19. Home Comforts

An audacious breakout and the beginning of months of rehab

This is the last ‘constructed from memory/notes' blog, as I’m now pretty much up to present day. Thank you for your patience, and I hope the last few semi-retrospective blogs on pre-op thoughts, the amputation, and the post-op hospital holiday were enjoyable reads. Not sure how regular future missives will be, as (to be perfectly frank) the routine is pretty well-established and by necessity pretty dull: espresso, reading/netflix, change bandages, physio, lunch, reading/netflix, dinner, sleep. Unless you are desperate for reviews of whatever bilge I’ve subjected myself to on Netflix/Prime/Apple, we have limited source material for blogs people will actually want to read, I think? But let’s see what happens. Suggestions welcome.

Ok, so it wasn’t quite an ‘audacious’ hospital breakout. The fact I had the full encouragement of consultants and nurses, a discharge note, and a stack of prescribed pain medication, would suggest I’m not quite the independent rebel ‘breakout’ artist this blog’s subtitle suggests. But in spirit. I made a spirited escape in spirit. Can you have a cocky swagger in a wheelchair, being wheeled by someone else?

I was very keen to get home as fast as possible; I always am. Hospitals, great for the emergency life-saving care, less good for the routine. Lots of people, lots of bugs, warm climate, lots of stress and pressures. Staff do a terrific job under horrific conditions but fact remains it’s a hospital not a health spa. So after 6 days of post-op recuperation, I am/was keen to return to my well-stocked espresso machine, terrier support crew, and furniture which does not have plastic coverings.

Despite the return to home familiarity, a lot has changed - and the realisation comes in stages. Some of them repeated several times before they start to sink in. I have lost count of how many times I am getting dressed, put my L leg through the boxer/trouser leg, and then go to the R leg and find an unexpected mismatch between the leg hole I have prepared and the shortened limb which does not need it to be extended that wide. Even after I’ve chuckled, raised a ‘what am I like, eh?; eyebrow skyward, and then returned with focus to the simple act of putting my undies on, it is still somehow difficult. I have my body parts. I have full control of them. I can see, clearly, which bit should go where. And yet it is bizarrely difficult battling with my own conscious and unconscious self to get Trevor through the leg-hole. It’s very difficult to explain.

Other fascinations: my ghost leg. I’m not talking about phantom limb (although there’s plenty of that, but mercifully little phantom limb pain so far). When I’m lying flat on my back in bed, legs straight, it feels like my legs are the same length. Despite the fact it’s Trevor in contact with the mattress, it ‘feels’ like my heel is (the heel which no longer exists). Then it gets weird.
If I bend my knee and raise it off the mattress, the angle of my knee flexion precisely mirrors what it would do if I still had the lower leg - essentially scraping my heel along the mattress. That’s the power of habit. That’s my brain, so used to my previous dimensions, actively lying to my senses. And weirder still…
If I pause raising my knee, and I try to lower my thigh back down to the bed with my knee still bent, there is the perception of a small amount of resistance. My brain is literally trying to stop my brain from doing it- thinking the heel would be in contact with the mattress still, and restricting this movement. If I push through (can’t quite describe how/why this is ‘hard’ on some level) it feels like my lower leg/heel is passing through the mattress, like a ghost. The sensation only increases in intensity the lower my thigh gets to the mattress. It genuinely feels like I am carrying out some sort of reality-bending inter-dimensional wizardry. Like if you were a ghost and could walk through walls. That’s exactly the feeling. No longer sci-fi or fiction. I am experiencing that exact feeling. It is awesome, in the sense that (and not wishing to brag) you won’t experience it. You fuddy-duddy normies with all your working limbs, never being gifted this incredible insight through the doors of perception. Weird, and also strangely precious. Maybe this is what people experience in LSD, ESP, or altered states of consciousness studies.

I have covered in previous blogs how my CI surgery and use really, fundamentally, changed my perceptions of how we construct our own reality through the senses, and this amputation has added another physiological aspect to that. It’s one thing to read about this stuff, but experiencing it really does help with understanding. As somebody who has done a fair amount of reading on dualism, self/notself, and secular Buddhist thought, it has been absolutely invaluable. Anyway, that’s one of the silver linings. It’s a really rich period for introspective thought.

