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March 17, 2018

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

This has been a crazy week!

We drove up to Seattle for the weekend to attend the annual lunch and meeting of the Northwest Steam Society. We had made reservations at a hotel in Tacoma to spend Friday and Saturday nights so we only had to drive in Seattle on Saturday. We then drove back home on Sunday. The weather was gorgeous and it was fun watching all the boats and paddle boarders on Lake Union while we ate our lunch at Ivar's Salmon House. It was nice to be able to visit with people I haven't seen for awhile.

Sunday evening was our every-other-monthly soup get together. There are three couples in our group and we rotate between each other's houses for the event. The host then gets to invite another couple. The invited couple this time was a high-school classmate of mine and his wife so it was somebody we already knew. He had also worked with the host couple before retiring. With all my socializing all weekend I was pretty tired by the time that was over.

Monday was disastrous. I was going down the stairs and missed the last step. I ended up in a heap at the bottom with my left foot pinned under me. After scooting around to get my foot freed, I saw it was all bent wrong and I couldn't walk on it. I managed to scoot myself over to the office door so I could call for help but Dave - who was working outside - couldn't hear me. Of course I didn't have my cell phone to call him and we can't make long distance calls on the landline. So my next idea was to call our dear friends down the street and have them call Dave's cell so he could come and help me off the floor. Dave got me in the car and off we went to Urgent Care just down the road in Manzanita. They took one look at me and recommended I go to the Emergency Room in Tillamook. After arriving, they took X-rays and saw that I had broken my ankle in two places and pulled the bone out of the ankle socket. Ouch! They put a splint on my ankle/leg and sent me on my way. I had appointment with an orthopedic surgeon on Thursday and he scheduled me for surgery on Monday. Screws and pins will be inserted as well as wrapping me in a cast to completely immobilize my ankle until it heals. The surgery isn't until Monday afternoon but I should still be able to come home that evening.

Adjusting to crutches and a wheelchair has been tough and not being able to put any weight on my left leg has been a learning experience. I have never broken a bone before so this is all new to me. Dave took the doors off the bedroom and bathroom to make the openings a little wider and to make it easier to navigate the wheelchair. He built a ramp on the two steps out the back door to make it easier to get to the car when I need to. Dave has been such a help with getting me in and out of the wheelchair and doing some of the household chores around here.

I have already posted about our plans for a trans-Canada train trip later this spring. Well, we're going to have to see about that. The doctor really doesn't want me to travel until I'm completely healed and it really doesn't make much sense to me either. If we can postpone the trip without any penalties, we're thinking we may re-schedule it for later in the year.

One thing good that came out of all this is changing the way I buy groceries. I had been looking into the option that several grocery stores now offer of shopping online and then picking the groceries up at curbside from the store. Well, being confined to a wheelchair has sort of pushed me into actually trying to do just that. So, I sat down at the computer Wednesday night and went down my list - ordering everything on it. Before we saw the doctor on Thursday, we drove over to Fred Meyer and they not only delivered the groceries to the car, but they also took them out of their plastic bags, re-packed them in my re-usable bags and put them in the back seat for me! I think I will miss wandering the aisles doing a little "impulse buying" while I shop, but saving an hour or two every time I go grocery shopping is worth it. I think I'm sold on this and will continue to shop this way even after i get well. Besides, I probably don't need those impulse purchases anyway!