I got an email recently from another trimalleolar patient who’s endured three surgeries so far*. Understandably, he’s quite depressed right now, and wondering if and how he’ll ever get his life back. It made my day when he said that this blog gave him hope that he could fully recover and be out and about again.

This sort of injury does eat up your life for awhile. It’s common to spend about four months in casts and boots before starting physical therapy. And even after regaining mobility, there’s still a lot of pain to deal with. I broke mine in February of 2004, and the following December I was still in so much pain that I consulted with my surgeon about taking the hardware out. We did an MRI to see what was up in there, and when it turned out that things were still fine we decided to leave it alone for the time being. Two plates and however many screws (10?) are still there now, more than two years in, and the pain lessens every month. It’s still something I have to actively manage, though. Last week, I taught for 3 hours on Monday and Wednesday, standing on my feet the entire time, and then walked 3 miles on Tuesday. I was physically capable of it, but it was really too much and I ended up with a swollen, achy ankle. So I iced it a couple of times and didn't go on long hikes much in the latter part of the week. But I still did my normal things - grocery store, two breakfasts with friends, a photography lecture, and a trip to the Farmer's Market with C (which involves lots of walking on cobblestones). Sometimes I was a little hobble-y, but not generally. I had also planned to go to the Stone Arch Festival, but didn’t make it for reasons that were completely unrelated to ankles. That would have meant some swelling, but nothing unmanageable — especially if I had gone on Saturday and rested on Sunday before teaching on Monday night.

That’s the key, I think: to keep getting out and doing as much as you can. It has been for me, anyway. Some days ‘as much as you can’ isn’t very much at all. You find out where the line is, and make sure you don’t cross it and re-injure yourself. But minor swelling and pain can be treated with ice and ibuprofen, and it’s a reasonable price to pay for regaining your life.

(More below the fold.)

Continue reading "i live sweat but i dream light-years" »

Posted at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been 17 months now since I broke my ankle. I get a fair amount of hits from people with fresh trimalleolar fractures who are looking for some idea of what they’re in for, and I occasionally get some pleasant emails from them. That’s what I built the whole Breakage category for, so I want to keep adding to it. I find that there’s relatively little information out there on what can be expected during the long-term healing process, and the few bloggers I know who have already been through this part have sort of refused to blog about it when I asked them. One does want to move on after awhile, and not talk about it so much. Understandable, but this is a loss, because this sort of an injury requires a very long healing process. One can be walking again in three months, and out of physical therapy in six. But that isn’t the end of it for you, and it’s sort of scary not to know if your progress is normal or not, and how long things might take.

The first winter was very interesting for me, because I wasn’t used to being a human barometer. Cloudy weather was very painful for me last year, and the sharpness of the pain frightened me. I made an appointment with my surgeon at the end of the semester for a follow-up, and we discussed taking the hardware out. I wanted to avoid that if possible, since the idea of re-opening ten inches of incisions and being out of commission for 4-6 weeks wasn’t particularly appealing. And in January, the pain suddenly started to fade a bit. Not so much that I forgot about it, but enough that I didn’t really think surgery would be necessary.

I’ve continued to get stronger all spring. Somewhere around the one-year point, I stopped thinking about every single step I took. I’m still conscious of uneven pavement and stairs, but not so much as I used to be. Uneven turf continued to be painful until the beginning of summer, and it’s just in the past couple of weeks that I have been able to comfortably squat again and sort of run across intersections. I have a very strange running gait now, but I expect that will even out more over time. (And it’s not like I was much of a runner anyway.)

Climate changes are still a problem, and the surgeon says they will be pretty much forever. If the weather changes from clear to cloudy in the night, I’ll be very hobbly for the first fifteen minutes or so that I’m up. I might get another cane this winter for the very cloudy days.

I’ve begun having some chiropractic work done to break up some of the scar tissue, and my massage therapist also pays a fair amount of attention to it. It’s painful work, but I think of regained a bit more flexibility from it. The first time my chiropractor adjusted my ankle this summer, I yelled. When I went back to the waiting room, there was a first-time patient sitting there and she looked at me with dinner-plate eyes. I felt bad for scaring her, but I also couldn’t help but laugh.

A couple of people with similar injuries have told me that they didn’t really begin to feel normal again until they were between three and four years out. That makes sense to me. I’ll post again on my two-year anniversary in February and let you know how the second winter goes.

Posted at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I fell down a year ago today.

I fell down this afternoon, too, in the new-fallen snow. Same sort of new-fallen snow as last year, about five feet from the other spot I landed in. I was most displeased by this development, since it was my first fall in precisely a year. But nothing was harmed, and I got back up and into my car.

Mostly, I've been enjoying standing and walking today. I like those things.

