Sunday, August 14, 2016

Like a Vacation with Drugs

By Joanna Campbell Slan


On August 8 I’m going in for foot surgery. They’ll take a piece of bone from my shin and put it in my big toe on the right foot. There’s a ten percent chance that it’ll grow and thrive enough that I won’t need further surgery. Maybe even twenty percent. It all depends on several things, including whether I can stay still enough to allow the tiny blood cells in the transplanted bone to find and connect to the bone that’s been nearly destroyed by my joint implant. My FAILED joint implant.

The thought of sitting still drives me nuts. My friends have gotten used to me walking around and doing housework while we’re on the phone. I only sit still to type. Heck, I even bought a standing desk so I wouldn’t be on my backside while writing.

And that gets me depressed. Or it did.

I might have found a solution. Back when I was a kid, my mother used to drive from Vincennes, Indiana, to Summerville, South Carolina, each summer. To keep us occupied on that long trip, she’d stock up on comic books, games, and small craft kits.


Well, why not look at this bed-stay as a sort of vacation--with drugs. Pain medication, actually. I've been warned this will be more painful that my past surgery. I'll need a distraction. Or two.

Why not gather a bunch of kits, super books, and craft items?

That’s exactly what I’ve done. Here’s my list:

·         Yoyo quilt for a dollhouse bed
·         Christmas ornaments kit
·         One-quarter scale project inside a tiny Sherlock Holmes book
·         Christmas candy container kit
·         Christmas basket kit
·         Quilling kit
·         Russian needle punch kit
·         Bunka rug kit


Yup. Of course, this will be a vacation with drugs, so these projects might turn out kind of…weird. But I feel like I’m going into this with a positive attitude, and that has to help!

Okay, if you've had a "vacation with drugs," tell me...how did you get through it? I want to know!

5 comments:

Ellen said...

Hey Joanna, don't forget the comic books! I highly recommend collections of Calvin and Hobbes, "The Life And Times of Scrooge McDuck", or (if you are interested in steampunk computing) "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage" by Sydney Padua.

On my "vacation with drugs" I enjoyed a laptop with movies and shows -- at the time, my mind wasn't functioning well enough to deal with reading. Your mileage may vary, depending upon the drugs in question.

Ellen

Linda O. Johnston said...

Sorry to hear about your health issues, but it's great that you're coming up with ideas on how to deal with your vacation on drugs!

Joanna Campbell Slan said...

Ellen, you are certainly right about "your mileage may vary." I hadn't thought about comic books! And I'd love to know more about steampunk computing. Fascinating stuff.

Joanna Campbell Slan said...

Linda, I finally learned to make a French knot. So...I guess this hasn't been a total waste, huh?

Ellen said...

One caveat: "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage" deals with real historical people and computational devices. If you love bridges and ships, it also has Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It's the most heavily footnoted comic ever to exist. You can find the internet version at

http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/comics/