Broken ankles hurt

I'm glad that, when I saw the orthopedist, he said that the first 10-14 days were typically the hardest with this kind of ankle injury. I need a first end-of-the-tunnel date.

There was one day in there, maybe Thursday, when I took almost nothing for pain and was fine. That isn't happening now. I keep a card in my backpack to track my acetaminophen intake so I don't fry my liver as I try to stay ahead of the pain. For the last two nights, I've awakened in the early morning in pain and needed to take something and then wait for it to kick in before I could get back to sleep. I think it's time to start setting an alarm and taking something before I hit that point. This brings back memories of C-section recovery, and not the fond ones about the adorable new baby. It was the same story then: If I stayed ahead of the pain, it didn't take much to keep it within my tolerance. If I didn't, it took more medicine and/or stronger medicine to get back in the lead.

I managed to finish my kids' Halloween costume items last night. Fortunately I'd gotten most of the work done before the injury. We have a forest protector (brown clothes, green cloak I made for another year, and ack, we didn't find her new boots since she outgrew her old ones, so maybe snow boots...) and a skeleton ranger (skeleton jacket and pants, midnight blue cloak I finished last night).

Fast forward three days. I've finally gotten ahead of the pain, but it's taken going on mild narcotics around the clock. I checked in with an orthopedics nurse, and she says this is not unusual in the second week with a broken ankle, and that in 5-6 more days (this is day 8 since the injury) I can probably start weaning off them for at least parts of the day.

Halloween was refreshingly simple. The kids went around the block on one side of the street and didn't even bother with the second side. I guess they get enough access to sweets that getting as many as possible for Halloween doesn't feel too important. They are enjoying eating the leftover bags of Cheetos that we bought to distribute.

On another note, I love my choir. They're working on a pretty hard piece for me, and it's really coming together. I heard some very beautiful things at rehearsal tonight, which is good, since we're singing that pieces in services this coming Sunday. Our music director, who also works with a women's choir at CU, said that choir (about half music majors and half not) would have taken most of a semester to prepare a piece like this. We've taken 4 weeks. It helped a lot that he gave up most of the regular choir rehearsal tonight so the women's choir could work on this piece.