Health Care

Last week's Achilles surgery seemed to go well. I spent the first couple days after coming home from the hospital in bed, foot elevated. Occasionally I would hobble to the couch for a change of scenery. Cori's been an amazing care taker, serving me food, getting me the paper, and even helping me in and out of the bathroom. Showering has been tricky: Cori installed a hand-held shower nozzle that helps a lot, and picked up a non-slip shower mat and plastic deck chair.

The pain I had following the surgery faded away within a couple of days, and was quickly replaced with itching. Oh my God the itching! I have had dreams (literally) of jabbing sticks inside the cast and of cutting the cast off. I'm not sure if the pain is better than the itching, but it's a close contest.

Monday I ventured out of the house for the first time. Cori and I went to the travel clinic at Froedert Hospital where we met with an immunization nurse to go over all the vaccines we will need. We got shots for Yellow Fever, and a Hepatitis A booster. This morning we each took the first of four pills for Typhoid. We also need to be immunized for rabies and Hepatitis B, and probably meningitis. We also need to get our malaria prophylaxis prescription. About the only disease we don't have to worry about is Japanese encephalitis (glad there's no such thing as African encephalitis).

Today I received a chest x-ray to test for tuberculosis, and had more blood drawn (they took three vials of blood a few weeks ago) to complete all the medical tests required by Fulbright. Living in Ghana for a year requires plenty of needle pokes.

Next week I will visit the orthopedist to have my cast removed and replaced with a walking boot for about six weeks. I'm getting pretty good at moving around on crutches, but man, are my hands getting sore! One good sign though: I can gently flex my left calf and my foot moves a little. Success! But it comes at the cost of discomfort. I don't think I'll do that too often right now.

Summerfest, Milwaukee's gigantic annual 11-day music, food, beer, sun, and people-watching event begins tomorrow. I'd like to go, but only if Cori's willing to push me around in a wheelchair. Maybe we can get preferred seating at concerts?!?

In the meantime, my life has been pretty much reduced to sitting around with my leg elevated. That means there has been a lot of time to surf the Internet and watch movies. I discovered the Showtime program Dexter - watched the entire first two seasons (About 24 episodes). Good stuff. Season three doesn't come out on DVD until August. A week ago I had never heard of the show, now I'm counting the days to the next season.
Google Earth has always been one of my favorite Internet applications. Now there are some really fun, and even educational, ways to add to your Google Earth experience.