Not Special. Just Stupid.

 As I'm now nearly three weeks into this, ouch.  

Yes, my foot.  

There are many lessons I will take from this experience.  The very first being I am not a health care professional, and barely intelligent.  If I experience any sort of foot "itching" that is uncomfortable, the first step is going to be an urgent care stop.  I can hope it will be athlete's foot, but I have learned my lesson.

As this is the second time I've had a major health scare, I suppose I should feel pretty good about surviving it.  As family history is fairly indicative of what someone might expect, I'm doing pretty good.  When my father was 57, he had a fairly severe heart attack.  He had the good sense to get to the hospital before the worst of it occurred, and back in the day when health care wasn't a political issue, and he had an employer who valued their employees highly enough to provide good health insurance, he spent a few weeks in the hospital.

I, thank God, didn't need to be in there that long.  About twenty years ago, I remember wondering what it might like to have a hospital stay where all you did was recover from whatever it was that put you there.  Oh, how naive I was.  Hospitals aren't restful.  I believe that much of their daily procedures have been developed from caring for attorneys who specialize in suing them, because I cannot believe that people who do truly care and want you to get better would not insist on waking you up every 2 hours and poking, prodding, and reviewing your vital signs.

As to my current healing, it's slow.  Then again, when you start with a hole in your foot that's 5 cm x 4 cm by over a centimeter deep, it's gonna take some time.  And the wound vacuum is no longer a part of me.  Which is, I think, not great news.  My previous crater in my shin was a three month ... drag, frankly, but it healed.  I have a sort of divot on the front of my left shin which encourages me not to wear shorts, because it's that noticeable. 

While I've never been a fan of going barefoot outdoors, I did enjoy sleeping in bare feet - it helped me to cool off.  But that's not an option now.  I have a sock over the "wet/dry" dressing on my foot, which is where they place some wet gauze (soaked with a wound wash) into the wound, then top it with a gauze pad, then wrap the whole thing with more gauze.  And on top of that I put a sock with is large, non-skid, and ... well, it's a foot covering.  

And the pain is ... well, I will say that having made it this far out and still having 2 of the 5 oxy pills they sent me home with from the hospital, I feel it's a bit of a victory for my stubborn, because I keep telling myself "it ain't that bad, it might be worse in the future, hang on."

Over the years, I have learned a fair bit about my body, and I do know that when it comes to muscle or body aches, ibuprofen does a good job in taking care of it for me.  Because of the state of my kidneys, I do not take ibuprofen.  I had gone a dozen years not taking it when this thing flared up, and finally, before I gave in and went to the urgent care and later the hospital, I did have two doses - only two pills each - before I headed to the urgent care.

Since coming home, I've had to rely on the generic form of Aleve, which I believe is called "naproxen sodium" - and does help take the edge off.  I've taken two pills several days at bed time to cut the pain down to a point where I can sleep.  When I don't, well, that's where the oxy pills I did take went.  

So beyond the general state of health, I hear you asking "how's the rest of it?"

I can't really complain.  Due to my ... less than optimal state, and the insistence of my wife, she broke down and purchased a fake Christmas tree.  Her point was that she did not want here in the house anything where I might not notice I'd stepped on something small and sharp.  Like a pine needle.

When we first got married and started our family, we lived in apartments, and after a fire in our last apartment complex, they changed the rules, and real trees were no longer permitted.  Which did increase the cost of Christmas a bit.  I mean, real, live trees aren't cheap, but good trees could be found at anywhere from $20 - $75, which is far cheaper than an acceptable fake tree.

Of all of the "fake" trees we've had, the one I do truly miss was the little fiber optic tree we got when we were in our house, which was a pretty spectacular thing.  Most of the tree "needles" were fiber optic strands which were lit from the base of the tree, where a very bright bulb sat below a spinning glass disk that had strips and spots of various colors painted on it.  It spun, changing the colors of the ends of the needles, which did project the colored lights onto the walls and ceiling.  And it was just pretty.

And, when we had to leave that house due to the foreclosure, we left it behind.  We lost a lot of stuff I regret when we lost that house, so whenever I see these "decluttering" experts I cringe and growl.  I "decluttered" in a way that really hurt, deeply.  I left many things I wish I had kept.  But when you need to move and downsize, you do what you have to do.  It is what it is, as they say.

Beyond that, not much other news out there for me.  Still employed, still fighting the good fight at work.  I don't provide health care, I work for my employer to make sure the people who do get their health taken care of by those professionals who know what they're doing, I am the person who tries to make sure that the patient and their family doesn't get any of those ugly surprises.

It still surprises me that the insurance industry exists in such a fashion that there's someone out there who is relying on our concern for our health and the health of our family to make them a profit.  In my home state of Minnesota, it is illegal to profit from someone's health care with regards to hospitals and the like.  And while you might think to yourself "well, those hospitals must suck" nothing could be farther from the truth.  One of the arguably best hospitals in the entire world exists and was started in this state - the Mayo Clinic.  

And that doesn't mean that for profit businesses can't provide health care - it does mean that hospitals are not for profit.  Which means that my recent hospital stay does not become a bonus for some members of an organization just because I got sick.  

Before tearing down that highway to hell, I'll just note that it is what it is and move on.

Monday marks the quarter-century mark of the start of the most terrifying experience I have ever had in my entire life.  And it's a joyous anniversary.  This Monday, my son turns 25, and I get to remember the stomach-churning fear that started when I took my daughter and a family friend down the hall to the Neonatal Unit at the same hospital I just spent a week in to see my new baby son - who wasn't in that room any longer.  A new doctor whom I'd yet to meet decided he needed to be moved to another hospital with a higher level of care.  As noted above, we have a pretty good system here with many hospitals, and one of them does specialize in kids - thank God.  

Because when baby boys are born a few weeks early, their lungs have taken a step backwards during their development, and they have problems exhaling used gasses out of their bodies, which puts them in danger of basically suffocating themselves.  And so my baby took a ride into one of the dicier neighborhoods in the city in an ambulance, while I had to drive through freezing rain to that hospital to sit by his bedside for a few hours until he was definitely out of the woods.  

Instead of updating relatives with countless phone calls, I was fortunate to have one side of the family who was technologically savvy enough - back then - to use the internet.  I had the skills and capabilities to use my internet "home page" (remember those?  Those of you younger folks can google MySpace and AOL and learn all about it) to put up the developing situation where my boy survived, and thrived.

As he continues to do daily.  As does my daughter, as well.  My wife also continues to keep me in line, so we're all fine.  I hope you are, as well.