As a start, at least I don't stink any more. Not that I can prove I stunk, but it's a reasonable assumption. I know I used to after this long sans shower, and experience informs me that I also stunk this long without clean laundry. My nose did use to work. The bottles on the shelves come with assurances they make me smell better after using them and my nose used to agree. I'm going with that for now.
I finally gave up on avoiding taking the sling off. It wasn't the stink I can't smell for the reason, exactly, but you're welcome anyway. It wasn't the spots on the clothes because who cares anyway when we're all cooped up in the house out of view. It wasn't even the inconvenience in getting to/from the bathroom facilities within a usable time frame, or even not being able to reach the bidet again for six weeks, though that did feel good to be resumed however briefly. It wasn't even saving all that TP, though the budget appreciates that too. The real final straw was the itching. All of the itching! (Steve has been exceptionally patent with grouchy me, bless him.)
Not getting to scratch my head during a shampoo that wasn't happening is part of it. Not rubbing my back across the chair back with the thinnest layer of fabric between the two was part of it, because a scratch isn't a scratch when it's a mere hint of a puff of a remembrance of a motion. It shouldn't be a nail-digging scratch either, but the pent up need was making that pretty tempting. It started on the shoulder blades, that pent up need, then immediately the shoulders from the big bandage all gluey across its path, wrinkled and crinkled up from needing to hold skin in place that needed to be matched up with other skin that had been separated by a scalpel and now had been ordered to close securely keeping all microbes out, no touching allowed, and no large movements allowed either.
Something might shift, something might separate, something might ooze a bit of blood, and eventually something major might have to be repeated with worse results the second time. The warnings were oft repeated and thoroughly stressed... before the drugs went in that made the brain all cloudy and clumsy and insecure... and downright ANNOYED! Remember, there was no real pain. Itch doesn't qualify as pain, don't you know. Just ask anybody who hasn't been tormentd by itch and tormented and tormented and.....
I take reallllly good meds for pain. I still have 5 days' worth left. So I'm not in any pain.
I just frigging ITCH!
First the gooey sticky patch came off. Stitches were cut - the two which held the bandage patch in place in case it tried to shift locations from deep freeze Minnesota to the sunny Caribbean or something. Who could blame it? I haven't felt like I could take a single safe step outside since days before the surgery, snow and ice all over the place. With the contraption in place preventing one arm from moving an inch in any direction, motion of all sorts is limited to the other far reaches of the opposite arm.
Some day, just for the fun of it, reach one arm across either in front of behind yourself and see what you can manage to scratch. Pick up a little "whatever something" and try to angle it so you can scratch yourself wherever. Limited to that one hand, how fast and far can you pull down your pants? Easy, you say? Did you try with the inner snug layer that doesn't leave any seam lines showing? The outer layer that helps you look slim and trim? Both together or separately? Mind you, we're not talking when you have 15 minutes to figure it out and you're really patient because it doesn't really matter, but when something is urgent and reminding you louder and louder that you need to accomplish it in 4... 3... oops, too slow! OK, so next time you go for looser pants, and work on pulling up/down the side on the good arm, then try the opposite side which just has to stick on the bulge in your hip, or rump, or both... My golly, when did that bulge get that big and the house so warm your sweat got sticky, and....?
You cheated with the other arm, didn't you! No I wasn't watching, I promise. I just know things.
Now you find a grabber stick you have somewhere in the house because you thought ahead and... no, it doesn't bend, and if you have to pull hard the cloth you're hoping to move slips off, and days later when the shorter grabber you ordered arrives in the mail you discover its literal shortcomings too.... So next you resort to having that 2nd person help you because they're always loving to assist in the bathroom even when they threw up over newborn baby diapers which you no longer smell as sweet as. Or you figure out that if you start really early they can pull pants down on the far hip and you can hold them up on the good arm's hip while you skedaddle through the house and in front of the windows with the open curtains to the bathroom and... OK, you can wipe that up later. Oops, that too, if you don't forget and manage to step in it on your way out. (So how many clean dry socks do you still have left in that drawer? No, they do not have to match! Honest! Trust me! Besides the last dirty one can get another use as a mop, right? Who is going to see the botom isn't white once you put a shoe over it?)
You have realized that the return trip will have to be repeated with you hanging onto only one side of your pants, past those same windows, with your.... hanging out and ....
How long before it begins to dawn on you that you are going to live in the same clothes for days? Maybe over a week even. At home excuses are made for why "the doctor" doesn't want you to have company just quite yet, and yes, you do know and appreciate that they care, and their _________ gift is thoughtful but.......
But that still doesn't fix the itching. The very second the instructions allow you to take the minimalest shower, it's time to gather whoever can help disconnect those fasteners in all the buckles and belts and velcro and ease you out of that harness. Your intentions are the absolute best, but...
Hey, does antbody on the planet know why somebody velcroed a red rubber ball inside one of those straps and what happens if you toss it out? I mean, if you do decide to toss it, we all know you are going to balme the dog you no longer own for chewing the ball up, but does any of it really matter?
Once you are the most careful it's possible to be in not moving the arm away from the body while still putting on/taking off clothing just like what you just ditched except for accumulated dirt and stink, you start working on how exactly did that other person in the hospital who does this 4 times a day in half a minute each put your sling harness on you? You watched her put it on. You made notes as to which went where and in which order. You made sure pictures were taken to remind you, because of course this black strap is different from that black strap with an identical buckle on it, neither of which your encumbered hands can possibly repeat correctly nor do at all by themselves... because it takes your arm too far from your body, of course.
After 5 minutes you admit this was the real reason you delayed that shower, despite the itching and everything, for as many days as you have. Maybe later in the day, once you calm down again, assuring yourself that you didn't really break the thing this time - hopefully - despite all that velcro tearing noise - and after you fixed late lunch to sooth your emotional state yet again, you can give it another try. Or even after supper when your son comes over to shovel again, he can figure it out because he took the pictures and saw it done correctly and is still young enough and has the spatial skills to get you back into some kind of rig that has the least little prayer of preventing you from screwing up your arm between now and when your next visit to the surgeon is scheduled. Only three more days now?
Fingers crossed! At least you can still do that with them, right? Maybe even slip another pain pill into your lunch as well, since you've been wiggling that unleashed arm for a while now. Just a light-duty OTC pill this time. You'd have to get authorization for the really good ones to refill, after all. You've gotten a little proud of getting by with fewer than allowed, even though it was really the nerve block letting you get away with that. But shhhhh... it's fortitude, right?
Except for itches, of course.
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