Today is seven weeks since my surgery. Seven weeks of wearing the fixator. Seven weeks of being on crutches. Seven weeks of hair growth on my right leg.
I'm feeling a distinct seven week itch. I alternate between feeling like it'd be okay that I have the fixator if only I could walk, and feeling like it'd be okay if I couldn't walk if only I didn't have the fixator. Essentially, I'm sick of having the fixator and I'm sick of not being able to walk.
There's some promising progress on the walking front, though. Yesterday in physical therapy I rocked some serious one crutch walking, and for the first time felt like someday it will be possible to walk unaided again.
But I bummed myself out by looking at my xrays, which show such huge gaps in my bones that I'm starting to realize that this fixator ain't coming off anytime soon. My doctor says that he's in "no rush" to take it off, and I agree with him, in principle. I certainly don't want it taken off before my bone is completely healed. Re-breaking my leg would be beyond horrible.
At my next doctor's appointment in two weeks, my doctor is going to transfer some of the weight off of my fixator and onto my bone. Right now the fixator is bearing all of the weight while the bone consolidates.
Once the bone is completely healed, my doctor said he'll take off the fixator, but leave the pins in my leg. In the sweet Jesus don't let this happen case that I re-break my leg, he can just slip the fixator back on over the pins.
If after one or two weeks of having only the pins in my leg and no breakage, he'll remove the pins. So I'm looking at the end of the summer at the earliest before I'm free of all the metal. About another seven weeks. Which puts me at the mid-way point of this whole process. That's a somewhat depressing thought. At least the worst is behind me!
Vicodin addiction update: I'm down to 3.5 pills a day, and I'm really starting to feel the effects of the weaning process. The last few nights I've been incredibly restless and it's been very hard to sleep. I'm sneezing a lot and generally feel like I have a cold. But once I take a Vicodin, the sneezing goes away almost immediately. I don't even feel anything when I take a Vicodin, I just feel normal again. That's some messed up shit.
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I also had the 7 week itch, by that point you feel pretty good, but not good enough to be off crutches and it just sucks. Really sucks. I also stopped the vicodin cold turkey and couldn't sleep due to the cold sweats and nausea. When I finally got off the crutches, I made the Dr. hold my hands while I walked and also made him promise me that if I broke my hip I could hurt him for the bad advice. I was really nervous about walking un-aided.
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