cast | West Virginia Mountain Mama

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The Count Down Begins, The Future With Out My Cast

Posted on December 3, 2014 by jolynnpowers

Many of you already know that I have spent most of the last 12 months in a cast on my left leg. I was actually placed in the cast on Dec 9th of last year do to a tiny bone being fractured in the bottom of my foot. I started out being told it was 8 weeks in the cast and then that turned into 13 weeks and then surgery and then recovery. So all of this added up being 5 days short of a year for the recovery from a fractured bone that is the size of a dime.

Jolynn in her leg in air cast Dec 9th 2013

So as I write this, I am days from finally being free from a 5 pound weight that I have drug around, walked around, stumbled over and fallen with for so long that I have almost forgotten what it is not to have it. I have actually walked through three casts in this time period. I some how just walk the rubber off the bottom and get a new one and keep on moving along.

Some how even with my limited mobility and at times high levels of pain. I knew that their was some lesson that would be learned from my prolonged disability. I would emerge with some sort of insight that I did not have before. I have spent more time at home over the last year than in all my life. I have felt more crippling pain than I would wish on anyone. I have gained more weight than with both of my pregnancy’s and am still gaining. But in truth I have learned and gained from being unable to live my normal life but it is not what I thought I would find at the end of this year.

Over this year of healing and being home, I learned about empathy, sympathy and love. I spent my time caring for some one who was suffering more than me. I spent much of my recovery helping my mother-in-law in her transition from cancer patent, to a weak woman in rehab, to a woman who is slowly taking back her life. I found that setting aside my pain and trying to ease the pain of someone else was a gratifying way to spend the long months that I was not able to work due to my own broken bone.Even just days after my surgery, while still on crutches, I got a call to please “help”. Somehow the two of us managed, sometimes with her courage and some times with mine,but always with the strength of some power greater than us both.

Grandma Wanda Powers with Christopher

So as my health returns and my healing is about finished I watch as my Mother-in-laws health is also returning. We are both less dependent on each other and of those around us. She will be losing her home health nurse in a few weeks because of her recovery and I will be returning to work soon. It is as if their was some divine reason that I had limited mobility, that I had the time to take care of her and that we could support each other through these difficult times.

I am looking forward to life with out my cast. I should be able to return to a life that I love and be as active and healthy as I once was. The first step is only a couple of days away and I am so excited to take my first walk around the park in my brand new Tennis shoes( after wearing only one shoe for a year… I needed to buy new ones that I had not worn the sole off one shoe). I am looking forward to walking safely through the snow this winter.

It is with new eyes that I look at recovery from any kind of health issue. It has made me thankful for the people who dedicate their lives to restoring us to health once again.I am blessed to know nurses, home health aides, physical therapist, occupational therapists and the volunteers who spend countless hours doing chores and running out to stores for those in need. It has made me rethink my career goals. In the next few months as my foot regains the strength I may discover that I am not able to return to the work that I have done for years, a retail store merchandise auditor. I may need to think about the life experience that I have just gone through and see if my feet lead me down a new path? Hopefully down one that supports both my Mother-in-Law and my recovery.

Air cast with other shoes

Categories: Cancer, Family, foot pain, foot surgery, grandma, Healing, health | Tags: air cast, Cancer, cast, family, foot pain, foot surgery, healing, health, physical therapy | 3 Comments

Preparations Begin: Surgery is less then a week away

Posted on October 15, 2014 by jolynnpowers

It is finally going to happen…. a year and 30 days later, I will finally have the bone removed from my foot. I had my pre-operation appointment and everything is looking fine for my foot surgery on the 20th Oct. I will be in a cast for another 5 to 6 weeks but the future is looking so nice and I really don’t mind it at all. Because this photo shows what I had to deal with all last winter.

Air cast in the snow

Under the freshly fallen snow is my Air Cast and under that are two thermal socks and two plastic bags to keep my toes and feet from freezing. This is what I had to do to take Christopher to the bus stop every morning. I slipped on the ice, I had ice balls under my toes, waded through parking lots full of slush and only fell one time last winter. I worked through all of it, during one of the worst West Virginia winters in 20 years. With my foot hurting, limping along with a 5 pound cast. I somehow made light of my situation by just laughing at it.

Christopher was the only one who found my broken bone a good thing. He knew I had more time to snuggle and play with him up close. I was never going to chase him through the yard so he could torment me until we both just giggled. He never minded that his mom was in a cast and took full advantage of my time out of it the cast to play “broken bone man”

Christopher playing with my cast spring 2014

I have done all the things that I would normally done without the cast. So finally around July of this year I went back to the Orthopedic Dr’s office and asked for a new cast. Yea….. they looked at me funny when I explained that I had walked all the rubber of the bottom of the cast and it was flopping around like an old shoe. I needed a second cast to finish out the year. “Wow” the nurse said “We never have to give out new ones”. Well I needed a new one and it was free because the warranty was for one year and I had gotten about 6 months out of mine. So does that tell you that I just can’t sit still most of the time.

Mushroom hunting in my cast 2014.

In this photo I can really begin to see where the weight of inactivity was creeping up. I actually gained almost 35 pounds over the course of this year and I have heard that up to 50 is not unheard of. You are just so limited in everything you do. Over the year my foot did cause me to go from working 35 hours a week to 10 and then none. So I am hopeful that when this is over I will be able to work 30 to 40 hours a week on my feet again.

Now the preparations for not walking for 11 days begin. I have been working on getting grandma moved back to her house for the remainder of her recovery ( see Cancer sucks post). I have been cleaning like a mad woman and getting some one set up to come help me for the second day after surgery and a few days after that. We still have lots of shopping for frozen food to do. I am not cooking for several weeks so forgive me for not doing any new food posts for a month or so. I am planing to do lots of reading and writing though. I will be doing some traveling two weeks after surgery and will be posting about all the effects of traveling in a walking cast with a small child… That will make for a funny post. So if I did not say it before, I will say it now, Thank You for your support. I will be posting again next week after the surgery and let you all know how it went . So until then take care. I am on the road to recovery and will be able to do more and write more about how wonderful living in the Mountain State is and my life as a homesteading woman.