Thursday, June 7, 2007

PAIN MANAGEMENT

It's about 3:30 a.m., and I'm up because of the pain. It's not horrible, but I'm probably not taking enough pain medication to cover it. So I'm up, waiting for some Codeine to kick in.

Last night, the pain was ridiculously bad, and I called my doctor about it. He said to uncrank my fixator twice and see him at his office in the morning. Turns out, there was a "misunderstanding" about how much I am supposed to be cranking my fixator. He claims he said one thing, Kelly and I heard another. Bottom line is that I was over-lengthening it. I thought I was supposed to be cranking it 4 times a session, with 4 sessions a day. Turns out it's just once a session, with 4 sessions a day.

But before we could deduce that, I got a lecture from my doctor about pain management. Nevermind that I was doing four times the amount of lengthening I was supposed to. Now he thinks I'm a wimp. He prescribed Vicodin to take instead of the Codeine I have been taking, and told me that I have to tough it out.

I did get a new set of xrays with this doctor's visit, and I got to see xrays of my broken leg for the first time. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of them. The breaks in my tibia and fibula are so clean and straight, and my doctor said he could already see some lengthening. Sweet.

The pain from the lengthening is mostly in my ankle, like a tightness. Stretching it helps a little, but also hurts, too. And my whole leg just sort of aches. But again, it's not horrible. I really think that once I get my pain medication right, I'll be able to sleep through the night.

Last night Kate came over for dinner. She brought me #1, #3 and #4 of the new Buffy comic book series (#2 was sold out).



Though I'm not a big comic book fan, they look really cool and I'm looking forward to reading them. They are about the length of my attention span these days. I can't seem to commit myself to any long periods of reading, or even watching a full movie. Maybe after I get my pain medication right, I can finally start on the stack of movies and books on my coffee table.

Days of lengthening left: approximately 22

3 comments:

SweetSweet said...

Sorry things aren't going so well with the leg. If you are ever up late, you can always call us here in California - even if I'm not up, Neil always is.

Anonymous said...

It's 3:00 at good old Vintage and Paige and I are feeling an emptiness.... what is it?......oh yeah...we're missing your afternoon visits!!

so that leg thing is pretty intense! looks heavy... nice pictures though. it's a really good blog so far.

hope you get the pain managed soon!

-Beth

Anonymous said...

glad your doctor cleared that up! 4x the lengthening? crazytalk!

yay Kate with the buffy comic books! I've flipped through them in between massages (Dark Horse is right down the street from our office, oddly enough) but haven't given in.

yet.