Walking From Surgery, Part I ~ Ode to My Blue Foam Wedge

I’m being tortured by a piece of blue foam.  I understand that it couldn’t possibly look any more innocuous ~ a blue foam wedge with four straps attached to it that must be kept between my legs at all times, including when I’m asleep ~ and when I was told that I would have to “wear” it constantly post-surgery, I nodded a nod of sweet, blind ignorance.  I thoughtlessly smiled and blank-stared my understanding and acquiescence.  I heard the words, but they had yet to be tethered to actual meanings; definitions.  What I acknowledged and agreed to was just sound.  Since then, those sounds have morphed into experience, and that once seemingly harmless blue foam wedge has become an instrument of torture powerful enough to reach down into the deepest layer of my soul and test me in ways I never dreamed possible from anyone other than my husband, let alone an inanimate object.

Since first hearing about this silly blue foam wedge a few weeks back, it has emerged from the darkest corners of my psyche to torture me, mock me and brazenly embody my own personal Guantanamo.  What it lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in consistency.  It keeps me up at night.  It keeps me down during the day. This simple device, designed to hold my legs at juuuuuust the right angle for the most successful rehabilitation, has turned into the monster under the recovery bed.

But healing is patience.  And recovery is acceptance.  So, with the help of some deep breathing exercises and a few little blue bippies which are designed to manage pain but also come the with bonus side effect of giving me near unlimited patience ~ which are keeping me from setting my blue foam wedge on fire in a Witches of Eastwick/She-Devil kind of way ~ I am embracing the blue foam wedge torture device.  I am embracing it fully.  It is a part of that which will make me whole again.  And for that reason alone, I love it. (Ok, I don’t really, but it’s a necessary evil and I’m trying to be positive.)