Wednesday, April 28, 2010

April 28, 8 am

Up, washed, dressed, ready for the day. Last night was a bit hard. First real pain in surgical area. It felt like pressure pain, and nurse came and unwrapped dressing. Bottom of leg is dressed first with gauze and then with ace bandages that are made tight enough to begin to "shape" the end of the limb for the prosthetic. Nurse simply unwrapped the ace bandages, removed the dressing, and left me with an uncovered leg. In a while the pain left and I went back to sleep. But before that, I found myself thinking in haiku - and a bit of other poetic media and I came up with a few observations. I put them on electronic stickies (it was easier to find computer than pen and paper) - so here are my ruminations from 2am.

Haikus of a Hard Night

Wednesday, August 28 at 2 am


Brain learn quickly please
Stop sending energy there
It goes to nothing


The pain burns real
Six on scale of one to ten
But the foot is gone

Remove the wrapping
Release the pressure somewhat
Let the body rest

Nurses are a gift
They are creative and kind
At least, the good ones

Ode To The Bedside Commode
I am so glad you are there
Otherwise I would have to shoe my foot
I would have to stabilize myself in the walker
I would have to go from bed to walker to chair to water closet
I would have to transfer one legged to toilet
Then I would have to do the whole thing in reverse
With you it is a one hop stop - so easy
And who will empty you in the morning?

The lights in Hamrarville just blinked
I wonder what that has done to patients using support systems
Everything has just started churning - did it take a minute?
Are we on back-up systems?
I hope all is well.

Back to haiku mode---

The mind and the brain
They do not work the same
But they share one space

Mind is working well
Brain is confused and off course
Brain suffers from loss

Will attempt to sleep
Turn off lights, shut off that mind
Will the brain follow?

And that't the end of the night time ruminations. Turns out mind and brain both finally went to sleep.

The phantom pain is interesting. It is the same burning sensation that I was feeling in the distressed foot. It's not always there, and I'm going to assume it will go away over time. The other interesting tidbit is that I am not sure where the residual limb ends. I don't have a sense of place around it yet. So the brain really does have new learning to do. I'm not trying to rush the learning. I am observing the whole process with interest and awe and a bit of amusement.

I found a capuccino machine in the cafeteria yesterday and I'm going to head off and get myself a cup right now - and some other breakfast stuff.

1 comment:

  1. Hi, Annie. I'm sure your physical therapist knows all about this, and probably you do to, but I read an article in the New Yorker a year or two ago about phantom limb pain, which is a hot topic now because of all the injured vets coming back with missing arms and legs. You can apparently trick your brain by propping a mirror so that your complete limb is reflected, making it look as if you have an identical pair. Your reasonable brain knows it isn't there, but apparently your unreasonable brain can look at the limb that shouldn't be there and tell it not to hurt, or itch, or whatever, and it will stop. I don't know what sense that makes, but there seemed to be a lot of empirical evidence that it works. Pat

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