Two weeks until I will be allowed to walk on my left leg again. 14 days. January 16. Two weeks of walkers and crutches and hopping. Two weeks left of not being able to go up the stairs or out of the house by myself. Two weeks of sleeping in a rented hospital bed in the basement. (Though, I admit, I have gotten kind of fond of the motorized incline/recline feature.) Two weeks of not being able to carry anything. Two weeks of having to ask for help with so many things.
Nine more visits from the home health aide. Seth is overwhelmed in the mornings with trying to get himself and the children ready and get everyone out the door in the mornings, so we elected to get a home health aide to help me during the week with all of the things that I can't do. Hannah is her name, from Sierra Leone. She used to have to help me to even get dressed, putting on my socks and pants because I could not. Now, the one thing that I truly can't do still is shower by myself. It is just too dangerous and difficult to hop over the marble ledge into the stall shower, position the shower seat, get myself back out. It's too slippery; I can't risk a fall.
The aide also changes the sheets, fluffs the pillows, runs a load of laundry, picks up all the detritus and toys that might get in my way, makes me feel calmer by at least decluttering the space immediately around me. Still, I am feeling resentful, intruded upon, weary, of a stranger having to help me with these basic tasks. I am not particularly modest, but I just want to take a shower and get dressed by myself. Two weeks.
I wish that my head wound had such a certain countdown. I wish there were a deadline for the daily dressing changes. I wish I knew when I'd quit losing clumps of hair still. I wish we knew how it was going to heal, and whether any other procedures will be required.
Even if I am walking in two weeks, it may not be practicable for me to start going into the office, because of the still-daily dressing changes on my head. Now, I delicately remove the old dressing in the morning, gingerly wash my hair and head, rinsing the old antibiotic creams out of my skin and hair. Then, it's all exposed, all out there, the scabs, the Frankenstein scar spanning the top of my head, almost from ear to ear. The nurse comes between 11 and 12 to apply a new dressing: cleaning with saline any remaining goop, applying an antibotic cream, then a special antibiotic gauze, then wrapping the whole thing in regular gauze. Only then can I put on a hat and pretend to look normal, tucking the stark white of the gauze under my hat and under my hair.
I hate not knowing how long my head wound will be such a burden. I hate not knowing how/when my hair will all grow back. I hate not knowing yet how it is going to heal, how long that will take, whether I will have to have another procedure, and when and how, and how long. I am impatient with such uncertainty. I just want it to be over with.
***
I paid the stupid ticket today. The $5 citation for "suddenly stepping into the path of a moving vehicle" as the cop wrote on the paper ticket. I paid it online, and then shredded that piece of paper. Seth and I discussed contesting it, but with what evidence? To what end? It's just $5 and it pisses me off, but now it's done.
A few people have asked if we are going to sue the driver. My answer has always been unequivocally "no." I'm a lawyer; I know what a pain in the ass filing suit is. It is long, drawn-out, stressful, expensive, emotional, draining, and with an uncertain outcome. I have good insurance. I have financial means. I don't need or want to have my life and decisions laid out in interrogatories and depositions, be humiliated, be even more stressed than I already am. I'm not interested. I want to close the door, and be past this. I want to move on, up, away.
I want to just keep counting down.
Comments