There’s something about having your mobility limited by a bum leg that, at least for me results in a slackening of personal hygiene standards. Oh, I’m sure there are intrepid souls,with much greater physical limitations, some permanent, who keep themselves nicely buffed and polished. But I’m just not that big on overcoming obstacles. Since I’ve worked around Crohn’s disease for most of my life, maybe it’s because I have obstacle burn out. I know, I hear you saying, “That’s nothing man look what so and so has dealt with!” But I guess you pick the hurdles you want to jump and those you just avoid.

Mounting two flights of stairs to the shower, being limited to one legged or sitting sponge baths because of unhealed incisions, requiring accompaniment to the bathroom, difficulty in disrobing, not wanting other folks to handle my private bits, the list goes on, are all to be avoided in my world. After the hip incident, I didn’t shower for three weeks. I had daily sponge baths in my room, but that’s just not the same. Of course there are problems with this avoidance. Aside from the feeling that you are covered with a patina of filth, one develops a certain fragrance. Maybe “stench” is a better word.

Most of the folks in the trenches of health care, the nurses, aids, therapists and wheelchair pushers are probably used to it. They never mention it and if you do, they downplay it. “Heavens no, you don’t stink.” But their body language and facial expressions give them away. I don’t play poker for nothin’ dude. And of course there are other indications. The looks on their faces when they come into the room and ask if you’d like to wash up now or if you’d had a shower yet. In rehab I had a chance for a shower but I had an unhealed incision in my hip, so I refused. I’m sure if I’d stayed much longer they would have dragged me in kicking and screaming. Well maybe not kicking.

Family and friends can be more brutally honest. Especially college age daughters. Young women will really let you know where you stand. At least if you are their hopelessly clueless father. “What’s that smell?” “I think you really need a shower Dad.” “Dad, you stink.”

OK, I can live with it. And soon I’ll have a new knee and be walking and showering without assistance and I’ll be back to the old manly fragrance of Bob. With the occasional room filling cigar stench.

Have a great day!

I’m sure that you won’t be surprised to hear that I didn’t like being incarcerated in a nursing home, I mean rehab center. The whole thing was a terrifying glimpse into the future. As the Who so aptly put it, “Hope I die before I get old.” However there were some mitigating aspects of my stay at North Ridge. The therapy was very good and it helped to have someone cracking the whip twice a day. And I met some interesting characters.

I’ll start out with my roommate on the first night. Luckily,  I only had roommates on the first night and the last night of my stay. They were both named Jim. The first Jim spent his days as a motionless lump, slouched in his wheelchair or in his bed sleeping. He came out at night. His wife, Jerry, kept apologizing for him in advance. As they left in the evening both she and her son admonished him to behave. What the heck was I in for?

Ten minutes after lights out he started. In a ghostly whisper, “Jerry……Jerry….answer me Jerry.” Which was bad enough, but after repeating the mantra softly a few times he turned up the volume and roared like something out of The Exorcist. Terrifying. The aids came in and calmed him down. He started up again in a few minutes. Same script. I picked up the phone and called Beck. “Now I know what’s going on. I died when I fell in the garage and now I’m In Hell.”

From the other side of the curtain, in the middle of the mantra without skipping a beat, “You’re not in hell.”

The nurses got him up and took him out to sit with them in the hallway until he was ready to behave.

More on my new friends later.

I think my wife, Becky says it best:
The fun just doesn’t stop at our house.

Bob was crutching (is that a word?) into the house Saturday night, lost his balance and fell backwards onto the concrete garage floor. Yeah you read right. Luckily he didn’t crack his head open and we got him into the house and into bed. We were hoping he was just a little banged up but Monday morning he still couldn’t get out of bed or even move without severe pain. I called the Dr. and they said we better come in for an x-ray, so one of the neighbors came over to help me get him into the car. After about one minute we knew that wasn’t going to work so I called 911 and an ambulance came and took him to Methodist.
 
Sure as shit………broken hip. But as the surgeon said: it’s a “good” break. Clean. Typical. Standard procedure. Uh huh. Anyway he had surgery Monday night. Apparently they just put a screw in there and you’re good to go.

And as Lucia said: at least it’s on the same side (the knee-less side!)
 