Posted at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back in November, Becky wrote about dealing with winter weather the year after a winter-related accident and breathing through her apprehension. I wrote a brief comment to her then, and have been thinking about it since. At the time I was anticipating snow, and breathing. Then it actually snowed.

I sat inside for days, watching the snowglobe outside. It was gorgeous and fascinating, and I prattled on to Mister Husband about it all. But I didn’t set foot outside, not once. Last year, I was outside with a camera during the first snow. I waxed poetical about going out to meet the winter. During the first flurries of this year, I only looked from behind a window.

Finally, Mister Husband decided that this was the saddest thing that a person who loves Minnesota winters as much as me could do. So he prodded and complained and made me get suited up and put me in the car and took me down to the same lake I photographed last year. By that time the walkways and parking lots were good and slick. He held my hand as I got out of the car and kept an arm around me as we walked along. I didn’t fall. And soon, I didn’t need the reassurance in order to keep walking. I was fine, and he wandered off to take photographs.

So now I’m pretty much okay with going out. There’s some apprehension as I step out the front door, since there’s usually quite a bit of melt there. My actual process of making my way around has changed, though. I’m never out without tightly laced boots with lugged soles. (When we were shopping the other day, my friend from North Dakota was wearing platform flip-flops. But that’s another post altogether.) I used to stride along slick-ish walkways, but now I take baby steps. I don’t stomp through the snow the way I used to, either. The slush and plowings collect in the gutters, making it difficult to see where the curb is. I get ridiculously nervous about stepping off, and have been touched at how supportive my friends are about it. One always stomps around to flatten the collected snow and find the curb for me, and both she and another one have, on various outings, held my hand while I stepped off into a pile of slush.

I still love winter, and am upset at the lack of sub-zero days so far this season. But this physically cautious person is not the person I used to be. I always prided myself on swashbuckling my way along through any sort of weather, and now I’m brought up short. But I’m outside, and that’s something. I really want to learn to snowshoe, and plan on it next winter when my ankle is stronger. Perhaps the rest will come in time.

Posted at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Even though I’ve had the Vader Boot off for nearly a month now, I’ve still been limiting my walking. There’s been a lot of lost strength and flexibility to regain, as well as stamina.

The past three nights, though, we have Gone For Walks! Slightly less than a mile one night, about a mile and a half the next, and then about a mile this evening. It’s still a bit (or quite, sometimes) painful during and after. I’m not sure if the ice pack is strictly necessary, but it makes things feel better. And a wrap keeps the swelling down. I’m not sure what my physical therapist will have to say about it Wednesday, but it makes me very happy to resume some sort of physical routine.

Posted at 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night, I put on what I would call tennis shoes for the first time since early February. It was the first time I had had any sort of shoe on the repaired foot since it was broken. Very very strange sensation. Then I walked down the stairs to the mailbox and back (seven steps, up easier than down) and then out to the trash bins and back (maybe around 500 feet round trip).

I was puffing a bit when I got back, which is sort of upsetting since I was taking four mile walks before I fell. Three and a half months of sitting will do that, I guess. And I walk a bit like Marvin from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, only more lopsided. But still! All that is fixable.

I’m not sure if I’m technically allowed to be doing this. When I last saw my surgeon six weeks ago to have the cast taken off, he said he’d be pleased if I wore shoes when I came back, although it was also just as fine if I was still wearing the boot. My physical therapist, on the other hand, told me two weeks ago to keep wearing the boot. I’ve been walking around the house barefoot for weeks, with constant commentary on my excellent progress from the PT. I figure I’ll wear the shoes for short excursions and the boot for longer things, and I should get a reprieve from the boot when I go in for my appointments at the end of the week anyway.

Dude. Shoes!

Posted at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This past Tuesday, I drove for the first time since I fell. I hadn’t been so worried about the driving, since the car is an automatic and my right foot is just fine. The concern was more about being OK once I got out of the car. Mister Boyfriend followed me up to school and nothing went awry, unless you count the fact that the car had been sitting in one place so long that the tires were stuck to the pavement. Some judicious gunning of the engine was in order to rock it back and forth enough to loosen things up.

Yesterday, I took myself up the street to have breakfast with Cristina while she was in town. Then, drunk with mobility, I talked her into going to the nursery with me in search of basil and orchids. We found the basil, which is now nicely potted in my window, but no orchids. Then I went to the bakery, and to the small grocery store across from our house. The grocery store was too much, really, even though I only picked up a couple of small sacks of groceries and a jug of distilled water for the carnivores. When I came through the door, Mister Boyfriend looked up and said “You look like you’ve been beat up.” It wasn’t that bad, really, but I asked him to go get the groceries out of the car and proceeded to sit as much as possible the rest of the day.

Also, I wish to report that a week of exercises and massage has loosened up the tendons enough that I can actually flex the foot back towards me a few degrees, a feat that definitely wasn’t possible last Friday.

