Post Op Day 11: The Velcrovian response

You’ve heard of the Pavlovian response, correct? You know, where the dogs come running when they hear a bell. Well, my dog has just discovered the Velcrovian response. What does this mean?

Well, every morning when I get up and have to go to the bathroom, I have to put on my special shoe. It has two Velcro straps and they make that wonderful zipping noise as I open and close the shoe. I’ve been in and out of that shoe a million times since surgery but today was the first morning my dog put two and two together.

As I went to get up this morning and opened up the Velcro, Bronte came running in from the living room and jumped around, ostensibly saying, “Yay, you’re up. Let’s play!” She’s now Velcro trained. Putting on boot = Mummy gets up. Hooray! Smart puppy.

In other foot news, foot is throbbing right now – a little achy – but I’m going to see how much longer I can go without a pain pill. Also, last night was the first night I slept right through without waking up in pain or discomfort. I slept from 10 p.m. – 5:30 a.m. and was SOOO happy. See? It does get better.

Also yesterday I “entertained” for the first time, with friends coming over. Now, plenty of people have come to visit me, but I’ve always been in bed and my foot on three pillows and in pain. Yesterday, however I actually got up, put on real clothes and “entertained.” Okay, this consisted of my friends bringing me food, helping themselves to whatever food, drinks they needed/wanted from the fridge (because I’m pretty useless still), and us watching a DVD. This consisted of me putting my leg up on the coffee table and on pillows and watching a whole (well, most of a whole) movie. My friend Sally brought the movie over, it was film she was in when she was 12  – pretty funny! We fast forwarded the boring bits and I got a live “behind the scenes” commentary. A quick IMDB search after the screening revealed that the woman who played her mother – terrible actress, looked blank the entire movie (even when her kid was kidnapped) was apparently a former Playboy Playmate  (and this was supposed to be a family film!). Oh well, she did look pretty…

Here’s a clip I found online of my friend Sally Boyden in The Little Dragons (apparently renamed the Karate Kids U.S.A.). It was fun to watch it with her and took my mind off my foot – which right now is horribly itchy!

So, I’m glad to be returning to “normal,” I did go get my hair washed and dried at the hairdresser yesterday too, which was lovely but was exhausted and in pain after not being able to keep my foot elevated most of the time.