Physio continued all through October, attending every day
except weekends. All efforts were
focused on my left shoulder and left hand.
We couldn’t do anything on the foot, because we could not find out what
was done inside it. I had heard a rumour
from one of my nurses that the foot had to be rebuilt, but we didn’t know for
certain. The surgeon was not returning my
calls and was not responding to faxes from the physio.
I’m tired of writing physio, so I’ll just start referring by
name. I got to the Maple Ridge Physiotherapy
and Pain Clinic on Dewdney Trunk Road and my primary therapist is Hershal
Shah. He does a great job but was
worried about using ultrasound, shockwave or other therapies on my foot until
he found out if it was stable enough and if there were any metal pins, clips
etc. inside.
Finally, we got a response.
The surgeon faxed over a series of reports. The only problem was that all the reports
were pre-surgery, so we still have no idea what went on inside my foot. So, we were still at square one and
continuing treatment on my shoulder and hand.
There was one day we did spinal decompression on my lower back because
it was so far out of whack from walking off balance in the cast.
Suddenly a break through at the end of October. I got a phone call from the surgeon’s office
that I had to be at his office at 1:00 PM on October 31, Halloween. I guess they got tired of all my calls and
the faxes from Hershal. Maybe there was
some progress to be made. Hershal gave
me a list of questions that I should ask that he needed to know.
On Halloween I headed for my appointment on 223 Street. Still new to Maple Ridge, I went down
Lougheed and turned left on 223 rd.
Wrong way and I ended up almost in the middle of the Anita Place Protest
Camp. What a complete shit-pit. It is absolutely disgusting. Not to mention dangerous. I got out of the truck wondering where the
office was and was immediately “swarmed” by three of the residents of the
camp. They were demanding to know why I
was there.
Now, I’m not normally intimidated by aggressive assholes,
but, there were three of them and I’m in a cast and not fully recovered from my
hospital stay. So, I just kept calm and
explained I was trying to find my Doctor’s office but must have taken a wrong
turn. At that point two of them lost
interest and wandered away. The third
guy pointed up the street and then he left.
Finally, I found it.
I should have turned right off Lougheed.
I wandered inside and reported in.
I sat down and no more than 5 minutes later I was ushered in to a
treatment room. I sat there for another
5 minutes and I was expecting to see Doctor Buzzkill again but in walked “Baby”
Baschu. His bedside manner is supposed
to be a lot better than his Dad.
He had me remove the cast and my sock. He looked at my foot and proclaimed, “It
looks like it is healing nicely”. He
answered the questions for Hershal and told me that they had cultured the
liquid drained from my foot, but found no infection in it. Which is interesting because the other
Doctors cultured the drainage from my foot and said there was. Who to believe? In any case, he said that the swelling was so
bad that all 5 of my toes had become dislocated and so had several other bones.
All had been put back in place but there were no clips or
metal in my foot. That was why I was on
total bed rest for so long and in the cast for even longer. But, he gave me the words I had been longing
to hear. “You don’t need to wear the cast anymore”. He also warned me that my right foot would
never look just like my left foot again.
I assume that means it will remain somewhat bigger, but we shall
see. The whole appointment, from the
time I arrived, to the time I walked out the door, was 15 minutes.
I didn’t mind the short appointment time, in fact I was
happy about it as I had things to do with it being Halloween. I just thought it was rather quick for such
an extensive rebuild. He never even
touched my foot. He just looked at the
scar and the size of it, but, oh well, I’m “Free at Last”.
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