Other, less weighty and more funny, realisations - I like to cross my legs for meditation or just sitting on the floor. I am gazumped. I spent a good 10 mins trying to work out how that works now. Similarly, I’ve always wanted to do that cool lotus crossed legs where your feet are on top of your knees- but never been able to due to flexibility. No longer an issue. Another repeated observation related to getting dressed but also how I move through space - I feel really compact. It’s just absurd. I feel like a small Japanese microcar. I am tiny and cute, which at 6ft 3” is not a familiar feeling. I feel I could fit in most overhead storage bins. I have no idea where these ideas come from. Other funny realisations- if I was able to stand on my stump, the reduction of a few inches would mean I am now at Alice’s height. I have no idea why we both think this is funny, but it is.

Speaking of standing on the stump. Don’t try it at home, kids. One thing I’ve always been cognizant of is the fact comfort often leads to complacency. And as Trevor has gained in comfort and reduced in codeine/paracetamol intake, so has my returned reliance to unconscious thought/movement. And of course my habits are still working off the body dimensions I used to have.

So when I was sitting on the edge of the bed and lifted Badger the terrier to put him on the floor (he’s 12 now and I like to try to protect his joints a bit). I was not unduly concerned when I started to slide off it. Indeed that slo-mo film thing kicked in at that point, so I had plenty of time to consider, as I was sliding off:

“hmm… I’m sliding off the bed… that’s not ideal. No matter, I shall right myself with my leg. No biggie. Oh, wait…. didn’t you have an amputation recently? mmm, yes. Mmmm. It’ll probably buff out. Likely just be some discomforting pressure, its been a while so healing is probably progressed. See? It’s not even hurting, is it? Quite comfortable really. What’s that? Because I haven’t contacted with the floor yet? Yes, I take you point. That is indeed correct. My, it’s quite a long way down, isn’t it? Been able to have this whole extended conversation en route. Aren’t brains magical? Anyway, I really think you should show a bit more concern at this juncture. This might hurt. No, wait, the moment has gone. Is that? Oh, yes, we have contact. Well, that’s not so bad. Can barely f- “

It is fortunate, reader, that we live in a rural location. Because the prolonged barely-human screeches of agony which passed my lips would have led most people to call either 999 or for a friendly local exorcist. I didn’t even swear. Swearing requires a degree of conscious capacity I did not have.

I am familiar with pain, having explored more than is perhaps my fair share, and putting your weight on a healing stump is a Top 3 contender. It’s up there with infected dry socket (Google it) and having someone saw your ribcage while you’re awake to insert a chest drain (you can’t Google that, just take my word for it). All 3 are examples of ‘dicking about with my nervous system’ as I have mentioned in a previous blog, and best avoided. Because that sort of pain is unavoidable when it hits. It is all-consuming.

And on that happy note. I think we can wrap up this blog entry. I am mindful that I don’t actually go into too great detail on much of the medical and philosophy stuff and many of you would like more sober reflection and less penis jokes, but think of my audience. I have a teeny tiny leased subplot in the great internet allotment. Much as I would like to devote myself to high-brow rhetoric and very very clever insights, they’ll be read and appreciated by about 4 of you. I feel it’s better to write something more accessible and maybe more comforting or useful or spirit-lifting, so more people can benefit. So the stream-of-consciousness and wit stays, certainly while I can only manage about 30-60 mins of writing a day during current healing. If you want an in-depth discussion and treatise at or beyond PhD level (various disciplines catered, various subjects discussed), feel free to book in with me directly. Don’t forget the red wine.

All that remains to be said is I’m hoping for a bit of quiet healing for the next few weeks/months. We’re 4 weeks post-amputation now. We have to hope Trevor heals and is not unduly affected by MDP syndrome slow healing issues. Then, on August 6th, the left leg comes off and everything gets significantly harder.

Thanks for reading, as always.

T