Time Drags On

So, last week I decided (after copious amounts of research) that I was not going to take treating the ex-fracture-blister-now-sore MY way rather than just going with the doctor's directions of "clean and dry."

I knew how I had previously treated other bad wounds, but since this was a surgical incision, I thought there may be some special circumstances involved, so I started reading. After going through a number of medical and scientific studies, journals, and stories, I came to the conclusion that some of my previous knowledge was spot on - primarily, that wounds (yes, even surgical wounds) heal best in a moist environment. What was different was how to keep it moist and bacterial free. Historically on surface wounds (even bad ones) I had just used neosporin or similar. Apparently,  however, this can cause contact dermatitis, especially in surgical wounds. Petroleum jelly was a recommended moistener, but it had no antibacterial properties. This led me to finding makura honey, and I did some more reading on that. It seemed like it was exactly what i wanted - something that would keep this (very dangerous) wound moist, while also providing antibacterial properties.

I headed to CVS on Tuesday and bought everything I needed, they even had the honey there. I started treating it on Tuesday night. At that time, the wound was still weeping significantly, and I felt like no progress was being made. Since the PA had put steri-strips over the entire thing, I couldn't see it very well, which didn't please me since it made it hard to see if anything was going on! I started with the honey anyways, and continued with twice a day dressing changes.

It's not even been a week, and there is a HUGE difference in the wound. It looks as healthy as an open sore like that can, and looks like it's finally trying to heal over. I think it's also looking a lot smaller, but that's hard to say due to the steristrips covering it (recently I took a couple off so I could keep an eye on the wound better since the incision line was looking pretty good). I'm feeling better about this thing finally healing, but it's a good sized wound (and full depth) so I know it's going to take a couple/few weeks to fully heal, but it's looking clean and healthy now.

Other than that, we had our annual awards banquet the other night. I felt great as far as how I looked (despite the leg) especially since I have lost nearly 30 pounds since my first banquet two years ago.

Other than that evening, however, I'm still struggling with the mental side. I'm trying to get more active again, and tell my pouting self "too bad, housework no longer counts" - but dammit, housework is WORK now :( I just want a day off of dealing with the broken leg. One day of "normal."

I've talked to a few friends who've had similar injuries - neither of them have happy stories to tell. Sure, they both are walking and active, but they suffer from on going problems in that ankle. A couple of them will never run again, although if you met them in a normal environment I doubt you'd realize anything was wrong...only thing is in both of those cases their breaks were definitely still worse than mine - despite how bad mine still is.

I'm trying to move the ankle a little bit every time I have it out of the boot, in addition to trying to straighten my knee out - an unexpected (but not surprising) side effect. I've had shitty knees most of my life. The other day I tried to fully straighten it when I had the foot out of the boot, and was met with a knee that had no intention of doing that. So, back to fighting knee, too.

Ugh. this is old by this point, but despite the suck, it's about time to "embrace the suck" and deal with it anyways...