Celebration, Complaining and the Pootie-Wootie Mobile

Celebration. Yesterday was a bit of a milestone day. My pain pills can be taken every 4-6 hours. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for pain--married with children explains that! But since my injury, I've essentially required staying on my pain regimen every four hours. I would wait until 11 p.m. to go to bed. When my husband (who falls asleep in front of the TV nightly) would come up at 2 a.m., he would fetch water for my 2 a.m. pain pill. Each morning, I would wake with my foot in searing pain. So there was another at 6 a.m. Take, repeat. At hour three the discomfort would come gnawing back. I'd wait for hour four. Tick, tock--counting every minutes. I felt like a drug addict waiting for my next hit.

Yesterday, though, I was able to extend the period between dosing. It was a welcome respite from the clock watching. I had no 2 a.m. pill, but at 6 a.m. I was in agony. I was able to wait until 1:30 p.m. to take my next pill. Here it is almost 6:30, and I think that I might be able to wait until later. I know that sound like a lot about nothing, but it was a happy milestone for me.

Complaining. I continue to find this cast thing very uncomfortable. Trust me that when I say uncomfortable, that is an understatement. I'm a shoeless gal. I don't wear shoes inside. I'm always barefoot in the house. At work, I would always slip my feet out of my shoes (under my desk of course). I drive with shoes. I walk outside or in an office with shoes. Otherwise, my home is a nudist camp for my feet. One I dropped a knife on my toe in the kitchen--so if I'm cooking, I do slip shoes on. Slip ons. I love them. Slip on shoes were the root of my current demise. They are not made for precision--and when you are fooling with dogs, you need precision.

My foot in a cast, then, is like a claustrophobic in an elevator. I never had much empathy for that feeling only because I could never understand it. I understand it now. In spades. That having a cast on my foot is causing anxiety seems strange to me. I'm not a a worrier nor am I an anxious person. But, my foot was very swollen, and I suspect that some of the tightness is from my foot swelling from gravity. So tightness, pressure points from the cast, heat and itching are all discomforts that I must endure for another 5 weeks. I have found a metal shishkabob holder to be a perfect tool for getting to those hard to reach places. Ice helps with swelling and hotness. Listen to me sounding like a whiney-baby. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Pootie-Wootie Mobile. Thank goodness for my Craftsmen rolling mechanic's bench. When my kids were young they had "walkers"....those need little seats you could put them in so they could walk, before they could really walk. It had a tray for toys and Cheerios, and bumpers all around. They could really move around in those things. I called it the "pootie-wootie mobile". When our kids had a full diaper, I would talk to them and ask them "are you pootie-wootie."

In general, I did not baby-talk to my kids. But poopy diapers meant that they were pootie-wootie. When they nursed, I asked them if they wanted some wink-wink. When it was bed time, they went to winkie land (from a baby song). My daughter's nickname for along time was "Wink". I still call going to bed, "going to winkieland."

Well here I was rolling around on my Craftsman bench and Hannah, the original pootie-wootie rider now 20, asked "Do you like your pootie-wootie mobile". I laughed so hard I almost fell off. It just rolled off her tongue. She wasn't trying to be smart or cute, she was calling my Craftsmen rolling bench very matter-of-factly a "pootie-wootie mobile". So you can imagine me rolling around in my p-w mobile in my home. No shoes. At least I don't wear diapers--but that might not be too far off in the future.