Under the Knife

Apologies for being a bit incommunicado lately. I’ve been busy acquiring some new hardware to mess with the airport TSA folks. And also, please excuse any stray errors in this post; I might be a bit medicated at the moment.

Turns out the pronouncement of "no fractures" from the emergency room hospital after my recent fall from a ladder was incorrect - egregiously so. What I actually had was a displaced comminuted fracture of the heel bone, which means that it was basically shattered.

No more.

Thanks to my ever generous physical therapist Diego, who called in a couple of favors, that has been rectified. Because we wasted three weeks thinking there was no fracture, urgency was paramount before incorrect healing started. My surgery appointment, complete with a double-team approach - orthopedic surgeon and a foot specialist - literally came together in a day’s time. After Diego sent my files and spoke to the surgeon, Dr. Francisco Soto sent me a WhatsApp message on Tuesday morning and said "We can do it Wednesday at 5:30 a.m." I was immediately all in.

A plate and six screws later, all held together by something that looks suspiciously like a bike chain, I can now be more of a bother for airport TSA types than ever before. Somehow this makes me kind of happy.

The surgery was at a hospital in San Jose about an hour away from our home. Because of the urgency of the situation, Dr. Soto put me ahead of the rest of his day’s schedule, hence the 5:30 start time. We opted to drive in the middle of the night because of much less traffic and arrived at the hospital at our scheduled 4 a.m. time.

Hospital Internacional La  Catolica is a very respected hospital in San Jose known for medical tourism. A lot of people come from over the world to get procedures that may not be covered in their country at very reasonable rates here.

Dr. Soto was immediately lovable because his surgery cap was adorned with Homer Simpson and Lark Lad donuts. His partner in the surgery, Dr. Jimmy Chaves, was equally as charming and talented.

My favorite doctor, though, was the anesthesiologist. His scrubs were made to look like a Batman suit. He took my face in his hands and said, “Don’t worry, you are in good hands - Batman is here.” In the OR, just before he added the drugs to my IV line, I said “Ciao.” He smiled, waved, and said “Bye bye.”

I came home with five types of medication - two for pain, antibiotics, blood thinner for blood clots, wound care.

Melanie and I have both been very impressed with the medical care I have received. An orthopedic technician is coming to my home for the first few  days to take care of the wound, clean it out, change bandages and to make sure that all is healing well. (Evidently this particular type of surgery carries a high risk of infection and post surgery care is very important.)

Beto is adorable, very caring and gentle, and reminds me a little bit of a shorter, stockier Ricky Martin. He has taken care of getting all the supplies we will need from the farmacia and will teach Melanie what she needs to know to handle care going forward. Another sweet Tico.

I am just coming out of the honeymoon stage, in which the nerve block has masked most of my pain. But I know that this pain is in the service of healing, as opposed to the nearly three weeks I spent thinking that all we were dealing with was torn ligaments. The misdiagnosis from the emergency room was severely unfortunate, but it’s over now.

I invite healing and promise to do my part.