Posted at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday, for the first time in nine weeks, I took a shower standing up (sans boot) and brushed my teeth standing up (with boot).

This is huge, people. HUGE.

Posted at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

More ankle grittiness below the fold. Brace yourself.

Continue reading "the desirable break" »

Posted at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

All 650+ of you who have visited in the past five hours:

I blogged my injury and recovery for a number of reasons: to keep friends and loved ones apprised of my condition; to help other folks who have sustained similar injuries and want to know what happens next; and for sheer documentary. I realize that anything I post on this vast interweb can be used by anyone for whatever purposes they wish. That’s part of the deal. I’m a pro-porn feminist, and I’m not anti-fetish. More often than not, I’m in favor of this sort of thing.

I realize that for most of you, this is more than likely just about the cast as a fetish object and nothing else. If the Google translation of the German page is mostly accurate, what you said about me is even sort of sweet. Still, this blog and those photos are about a person and that person’s story. I fetishize my cast too, in the sense that I attach far more meaning and emotion to it than that bundle of materials really deserves. The difference is that my associations aren’t nearly as pleasant as yours. As far as I’m concerned, here’s what you’re jacking off to as you feverishly click on my cast images: You’re getting off on the fact that I broke every bone in my ankle. You’re getting off on ten screws and a plate that I will have until I die. You’re getting off on four days of morphine and three weeks of narcotics. You’re getting off on the worst pain and the most trauma I’ve experienced in my life. You’re getting off on two bed-ridden months that almost cost me my career. You’re getting off on the inconvenience I’ve had no choice but to pose to my loved ones and colleagues. You’re getting off on more than $50,000 of medical expenses. You’re getting off on the darkest period of my past ten years. You’re getting off on a physical injury that I will be forced to deal with for the rest of my life.

Because of the particular way I fetishize my cast, that’s the way I feel about it. That’s why I broke the links from your sites, and will continue to break any future links. I already see from my referrer stats that some of you are dedicated enough to rummage around in my archives. Unless you become legion, I’ve decided I’m not going to spend my time trying to block you there. Go ahead, click on the photos and cream yourself — but you damn well should think about how the person inside the cast feels about it.

Cordially,
Krista

FYI: Comments and trackbacks are closed for this entry.

Posted at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Buds on trees, suddenly. Squirrels digging in grass, for whatever reason. Afternoon rain, finally.

And no more staples.

Posted at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Things That Are Good for Stapling:
Paper. Cardboard. Boxes. Insulation. Visquene. Ex-boyfriend’s clothes (to the walls and ceiling of his walk-in closet. Including all his shoes, which should hang from the ceiling by their laces.*)

Things That Are Not Good for Stapling:
Flesh. Ankles. Kristas.

*Yes, this was an early-twenties incident. I’m generally calmer now.

Posted at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So I went in and they cut the cast right off. No twisting and cracking and cursing this time, just zip, zip, and snip, snip. What was underneath is skin-colored and looks like a regular foot. Lots of peeling skin, since industrial pre-op disinfectant kills not only germs but also the top layers of skin. Lots of scabs along the incisions. But still, a foot! And an ankle! It's an ankle that moves back and forth, but only slightly because of the tightened tendons and muscle atrophy. Lots of stretching and physical therapy lie ahead.

I have graduated to a big Darth Vader-eqsue boot, black with blue velcro, to wear for the next six weeks during the return to weight-bearing status. (For those who are counting, this means a total of fourteen weeks in various splints, casts, and boots.) Still, I only have to wear it when I'm up and about, which means my skin can breathe the rest of the time and I don't have to be encumbered during sleep. It also means that I was finally able to shave off two months worth of leg-hair growth this afternoon. I have received many warnings about not moving about too much or putting too much weight on it, since apparently the clinic sees a lot of patients back at three weeks for injuries after they tried to do too much too early.

There is also particularly irksome news. I was talking to Mom on the phone this afternoon while attending to the tedious and disgusting task of removing dead skin. When I twisted the ankle around to see the back of it, I discovered that an entire incision’s worth of staples were never removed five weeks ago during the destapling. They haven’t bothered me, and since the ankle was almost immediately cast after the rest of the staples were pulled, I had no idea that these have been there all these weeks. This particular incision is on the very back of the ankle, and therefore not readily viewed if one isn’t looking for it. But still, the nurse (who does this sort of thing all the time) should have damned well known that there’s a third incision made for open reduction of a trimalleolar ankle fracture. I was not at my most pleasant when I called the surgeon’s office and made another appointment Monday for additional destapling. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like any of them are embedded yet.

To add insult to injury, the nurse I talked to this afternoon informed me that I am not to get the staples wet between now and Monday. Those who know me well know that I am a total Bath Queen, and now a Bath Queen who has been bathless for eight weeks. (Showers are so not as satisfying.) I had looked forward to a proper hot bath for the past week, and now I have been thwarted.

