I’ve never seen anything like that before…
I’m sure there are situations in which this proclamation is a positive thing, but I really can’t think of one. It certainly is not what you want to hear coming out of your surgeon’s mouth. Fortunately, I was still unconscious, but that meant it was Peggy that got the news.
The morning started well enough. We arrived at the surgical hospital at 5:30 for our scheduled 7:00 procedure. The doctor came in to see us — in her scrubs and wearing no makeup she looked about 17. Drew on my leg in Sharpie to show where the incision would be (and, I suppose, to make sure she didn’t operate on the wrong leg, though that didn’t occur to me until later). Told me what she was going to do. Sounded like something she had done before.
The anesthesiologist came in and told me what he was going to do and gave us instructions for what we were supposed to do when we got home. Again, great information delivered by a man who has clearly done this thousands of times. I nodded off to sleep with great confidence.
When I wake up Peggy is in the room with me. After nearly thirty-seven years together I’m pretty good at reading her. What I’m reading is not comedy.
“Remember how young she looked when she came in this morning? Well, she looked her age when she came back in,” was her opening. “She told me she had never seen anything like that before.”
While we were preparing for the surgery the doctor had explained the plan. Go inside, reconnect the severed ends of the tendons, even tighten them up a little bit so that the ankle would be better after surgery than it had been before the injury. Not bad for an ankle that has been broken three times and injured several other times. I’m pretty sure that while she described how great it would be that little blue birds flew into the room and lighted on her as she spoke.
The birds are dead.
When the surgeon got inside my ankle she discovered that all four ends of the two tendons were essentially ribbons; she was unable to reconnect them. Instead, she used all of the “usable” pieces she could find and attempted to make one good tendon out of them.
“If this is going to have any chance of working you have to follow the recovery and rehab directions to the letter,” she said.
What I thought: It’s my damn ankle so of course I am going to do whatever it takes to make it work. And my wife is a personal trainer and an inveterate rule follower so she is not going to allow me to do anything other than what I am supposed to do.
What I said: “What do you mean IF?!”
I am at home in a lovely red recliner chair. The anesthesiologist was correct and I have felt no pain because we followed his post-op suggestions. Peggy picked up a very stylish scooter for me to use when I need to go to the bathroom or move from my chair to the bed. My foot will not touch the ground for a month. My family is coming to visit for Christmas because I cannot travel. We are going to follow the rules.
If…