Day two at Le Chateau opens with what sounds vaguely like a women's voice echoing somewhere off in the distance. "Good morning Mr. Dufus. How are we today"? I open my eyes and, although blurry, not so blurry that I don't quickly realize I have the most beautiful women hovering in the cloud above my bed. Firing on all cylinders I quickly respond with "OMG!! I guess I died in the night 'cause you've got to be an angel"! Heh, heh, heh......
Not the case. My GP was out of town at the time of the accident so she had left her responsibilities with an associate from her practice. She gets to break the news of the damage and informs me that the orthopedic surgeon will be in later today to suggest a course of treatment. Excellent. So long as it involves plenty more o' the morphine that got me so pleasantly through the night.
The surgeon arrives later that morning to inform me that "The right foot is going to be just fine". That's the good news. "The left unfortunately", not his words, "will never be the same" due to the previously explained diagnosis. Further good news indicates that there will be no pins, nor plates, nor rods involved. In fact, no surgery at all.
There are two methods of treatment for shattered calcaneus. Operative and non- operative, depending on the amount of damage. Both are limited in there capacity to actually correct the problem to pre trauma condition. Mine will be the non-operative fix. They simply wait for the swelling to diminish to set the feet, cast 'em, and then I will be on my way. The right need be cast for the same period of time. Immobilized for a period of six weeks. Most excellent. My first experience with life in a wheel chair. But only for six weeks. And I do get to walk away. Sort of. Maybe more like hobble away. I am left to contemplate further on just what I was thinking. Fortunately the drugs have me on my return flight to Never Never Land in no time.
Later that very same morning, I am rather rudely awakened by a very large, very matter-of-fact, Mrs Doubtfire kind of a nurse, who comes bullying into my room, tosses the drapes open, and says "Good morning Mr. Dufus. Will we (?) be having a bath today?"
The sunlight floods the room. "Uhhhhhh pardon me?". I do believe I am in the throws of a drug induced nightmare that involves a talking hippo in a nurses cap. "Hello?? What was that you said? Are you speaking? To me?" Nurse Ratchet repeats, "Will we be having a bath today?"
Tough question to respond to in the state I currently find myself. The part that concerns me most is the reference to "we". Never having been in this incapacitated condition before, I quickly, or as quickly as a drug induced coma can allow, try to assess what exactly she means by 'we'. Seems like five minutes go by as images of me, ridin' the black and white hippo, bare back, in a bath tub, flood my mind. Yikes!!!!
"Uhhhhhh, you know, I really haven't been, uhhhh, doing a lot lately. Just a short flight from a ladder.....And I really wasn't, uhhhhh workin' very hard. Gravity did most of the work. I really feel, uhhhh surprisingly refreshed this morning.... all things considered. I think I'll pass". She exits without further comment.
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