So, in summary: Cast off! Yay! Seven staples still in! &#*@! X-rays and photos to come. Happy Friday to all of you.

Posted at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The cast comes off mid-day tomorrow. Can’t wait. Unlike last time, I’m very curious to see what’s under there and how things work.

(My toes aren’t that red now, by the way. This was taken a few weeks ago while my mom was here, and the swelling has receded a lot since then.)

Posted at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Since breaking the ankle, I’ve hardly been venturing out of the apartment at all. There are various reasons: the big one was lack of energy, closely followed by negotiating stairs and ice. I went to a doctor’s appointment at the end of week three, and then to class last Thursday. After three hours on campus, I came back home and crawled back into bed. That one trip was enough to wear me out for a day and a half. Last year when one of my professors had surgery, I was astonished at how long it took him to be fully well again. Now, I understand more than I ever wanted to about how that sort of thing works.

Staying inside has been difficult for me. I get cabin fever pretty easily, and usually make it a point to go out at least once a day. Previously I took walks as often as I could, which helped deal not only with the cabin fever but also with ongoing back problems and occasional incipient depression. Being isolated from the only community I have up here didn’t help either with the last issue. Weeks three though five were the darkest I’ve had in probably ten years. That’s when I started posting less and including more poetry here, because I didn’t want to write posts about my bitterness or sadness, and my world had suddenly narrowed to the point that there wasn’t much else to write about. I couldn’t get away from the capriciousness of my accident, from the fact that my body will likely face future problems as a result and that there are metal things in it that will remain there until I die. I was never quite suicidal, but I was far enough gone to consider leaving my career (for no good reason, I might add.) At the worst of things, I was staying up nights until I was exhausted enough to fall asleep immediately upon contact with the pillow, because otherwise I would stare at the ceiling shadows and cry. It took about a month to come to terms with things, and then another week to really feel that I’d begun to climb out of the pit. Mister Boyfriend’s unfailing encouragement and my mom’s visit both helped tremendously, as did all the comments, emails, cards and gifts. And around that same time my body finally began to turn the corner and regain some stamina, which meant that I could move around the apartment more and regain scraps of independence. My mental state is much better now. I’d even go so far as to say that I’m happy most of the time. I’m still not at all what I was before physically, but seeing improvement each day is immensely cheering.

Take going to class, for instance. I’ve been back twice now, last Thursday and today. Being able to feel somewhat connected with my department again is wonderful, but last week I was a rather passive attendee. Mister Boyfriend and my professor wheeled me around, and the experience still completely wore me out. This week I was able to wheel myself through the parking garage and down a hall, although Mister Boyfriend still did most of the pushing. Today was a beautiful day, so afterwards we ate lunch at the park (albeit in gale force winds) and then drove through the park, across town, through downtown, and along the Mississippi River. It was wonderful to be out and about again with my best friend, and to actually feel some sun and see some green after six months of winter. When we got back home I went back to my usual spot in the bedroom, but only because I’m most comfortable there.

The cast comes off a week from tomorrow, and then the gradual return to walking begins. I’m a-gonna look for a really cool cane.

Posted at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Me: [plays with Net Disaster in a strange state of fascination]
Him: “My God, you’re easily entertained.”
Me: “I’m broken. I’ve been out of the apartment twice in the past six and a half weeks. This is totally entertaining.”

For the record, I feel that the ‘flood’ option goes best with my current banner.

Posted at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Me: [plays with Net Disaster in a strange state of fascination]
Him: “My God, you’re easily entertained.”
Me: “I’m broken. I’ve been out of the apartment twice in the past six and a half weeks. This is totally entertaining.”

For the record, I feel that the ‘flood’ option goes best with my current banner.

Posted at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I requested my medical records during my last visit to my surgeon, and they came in today’s mail. Finally, I have a medical term to google - trimalleolar ankle fracture. The records themselves are fascinating reading (to me, anyway), and are generally reassuring since the phrases “tolerating well,” “recovering well,” and “doing well” appear regularly, as do the words “good,” “satisfied,” and “pleased.” “Satisfied” is used in the phrase “satisfied with the purchase” as in the purchase of the screws within my bones. Such a biblical phrase - to find purchase in her rocky soil. Didn’t the Cohen brothers use that in Raising Arizona? I had never hoped to hear anyone be satisfied with the purchase any metal object might find within my body, but under the circumstances hey, I’m satisfied too. Pleased, even.

The words “exsanguination” and “dissect” also appear in connection with my person. We won’t go into that.

The cast comes off two weeks from Friday, which means that I can begin learning to walk again and find out if I’m satisfied with my purchase. It’s the biggest purchase of my life so far: the mail also brought indication that the insurance company settled all of the $35,000 bill (if I’ve read everything correctly.) If so, the grad student insurance here well and truly rocks.

