they will check me into the hospital where I will be put under and have the old hardware yanked out of my leg and have new hardware put in. This new hardware will be what is called a Taylor spatial frame. If you're curious what it will look like, Google Image Search has a number of instructive pictures.
Because of what it looks like, I have been and intend to continue calling it my "medieval torture device." But I suppose I could just as legitimately call it my own personal chunk of exoskeleton. (One of my Twitter friends suggested that I should have a Heim-Dröscher drive attached to it so it could be a "Taylor hyperspatial frame".)
So, this has been a week of "lasts." Most notably, the last uncomplicated shower and last bath I will take for six months or so, because the Taylor frame can't be allowed to get wet. So I gather I'll have a plastic sleeve to wear over it in a shower, or if I take a bath I'll have to prop it on a tray across the tub so it stays out of the water. The last dinner in my own apartment for over a month (as after a week or so of recovery at home, I will be returned to Columbia to stay with relatives for a month). Pretty soon I'll put on real pants for the last time, as I'll have to wear shorts or half-pants during the six months I'm stuck in the frame. It's a little gloomy to think this way, but that's just how I am.
I expect to be in a lot of pain the next few days after the frame is put on. They're going to have to saw through my bone and separate it so that it can heal straight under the influence of the frame—as well as drive pins directly through my skin and flesh and into my bone for attachment to the frame. I'm told that most patients adjust to this "relatively quickly"—by which they mean "within a few days." (Given the amount of pain I was in last time, I'm having a little trouble reconciling those two terms.) The plan is for me only to spend a couple of days in the hospital and be released on Saturday or Sunday at the latest. Then I get to be driven five hours home in the back of the new family Suburban. Which promises to be a bit of a painful experience if I'm not fully acclimated to the frame yet. Yay.
Speaking of the new Suburban, it's rather nice. My folks bought it to replace their old one, as the front differential on that one conked out last week, and it's a lot fancier. It's a 2005 model, with a lot of extras. It even has a radio with both casette adapter and CD slots (the original owner had gotten that custom-installed) so that I can use a cassette adapter with my iPod instead of having to fiddle with an FM radio transmitter. (It even has OnStar, though it is doubtful my parents will care to pay the $200 a year the service would cost them.) When we were out and about in town today, dropping me by the Career Center so I could make my 4-week report, I played some of the audiobook that we had been listening to as we travelled: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. I've just put Men at Arms on my iPod for after we finish that on the trip tomorrow.
Right now, I'm enjoying what may be my last scotch and soda before going into the hospital, and probably my last for a while after that too, depending on how many painkillers I'm needing to take in its wake. After that, I'll go to bed for the last time in my parents' house without having to worry about how to keep the covers from pressing down on my frame.
I suppose I should try to concentrate on the positive. I shouldn't need to be hospitalized for the over a week they had me in when I originally broke it. And in a week or so I'll get to have an (extended) visit with my aunt & uncle, whom I haven't seen in a while. Maybe I'll get to show them some of my favorite movies. I hope that the pain will pass soon and the frame will become a mere inconvenience. Just have to see, I guess.
I'm just kind of sad: I've gotten used to being able to hobble around on my own, and now it's back to square one. I'm not even sure when I'll be allowed to put any weight on the leg at all. Back to the walker and the wheelchair again? Or maybe I'll at least be able to use my crutches from square one given my experience with them.
But enough maundering. Time to finish my drink and get to bed. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep well and not insomne tonight.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-11 03:27 am (UTC)I wish I could find that guy. When he moved away for work reasons, we lost touch and it's been almost 30 years.
Also, be sure to mention to anyone who asks that because the adjustments are specific and designed for you in particular, that it is a tailor-made Taylor frame.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-11 06:35 am (UTC)