Stories
Creative courage
Creative decorating
It was time for the stitches to come out. The sutures constantly caught in the cotton liner inside the plaster splint cast and pulled. There was no way to turn my leg so it didn't hurt because there were stitches on both sides of my ankle so I was glad they were coming out. Some didn't hurt as they were removed, but the ones done at the first hospital hurt like the dickens. Every step of my recovery from a compound ankle fracture gets a little bit better.
It began with the first surgery that placed an external fixation cage around my ankle to stabilize it. I had been taken into the operating room to clean the wound where my bone broke through the skin. Often this is a first step to wait for some swelling to subside before surgery is done to fix the bones back in place with plates and screws. A fixator is a hard thing to live with and the two and a half weeks I had one seemed like an eternity. It is like someone is constantly kicking your shins and you try not to bump it on anything. I tried to make the best of it, so I tested to see if this new apparatus improved the reception during a weather forecast. I took a few foot selfy photos at some places at Mayo a day before the surgery that removed it.
Designing for healing the spirit
Now with the splint cast's removal, I was asked to choose a color for a fiberglass cast, and I chose green. It seemed like the right choice because I wanted to paste pictures of my horse on the cast..... anything to help me forget that my foot would now be confined in a cast that was unforgiving to a foot that wanted to swell most of the time. The first few days were the hardest because stitch removal caused some swelling and all I could do was lay on the couch and keep my “toes higher than my nose” on advice from the medical team and to use pain medicine as needed.
To my surprise, the nurse brought some printed horse photos that we stuck on my cast as it dried. My cast got the attention of a lot of people as I wheeled myself around at Mayo. This pictures didn't stick well, so when I was back at home, I redesigned my cast with new pictures. I chose to only use my own horse and not the horse I had been riding at the time of my accident. I created a funny photo of my horse dressed as a surgeon and I featured him as a surgical assistant to my real surgeon and placed them in front of some beautiful stained glass windows at St. Mary's Hospital as the main picture, and had more pictures of my horse and one decorative trim above my toes with my 3 cats. In one of the pictures, I was riding my horse which I was looking forward to be able to do again after my bones had healed.
A little humor for healing
My creativity delighted a lot of people, so I would casually ask what would be the best thing to do with the cast when I no longer needed it. I asked what I should make out of it, a beer stein or a leg lamp and I would get a smile and a chuckle from my audience. Overwhelmingly, the idea of a leg lamp won out even from the male nurse who cut the cast off of my leg. He said it was a shame to cut a cast as nice as this. Most of the decorations were on the front, so I did save the front just for fun. Maybe it will reside in a shadow memory box some day.. or maybe not. For now, I have more important things to do in just healing.
And into the future
As badly as I wanted to be released from the confines of the cast, my leg hurt more with out it. I was able to clean up my foot from the insults of the surgical distinfectant and to rub away all the old skin and find the tender pink skin beneath it. A new walking boot was mine that had an air pump to inflate it and that felt better than the hard cast had been. I had more padding and was more comfortable, at least until I started trying to bear some weight on it.
So that is my task now... to keep working on rehabbing and strengthening my foot and ankle. No doubt, there will be challenges ahead and I will stay focused on my task.
A Charcoal portrait
When I was about to start the painting for my neurosurgeon at Mayo, I was delayed a couple weeks in starting because I needed some emergency oral surgery. For the first time, I came to an appointment with an oral surgeon I had not met, and because of what I learned with my prior experience with spine surgery, I had some new coping strategies to help me. As I drove there I sang the songs from Roger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella which was a favorite program as I was growing up. I had been using this music as I was learning to face my fears of spine surgery, so I could revisit my learned methods to help me now.
Courage
For the first time, I was ready to have a surgery on the spot without having to think about it and come back later. I had an old root canal that had failed and the infection had migrated into my jaw bone. I was meeting Dr. Michael Nick at the North Suburban Center for Oral and Facial Surgery for the first time. I knew I was in trouble because I had a soft spot on the roof of my mouth and found a blister on my gums above the tooth. Since I hadn't met Dr. Nick yet, I told myself I was just coming for an evaluation and it kept me from thinking about the surgery I knew was coming. I had already spoken with my regular dentist about my situation and he sent me to Dr. Nick.
Connections
I asked Dr. Nick to tell me something about himself that had nothing to do with the reason I had come to see him, and he showed me a photo of his little girl. It was Halloween, and he was going to take her trick or treating later that day. I had something nice to think about instead of why I was here and knowing that my doctor is a dad with a nice family helped me feel safe. That is what had been missing as I grew up; I didn't get the support I needed to feel safe when facing a fearful situation. The fears remained as a child inside me even though I had grown up and had a lot of life experience.
I told him about my history of breaking my teeth as a kid and how it started a series of stressful evolving dental work. I told Dr. Nick about my past history of fearing dental work and pain. As I was growing up, I didn't handle this very well, but here and now it was different. I had had some other experiences to compare the experience, and I knew that since I had been able to handle other medical procedures that were a lot more painful, that I could handle this. It was just one day in my life and I would get through it. I told him I was ready to proceed. I was already in pain because of the advanced infection, and waiting longer didn't make sense.
He was kind and apologetic for the injections he had to do. Part way through the procedure, I got curious about what he was doing, so I started watching him work in the reflection on his face shield and watched as he knotted the sutures.
I enjoy drawing my doctors
After I got home, he called me to check on me and see how I was doing. By that time I was in some pain and resting. He had been patient and kind, and I told him about the painting I was about to begin for my Mayo neurosurgeon, and I thanked him for being kind to me and offered to do a portrait drawing for him and he happily accepted my offer. At my next appointment for followup, I brought my camera and the watercolor portrait of my other surgeon that was about half finished. Dr. Nick posed for a few pictures and I explained how the lighting needed to be stronger on one side to make a good image for drawing and I showed him the images on my camera.
The Surprise Unveiling
I made a special trip to deliver my completed drawing to the office, and I waited in the conference room. Dr. Nick and several staff came into the room, and I got out the drawing. When he opened his eyes, his face lit up and he smiled. As soon as I laid the drawing on the table, he hugged me. That's very nice for a patient like me who had come so far in confronting and beating my fears. I handed the drawing to Dr. Nick to hold so I could take a photo of him with it and he told me that he could calmly suture an artery, but this made him nervous because he didn't want to damage the drawing, and we both laughed. He also had toddlers at home, so I offered to get it framed for him so it would be well protected when he took it home. I sent him some framing suggestions and we chose to frame it in a black frame with black mats which set off the drawing nicely.
Dr. Nick also surprised me when he came to see my original paintings on display at a local art show and I was pretty excited to meet his daughter. That meant a lot to me that he came to see my show. Surgeons are pretty busy with precious little time when they are not on emergency call. I also knew that I had a great surgeon in my corner if I should need his services again and that would serve me well in the future for healing myself if another problem occurred. That day would come a few years later and I would rely on my past success to get me through.
Here are a few words from Dr. Nick~
“I wanted to express my gratitude to you for the amazing portrait. I have received caring gift packages from patients in the past, but this is the first time something so creative and time consuming has been done on my behalf. There are mind-blowing details throughout your portrait and I can't tell you how much my family and I appreciate the time and dedication it took you to make the picture. I take care of my patients to the best of my ability and I know you have given me the same dedication and commitment and I can't say enough how much we appreciate it! I hope this letter finds you well and good luck with your amazing career and enjoy your family and the rest of the summer!”
Michael J Nick DDS
© 2020 Jennifer Hunter
Michael J Nicks DDS | Oral Surgeon in Northbrook IL (nscoms.com)