Posted at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Crutching around the apartment the other day, I noticed that it was really a controlled process of falling forward (as opposed to the uncontrolled backward fall I did to accomplish the breakage). And that, of course, put me in mind of the second half of Walking and Falling, from Laurie Anderson’s Big Science. (I’m still very tedious on crutches, which leaves lots of time for random notions.)

You’re walking. And you don’t always realize it,
but you’re always falling.
With each step you fall forward slightly.
And then catch yourself from falling.
Over and over, you’re falling.
And then catching yourself from falling.
And this is how you can be walking and falling
at the same time.

Posted at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It’s been a lovely few days, hanging out with my mom and catching up on schoolwork. I hadn’t seen her since I moved last summer, and she’s been my best friend for pretty much all of my life. Not much to report, though. Lots of talk. Blackeyed peas, greens, and cornbread have been consumed. She made it out to several gardens around town. I’ll be sad when she leaves tomorrow, but summer isn’t that far away, and I’ll make a visit home sometime then and finally get to see my Dad again too.

Posted at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Mister Boyfriend is headed down South this afternoon to take care of some family business, and my mother has been cool enough to come visit me while he’s gone. She left Arkansas yesterday morning, and put my father in charge of the house and the menagerie.

About two hours after she left, I got a call from Dad. He had been climbing the ladder to the attic when he slipped and fell. And when he landed, he looked over and saw that his ankle was completely twisted to the side. He could move it and walk on it, though, and so he went to his truck, drove himself to get lunch and rent a movie, and then called my brother to take him to the emergency room. He called me, laughing, as he was driving down the road to meet The Brother, to tell me what had happened. It turned out that he hadn’t broken anything, so they wrapped his ankle and sent him home on crutches. I told him that I appreciated his strong sympathy for my situation, but that this was carrying it a bit far.

What makes the whole thing even odder is that two days before that, my Godmother fell in her New Orleans house. And twisted her ankle. And is on crutches.

So, people who know me, beware! I have a contagious ankle, and one apparently need not be within 700 miles of me to catch it. Don’t fall off of things, and don’t fall down. Keep the world filled with as many happy ankles as possible and help break the curse.

Update: As mentioned in my comments, a professor in my department fell and broke hers the week after I did.
Additional update: And my mother reports that hers is feeling achy.
Yet another update: And apparently one only has to know a blogger who barely knows me.

Posted at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I finally finished the prescribed 30 days of Lovenox shots. In the process of it all, I learned that yes, I can indeed give myself shots in the stomach if called upon to do so. On the other hand, I hope to hell I never have to do that again.

(One would think that any person who spent four hours in the chair getting a single tattoo wouldn’t mind shots. One would be incorrect.)

Posted at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I discuss a rather gritty aspect of my surgery below the fold, so the faint of heart should consider themselves warned.

Continue reading "shift(ed)" »

Posted at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Itch itch itchy itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itchy itchy itch.

Posted at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The short version

Back from the first post-surgical checkup. Negotiating the stairs, the ice, and the car wasn’t as big a deal as we thought it would be. The break-away cast is gone, the staples are out, and I have a new, full purple cast. They tell me everything is healing nicely, but that I must remember that I am healing, not healed. My job is to lie still and get better. My leg must remain elevated as much as possible. I go back in four weeks.

Continue reading "checkup" »

Posted at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

— Harry Smart

Praise be to God who pities wankers
and has mercy on miserable bastards.
Praise be to God who pours his blessing
on reactionary warheads and racists.

For he knows what he is doing; the healthy
have no need of a doctor, the sinless
have no need of forgiveness. But, you say,
They do not deserve it. That is the point;

That is the point. When you try to wade
across the estuary at low tide, but misjudge
the distance, the currents, the soft ground
and are caught by the flood in deep schtuck,

then perhaps you will realize that God
is to be praised for delivering dickheads
from troubles they have made for themselves.
Praise be to God, who forgives sinners.

Let him who is without sin throw the first
headline. Let him who is without sin
build the gallows, prepare the noose,
say farewell to the convict with a kiss.

Thinking today about what it means to deserve and to earn, and about my own current situation and the amount of grace apparent in it, and then ran across this. Difficult stuff — I can readily apply it to immediate and personal situations, but not to greater horrors. Are we all, in the end, really human?

Enough. You have reached the winter of my discontent. Please leave a message at the sound of the tone.

Posted at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

— Billy Collins

Every day the body works in the fields on the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass —
the grass of civics, the grass of money —
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

Continue reading "The Night House" »

Posted at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

You are the pilot.


Saint Exupery's 'The Little Prince' Quiz.
brought to you by Quizilla

My mom tried to introduce me to The Little Prince as a child, but I didn’t get it until I was about 16. It became one of the Sacred Tomes, and now I keep several copies around the house at all times.

