Dad here; as most of you now know, I had an unplanned motorcycle dismount on our last trip to New Mexico, resulting in a dislocated ankle and broken fibula. “Fibula” is an ancient Mayan word meaning “bone that carries small load but much pain”. Surgery is planned for next week, and those that know me will attest to the fact that the Casa is in for a wild ride. You see, I have a VERY low tolerance for pain meds in general, and anaesthesia in particular, to the point that surgeons would much rather give me an epidural than put me under any general anesthesia.
An example: I once had a colonoscopy. Everyone complains about the “prep”, which is an ancient native American term for “what cow does on flat rock”, and neither did I enjoy having to install a safety harness on the toilet to prevent liftoff and first-stage separation upon achieving orbit. But I knew that the true festivities would be enjoyed the next day; I warned them at the Kolonoscopy Klinik that they would have a terrible time trying to wake me up,and there was no predicting what I would say or do when I did.
But did they listen? Noooo…
Jo Ann dropped me off and,based on prior experience being indicative of future results, wisely fled the scene, leaving my buddy Ron to give me a ride home. Now, Ron is a great guy, but is obviously not known for his intelligent life choices.
He’s hanging out in the waiting room. admiring the centerfold in the well-thumbed copy of Modern Maturity magazine when he hears me getting rowdy in the recovery room a few doors down. The nurses evidently think that his presence may have a calming effect on one so “animated”, so they fetch the poor guy to work his magic. Ron is ushered into the porcelain hell just in time to see me, buck naked except for socks and tennis shoes, cavorting around the room like a deranged hobbit under a midsummer night’s moon. The Rubenesque nurse in attendance was holding a clear plastic bag containing my clothes between us(did I mention the bag was clear? I fail to see the wisdom in THAT decision), and saying, “Mr Winingar! Mr Winingar! Some modesty please!”. It took all hands on deck to get me clothed and sitting in my right mind, although I was later informed that at one point I told Nurse Mimi that “her eyeshadow matched her scrubs, but I thought that she was hot anyway.”
I’m pretty sure I’m not welcome there anymore. Or I guess what scares me worse is that I AM welcome there; either way, I believe that I will take my future colonoscopy trade elsewhere.
So you can see why I’m a bit concerned about next week’s surgery; this ain’t my first go around in the complicated ankle surgery department. Years ago, during Hurricane Katrina actually, I was playing basketball with the kids when I heard a BANG! and I dropped like a sack of suet. I had ruptured my Achilles tendon, pulled it completely in twain, leaving my poor foot flopping like a flounder.
When the doctor reattached the tendon in an outpatient procedure, they(surprise!) couldn’t get me roused enough to send me home by close of business. I think that they finally had to hit me with a massive dose of the equivalent of pharmaceutical meth to get me up and out of there; it worked, but result was a severerly jacked-up but skulled out of his head basket case.
Jo Ann and the kids went to bed that night, leaving me all alone with plenty of time to contemplate the horrifying fact that the cast was too long and I COULDN’T SEE MY TOES! What’s more, the little piggies were wadded up somewhere inside there, a condition guaranteed to put me over the edge under normal circumstances and without the benefits of chemical enhancement. So what to do but crutch out to the shop and grab the tin snips and the hacksaw and do a little home improvement?
I trimmed a bit of the cast away, and my toes were so vocal in their appreciation concerning their recent emancipation that I figured that a little extra modification was warranted. Before I knew it, a majority of the cast was AWOL, and I realized that I may have been a bit overzealous in my trimming, so I snuck sheepishly into bed to deal with mom’s wrath in the morning.
Of course, she walked into the living room to find it awash with plaster, cotton wadding, shop tools, and discarded self respect. She had no choice but to cart me back to the hospital to get the leg recasted; it’s a miracle that they didn’t send me home with the Cone of Shame locked around my neck.
This started a whole humiliating chain of events that must be explained later, involving but not limited to toilet plungers on crutches, an old black man’s walker at the Wal Marks, and on and on. So maybe you now understand my(our)apprehension at the thought of dear old dad going under the mask once again…
It’s always a party; stay tuned.