There’s always a silver lining ………..somewhere.

The photo is of me in my cell room at the rehab center. I spent eight fun filled days . There are stories. I will tell them later.

I Just got word that they’re ending my antibiotics on 7/31, and then waiting 2-4 weeks to see if the infection comes back before they put in a new knee. Then it’s another three or four weeks before I can go back to work. I’m thinking about going back to work just to overcome the boredom. Plus, after four weeks my disability is only 70% of my salary. Not good. I guess I should be thankful that I have disability insurance and medical too. I’m sure this thing is going to push 200k before we’re done. Cripes! Four surgeries! aaaaarrrrgggggggh!!!!

It’s actually not as bad as you might think. I have a pretty good capacity for doing nothing. Reverie is one of my favorite pastimes. As my Mom used to say, “You think too much.” I did polish off an 800 page book, well, trilogy. The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. Certainly one (three?) of the best books I’ve ever read.

I know I’m being kind of egocentric here lately, not replying to comments and not getting out to read others posts, but right now I’m using this as more of a record of my medical adventure.

Apparently I was cursed, the pain in my knee was the infection returning so that Monday I went into the hospital and had the knee removed and replaced with a spacer that’s full of antiboiotics. In about six months I’ll have a new knee put in. Hope that one works. I’m home from the hospital now, dealing with the inconvieniences of having a knee that won’t bend and not being able to put any wieght on on leg.

Last night, my pal Steve and I were drawn to the Jewish cemetery in the neighborhood, one of them that is, there are two right next to each other, with different names and entrances. We were drawn by what appeared to be the sun setting in the East. When we got up to the highest point which is probably the highest point in the Northwest Suburbs, we discovered it was the sunset reflecting off buildings downtown! But an even more interesting discovery was a gravestone with the name “Geshundheit” on it. I’ll bet that was good for some laughs.

We didn’t defile any graves or anything and tried to be respectful, so I don’t think I’ve been cursed. Maybe it was the uneven ground and the hill walking. I woke up this morning with a pain right in the middle of my knee cap that so far two vicoden and four Ibuprophen haven’t even dented. Nothing goes better with pain than a joke so…

A lion walks into a bar, sits down next to a hooker and orders a Martini for himself and one for the hooker. Soon they are in a deep conversation, but suddenly the lion jumps off his stool, knocks the hooker down and eats her. He calmly gets back on his stool and orders another Martini, which he knocks back in one gulp and then falls off the barstool and crashes to the floor unconscious, barely breathing. The bartender runs around the bar and gives the lion smelling salts and mouth to mouth and after some considerable effort revives the lion. The lion, extremely groggy asks the bartender what happened to him. When told he was unconscious for several minutes, he what the hell caused it. To which the bartender replied…

“Must have been the bar bitch you ate.”

And now for a movie recommendaton. Last night we watched The Proposition, a dark and violent “western” set in 1880’s Australia. A good story well acted, it’s one of those movies that you could take almost any frame and have a great photograph. A humerous detail is a stagecoach being pulled by a team of camels.

Tomorrow I get my PICC line removed. You know the plastic tube that has had me tethered to an antibiotic pump 24/7 for the last six weeks. It’s going to be great to not haves to deal with my little mechanical belly bag everytime I want to take crap or go to bed or put on a shirt or almost anything. It will be great because I can take a shower without wrapping my arm in plastic wrap and tape.

But I will no longer be awash in oxicillan. Which means if there’s some little pocket of staph lurking in some cranny of my mechanical knee…. I’m fucked. It’s out with the knee for three months and then if I’m lucky they can put a new one in. Doctors are quoting 70-30 odds in my favor. My blood tests look good, the knee looks good. So if you’re the prayin’ kind, say a couple for me. If not wish me luck!

I hope I get to keep this knee cause I’m growing fond of it. It already works better than the old one, and I have to say that now it’s my good knee. I have more pain in the real one than the artificial one now and I’m walking without a limp on that side for the first time in about 20 years. I’m also taller, because I can straighten it out. And something about being able to straighten it out pushes my chest out and shoulders back so I have much better posture.

So Mr. Staph bug… stay away!

Let’s take a vote who wants to see a picture of my scar?