Post Surgery and the lack of ANY vanity

Isn't this adorable looking? It follows me everywhere I go and is especially delightful to deal with when trying to sleep under covers, turn from one side to the other and, like last night, do battle with one of my angry cats who didn't care much for this lumpy cast taking up her spot on the bed! Her growling and swatting is what woke me up at least twice. Not fun.

It's not like I have a whole lot to do right now simply because I can't do it. I'm still very unbalanced on my crutches so I hop around most of the time using a walker. My so called "good foot" will eventually need its own therapy if I keep that up! Luckily, I'm finding that several office chairs with wheels on them (and one has a handy armrest, too) are excellent means of transportation around the house. I'm just grateful I really don't HAVE to leave my home for another week when I have my follow-up meeting with my surgeon.

I looked at myself today and made one of those "ewwww" noises (I think even the mirror did so, too) - there I was with my hair sticking up like a cactus, dark circles under my eyes from doing "cat versus splint" battle during the night, and just overall kind of pathetic looking. Grooming is somewhat of a luxury at this point although I have taken one sponge bath (with some wonderful smelling soap provided by my partner) and washed my hair twice in the kitchen sink with a friend providing supervision over the rolling office chair (it kind of had a mind of its own!) and handing me a towel and gel, etc. The other real freaky thing is I seem to be having hot flashes galore, almost more than I have ever before and I haven't made the connection as to why. All I know is I'm sweaty all the time and it isn't helped by the fact that getting from the couch to the bathroom on my walker and then skating a bit on the office chair really does take a lot out of me. Then, of course, there's the pure awkwardness of ... um.... disrobing when you need to take care of the bathroom business. Having just one good arm at this point (the left one is hurting and achy most of the time) and of course just one usable foot makes things challenging to say the least.

As I sat with my ever elevated foot/ankle, diet soda, mixed nuts and vanilla pudding not far away, watching (groan) daytime TV (which quickly became my new favorite DVD, "Damages" starring Glenn Close), I couldn't help but envision myself as the poster child for "Welfare Slug"...you know, the kind that soak up hours of TV, look like crap, stuff their face and someone else pays them to do this? In my case, it's worker's comp but, of course, this isn't by choice, it's by circumstance. All the same, I definitely was aware of the parallels for a little while. With my luck, some worker's comp investigator will be peeking in my window with his camera ready JUST as I am taking one of my wheely office chair rides and assume I'm just fine! Oh well.....!