Posted at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When asked, I used to say,
“I want to be a doctor,”
Which is the same thing
As a child saying,
“I want to be a priest,”
Or
“I want to be a magician,”
Which is the laying on
Of hands, the vibrations,
The rabbit in the hat
Or the body in the cup,
The curing of the sick
And the raising of the dead.

“Fix and fix, you’re all better,”
I would say
To the neighborhood wounded
As we fought the world war
Through the vacant lots of Ohio.
“Fix and fix, you’re all better,”
And they would rise
To fight again.
But then
I saw my aunt die slowly of cancer
And a man struck down by a car.

All along I had really
Wanted to be a poet,
Which is, you see, almost the same thing as saying,
“I want to be a doctor,”
“I want to be a priest,”
Or
“I want to be a magician.”
All along, without realizing it,
I had wanted to be a poet.

Fix and fix, you’re all better.

- Paul Zimmer

Posted at 12:50 PM | Permalink

Posted at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
the ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus . . .

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there . . .
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

- LeRoi Jones

Even now, when I’ve so long abandoned literature for rhetoric, it’s poetry that saves me.

Posted at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Why can’t I write about anything else?

There really is nothing else. Not right now.

Later. Later, that will change. Six weeks, supposedly, until I can start trying to walk again.

Posted at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Right after my surgery, the orthopedic surgeon told Mister Boyfriend that he took a good look at my bones when he was working on them. Good bones. No signs of osteoporosis, good chances for solid healing. Apparently my lifelong love of all dairy products has paid off.

So ladies, that’s one way to solve the bone-density question. Have the doctor look at ’em from the inside.

Posted at 1:23 PM | Permalink

In response to my carrying on about reduced productivity, QB left a link to this Guardian article on Woolf’s writings on illness, and the impact of infirmity on her life and work. It reminded me of an article I read somewhere years ago on the frequency of extended illness among successful creative types, mostly in early childhood. Warhol always comes to mind as an example. In the Diaries, he discusses his childhood bouts with St. Vitus’ dance, which demanded long periods of bed rest. He entertained himself by reading celebrity rags, tracing and drawing the stars within. It makes perfect sense in the context of his later work, or vice versa.

I know that my childhood sickliness has everything to do with who I am now. I had spinal meningitis at two and recurring ear infections thereafter. I’m not sure how accurate my memory is, but I seem to recall being sick about as often as I was well between the ages of 2 and 6. I spent a ton of time in bed with all sorts of books, and an equal ton of time sprawled on the floor or couch with a blanket, scribbling away and drawing. The art projects may not have made me an artist, but they did give me a certain sensibility. The words, on the other hand, took over my life. I read everything I could get my hands on, age appropriate or not, and eventually begin to write my own things as well. I’ve written steadily ever since, and I don’t think I’ve been without reading material in at least twenty years, having picked up the habit of taking a book along everywhere early on. Several years before I quit Industry to be a full time student, an associate and I were making a three-hour commute to a meeting. We asked each other what we couldn’t live without. He said music, and I said language. He thought I was crazy. I couldn’t imagine any other answer. All of that eventually led to here, where words and their arrangement and contexts are really all I do.

Proust, of course, relied on bed rest as a central impetus to his work, and the Guardian piece suggests that Woolf wasn’t all that far behind him, at least periodically. I don’t plan on taking things that far. I do think it might be kind of convenient after I get my strength up a bit more, though. This semester is a rare semester, because all of my courses align precisely with my interests. The readings are really pushing my thinking along. I have an article mapped out in my mind. The conditions should be sort of perversely optimal for really getting something done. Right now there’s too much pain and not enough energy, but soon...

*Not that I would compare myself to Warhol. Or Woolf. or Proust.

Posted at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Schedule prior to breakage: Get up at 5:30 am, read blogs until 7ish, shower. Work in one form or another until around 5:30 pm. Do something about dinner, hang out with honey/work until 9. Try to work at least ten hours per day, but never less than eight. Go to sleep.

Schedule now: Get up at 8:30 or 9, depending on when pills wear off. Read blogs, eat breakfast, undertake journey to bathroom. 10:30 - start work. If teaching online class, one hour of reading/responding to email is about the limit. If reading, 30 pages is limit. Either way, eyes cross by noonish. Eat lunch. Nap for a couple of hours. 2:30 - read more if possible. 15 pages is about the limit this go-round. Check email. 5:00 - too tired to do more, start watching old episodes of Friends on DVD. Eat dinner. On alternate days undertake shower, which is 30 minute hour-long endeavor. Collapse back into bed about 8. Go to sleep.

