Hurd Update Monday & Tuesday (7-28 & 29-2014): While doing some demolition work at the church work day on Saturday morning, I got bonked on the head with a long 2x4 as it fell. I was sent home with a suspected slight concussion. By Saturday night I was feeling okay--still had a good headache going on and my head was sore where the board hit me. I am pleased to announce that the board that hit me was damaged more than my head and was thrown away as trash--just proof that I have a hard head. Seriously, I was grateful because the board had a lot of 16p nails sticking out of it, my head managed to find a spot on the board without any nails. The damage to me could have been much worse. Now on Monday night, my head is still tender but the headache is gone. I was supposed to attend a friend’s wedding on Saturday afternoon. I was very disappointed not to be able to attend. I really wasn’t up to driving or partying so I just had a quiet evening at home. On Sunday I made it through church with the help of some ibuprofen and didn’t do much the rest of the day. I was itching to go for a bike ride but didn’t feel up to it; excessive movement made my headache worse. Monday really went to pieces on me. I noticed that our refrigerator was not working. It is completely dead—two of my sons came over and brought our old refrigerator up from the basement. Since all the kids moved out we no longer needed a second fridge and we had talked about trashing our old one. It’s over 20 years old and has a lot of wear and tear—but it runs. The newer one that replaced it is five years old and something probably blew on the computer board. So glad we hadn’t gotten rid of the old one yet. Trying to diagnose the problem and getting it moved upstairs took the morning. Then I had to go to the Register of Deeds at the Courthouse to take care of an issue (I was thankful that was easily resolved). I did the grocery shopping for the week and got home in the early afternoon. Unloading groceries with a prosthesis is much slower than before the surgery. If the items are light, I can take two bags but normally I make a separate trip for each bag. And I thought unloading groceries took a long time before; now I know better. I saw a bilateral below the knee amputee while shopping at Sam’s. Bilateral means both legs were amputated. I was going to go say hello but he got out the door before I could nab him. Like me, he used a motorized cart while shopping and then walked out of the store. He walked very well without a cane. My day is coming! After the groceries I was finally free to go on a 9 mile bike ride. How is it that the wind can blow in your face no matter which direction you are headed? On the positive side—no gnats! I got a good workout riding back home with a stiff wind in my face and I made it up both of the hills I decided to ride over. With the wind against me that was quite a feat. Dogs were especially “friendly” today. I came very close to being bit twice. Both times I was headed uphill and already in first gear and had nothing extra to boost my speed. One dog circled me a half dozen times. The owner finally called him off. I used my foot to gently push the other dog’s face away from my leg. I am surprised he let me do that without biting me. I was pretty calm both times surprisingly. There was really nothing I could do to stop the attack, so I was pretty relaxed—maybe since I wasn’t speeding away or showing fear, the dogs figured that I didn’t taste good enough to bite? After my bike ride I mowed my lawn and trimmed a couple of bushes that had gone native. I’ve got some video of me mowing the lawn. This is the second time I’ve mown my own lawn. It takes a lot of energy for me to push mow and with frequent rest breaks it takes 3-4 times longer to get the entire yard cut. Here a link is a short video of me mowing the lawn: youtu.be/EZN5gNA_ePQ After dinner I changed my hand bells to a higher weight. I do a lot of weight training with hand bells and it was time to increase the weight I am lifting. Having to use the handrail on the stairs meant that I could only carry one down and one back up at a time. All my weights are downstairs except the ones I am currently using. I don’t usually go up and down the flights of stairs at home more than once every few days. It takes a lot of extra energy to go up the stairs and quite a bit of mental energy to go down; so I limit what I do. I ended up getting lots of good exercise on the stairs as I traded my sets of 10 & 12 lbs. for the 15 & 20 lbs. sets. When I took my prosthesis off before bed on Monday, I found that I had developed a sore on the back of my residual limb. It feels like a bad rug burn. My liner must have pinched and rubbed me raw. That means that I won’t be wearing my leg for the next few days because the wound has to heal. Wound care is extremely important for an amputee and an open sore halts use of the leg. I have sent an email into my doctor to verify what needs to be done.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:12:51 +0000
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