Major Progress Reported

Don't look now, mainly because it happened 2 hours ago, but Leslie walked down and back up her driveway using a cane!  She has been approved for driving next week after Wednesday.  She is gaining her mobility, can dancing be far away?  Well, yeah, considering that the walk took 20 minutes.  We are talking a really slow waltz and I'll be sitting and resting directly afterwards.  Perhaps I'll be visiting the dance and folks in the near future, ease my way back into dancing.

3 Months, 15 Days and counting

So, finally decided to do some research on tibial plateau fractures and discovered that I certainly didn't follow the standard pattern.  It is prone to becoming fractured in high speed accidents such as those associated with skiing, horse riding and certain water sports.  Note, dancing is not mentioned anywhere.  The articles also state that a displaced fracture will take months to heal with a long period of time non-weight-bearing.  As I have now been weight-bearing for 20 days I'm hoping this means I'll be back to functional soon.  I have yet to find an article that gives any specific time frame for healing, it seems very dependent upon the person and their overall health and activity level.

Realizing it has been since January 15th that I have been dealing with this I wanted to take a moment to say "Don't do this to yourself!!!!!"  I realize that accidents happen and that means we had no control over what happened, but really - all this from dipping someone?  Geeez, who would have thought.

I also have had several times to think and realize that less than one month ago I was hopping on one leg, hoping I didn't touch the other leg down in error, and waiting for when I could start weight-bearing.  It is still 3 days to go till the original date the surgeon had suggested for weight-bearing so I hope that means I am healing faster than he anticipated.  I also hope it means that I will be back to dancing soon.

I did attend the Frederick dance this past Saturday and had a marvelous waltz.  If you can get to my facebook page the video is on there, but I'm not sure how to grab a link to here.  Let's just say that waltzing with a wheelchair requires coordination and lots of friends.  It was a grand evening with an opportunity to say hi to so many of friends, to listen to the Avant Gardeners playing and Kim Forry calling, to see folks dancing - a joyous evening.

I picked up the cane at Walmart last week but felt so rotten, in an over-stuffed sausage joint way, that my PT Brandi took pity on me and we didn't use it.  Probably start with it this week.  Looking forward to the progress it means I'm making, and dreading as I feel certain the joint will regret the lesser support.

I have also been in the process of being weaned off of the Oxycontin since the 21st, and the weaning process is a very strong argument for never getting on the stuff in the first place.  About the time I start to feel as though I've adjusted to the lower dose it is time to drop the dose again.  It leaves me feeling exhausted, stuffed sausage joint, achy feeling for days.  I struggle to do my exercises, frustrated because I simply can't get the knee to flex or straighten.  Well, in about a week plus I should be off the Oxycontin altogether and have a feel for how my system really is.  That should be interesting to discover.

And with all of these self indulgent thoughts I am also reminded on a daily basis of all the wonderful people I have within my life.  I look forward to regaining my mobility and putting this into my past as an interesting path on the journey of life, one hopefully never revisited.  See you soon, I hope.