Good thing everyone is being so understanding about my situation, because reading 45 pages a day ain’t the way to keep up with two doctoral seminars. I considered Monday my first day back at work and tried to work a six hour day, thereby accomplishing nothing except emails, trashing myself, and ruining my energy for Tuesday as well. A girl’s gotta know her limitations. Even though they said "major surgery," I somehow didn’t really think it applied to me. I mean, open-heart surgery is major surgery. All that happened to me was the opening of a major joint and the insertion of 11 pieces of steel titanium, some larger than others. Why am I tired?

I spent awhile trying to figure out if I should be concerned about sleeping so much, and decided no. I’m not sleeping out of depression. I’m sure a certain amount of it has to do with the painkillers, but I only take full doses of them at night, so it’s not like I’m loading up on them. I remember reading somewhere that the body does most of its healing when it’s asleep, and my mom reminded me of that the other day. This body has been through quite a bit, and I’ve decided I’m not going to begrudge it some rest.

I promise not to let this blog lapse into a carnival of whining. Seven weeks to go until I can begin to walk (knock wood).

Posted at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Schedule prior to breakage: Get up at 5:30 am, read blogs until 7ish, shower. Work in one form or another until around 5:30 pm. Do something about dinner, hang out with honey/work until 9. Try to work at least ten hours per day, but never less than eight. Go to sleep.

Schedule now: Get up at 8:30 or 9, depending on when pills wear off. Read blogs, eat breakfast, undertake journey to bathroom. 10:30 - start work. If teaching online class, one hour of reading/responding to email is about the limit. If reading, 30 pages is limit. Either way, eyes cross by noonish. Eat lunch. Nap for a couple of hours. 2:30 - read more if possible. 15 pages is about the limit this go-round. Check email. 5:00 - too tired to do more, start watching old episodes of Friends on DVD. Eat dinner. On alternate days undertake shower, which is 30 minute hour-long endeavor. Collapse back into bed about 8. Go to sleep.

Good thing everyone is being so understanding about my situation, because reading 45 pages a day ain’t the way to keep up with two doctoral seminars. I considered Monday my first day back at work and tried to work a six hour day, thereby accomplishing nothing except emails, trashing myself, and ruining my energy for Tuesday as well. A girl’s gotta know her limitations. Even though they said "major surgery," I somehow didn’t really think it applied to me. I mean, open-heart surgery is major surgery. All that happened to me was the opening of a major joint and the insertion of 11 pieces of steel titanium, some larger than others. Why am I tired?

I spent awhile trying to figure out if I should be concerned about sleeping so much, and decided no. I’m not sleeping out of depression. I’m sure a certain amount of it has to do with the painkillers, but I only take full doses of them at night, so it’s not like I’m loading up on them. I remember reading somewhere that the body does most of its healing when it’s asleep, and my mom reminded me of that the other day. This body has been through quite a bit, and I’ve decided I’m not going to begrudge it some rest.

I promise not to let this blog lapse into a carnival of whining. Seven weeks to go until I can begin to walk (knock wood).

Posted at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It’s really great when one of your oldest blog friends goes to the trouble of finding the Amazon wish list that you never link to for fear of tackiness, digs through all the work-related detritus to find a non-work book you want, and ships it to you as a surprise get-well gift from one cook to another.

Thanks, Steve. You made my day. And the rest of you must go read Steve’s immortal How to Make a Potato Salad immediately. Your life will be better for it.

Posted at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those who want to know, Mister Boyfriend and I will not be attending CCCC this year. My lack of inner ear balance makes me rather untrustworthy on crutches, and neither of us can imagine negotiating the trip and conference with a wheelchair. There’s also the small matter of whipping a paper into shape when one is physically wiped. All in all, better to stay home.

I’m disappointed, though, because I had looked forward to meeting so many people there, especially all the Syracusans who I feel I know more every day. And all the people from my previous department. And all the bloggers all over the place. I’ll also miss San Francisco, which is one of my very favorite cities, and a city Mister Boyfriend hasn’t seen in twenty years.

Sigh. Maybe next year, eh?

Posted at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Various individuals have asked how my department has handled my injury and absence, and their tones imply they expect a grad student horror story. Just for the record, my department could not possibly be more supportive than they have been. My course section has been covered, I’m still being paid, and my advisors have been very reassuring about my currently reduced work capacity.

Lately, there's been agitation for a grad student union on campus. Having worked at UPS for years before coming to grad school, I’m in favor of unions. But one of the big argumentation points they’ve pushed is our low salaries, and that’s a skewed argument, at least from my viewpoint within this department. I just wrote a grant that required me to wade into the salary and fringe benefit jungle to figure out the budget, so I have a fairly good idea of what standard salary and fringe work out to. Our grad student salaries are fairly low. I was offered more by other departments last year when I was on the Ph.D.-program-market. But here I (and every other grad student in the department) have full medical and dental insurance, for which the department shells out nearly as much as my salary. This is the only program in my area that I know of that offers such benefits, and the total compensation comes to $7,000 more than the best salary offer I received. This insurance just saved me approximately $20,000 in medical bills that would have ruined my chances at completing this Ph.D.

So thanks for asking, but no. I’m not feeling particularly oppressed at the moment. However, I still feel strongly about unionization, because I know just how damn lucky I am. Graduate students, as a rule, do not get health insurance. Every grad student in every department deserves to have basic medical coverage, both for the routine bodily whatnots and the major catastrophes. I cannot begin to imagine how I would deal with the costs of this accident - a capricious accident, one involving an unlucky slip on a bit of ice. It would, simply, have ruined what I have spent these past years working for.

Posted at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You people have to be tired of hearing about the pain, the pain, but I’m fascinated by it. I had no idea that there are so many varieties to be had. Really, the only way to deal with it is to sort of lie back and watch it play as color and music on a screen built of your body and mind.

I’ve noticed that for me, pain correlates with colors and vapor states. The original, first pain was primal and hysterical, a deep swirling cloud filled with occasional gusts and lightning bolts. After the reducing, there was a chaotic pain, much more frightening. It was like a rain symphony, swelling throughout the day and reaching its crescendo at nightfall, just before my surgery. It was a deep blue pain. The pain since then has been more ordered, a consistent still lake with occasional eddies and tides. Some sting-y creatures live in it and occasionally come out. This pain is still blue, but more of a greenish blue than the others. Everything is more; a drop of water on my big toe is a wave, a brush against a jacket hem a slap.

I find that sound affects it as well. Especially rattley, crinkley sounds. The first night home, Jeff wadded up a plastic sack, and the pain crinkled with the plastic. Last night, he opened our vertical window blinds, which always sway and clack when they’re moved. Every clack was a quick stab. Better to observe than be upset, because noises are a fact of life. I fired up iTunes this morning to fill the silence, but Tom Verlaine’s Warm and Cool set everything a-jangle. Perhaps silence is better, so I can float along on the tides and just watch.

Posted at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The thing to do, I think, is to ask myself: how did I get here? I got here by walking out of my front door into an early evening snowfall last Wednesday. I was going to see Mister Boyfriend off to class and then walk across to the apartment office to pick up some packages. I helped Jeff sweep the snow off his car, kissed him goodbye, put the broom back in the Kia, and then turned and slipped.

I always assumed that one would know the moment of breakage, would feel the snap and crumble. It’s not so. All I knew was that I wasn’t getting up soon, and that I was almost directly behind the passenger side of Jeff’s car, which would shortly be backing out. I started yelling and banging on the side of the car – banging in time with the drums on the stereo, as it turned out. For the longest time it seemed that he would never hear me, and then he did and turned the car off, and I collapsed back on the ice and snow. He came around the side and looked down with horror in his face, and knelt to lift my torso up off the ground. He wanted me to move to the foyer, where it was warm, but I refused. I asked him to go inside, get a blanket, and call 911. While he was gone I began to wonder if I had really broken something or if it was just a bad sprain like the one I had in 2000. I rolled my ankle experimentally, and it felt like gravel and icy slush inside. Completely broken. I am not a person who breaks things. This did not just happen to me.

Continue reading "bring the pain" »

Posted at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

So I slipped on the ice on Wednesday afternoon. The results were three ankle bones snapped, five days in the hospital, ten screws, one plate, and one major surgery. I had never broken a bone, had a cavity, major wound, or a baby, so this has been my introduction to pain. I’m told that this is one of the most painful breaks and corrective surgeries one can experience.

I’m mostly OK, though, and have been in very good spirits. Mister Boyfriend has been absolutely wonderful ever since he lifted me up onto the gurney. I couldn’t ask for a more attentive or sweeter partner. My family has sent phone calls and beautiful flowers. And all of you have been wonderful too - your comments cheered me up so much when Jeff printed them off and brought them to me. Thank you for all of your kind thoughts.

I’m sure I’ll tell the tale of all this more fully later. As it was all happening, I was hyper-aware and thinking of phrasing and paragraphs and whatnot. (How weird is that?) Now, I'm thinking of soup and another Darvocet. And then maybe a nap.

Posted at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Mr. Boyfriend again.

Krista came through surgery yesterday very well. I printed out the comments you all made and took them to her, and she was thrilled that people cared.

So far, the people at the hospital and the people at the U have been great. I won't make any more snide comments about "Minnesota nice" — it was much better than the "southern hospitality" I got when I broke my ankle.

Posted at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Mr. Boyfriend here.

Due to a bad break (of her ankle), Krista is not likely to post for a while. Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow.

If anything out of the ordinary happens, I'll post news here. Otherwise, look for Krista to tell the tale in a few days.

Posted at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)