Apropos to the news lately. Pin by @wmspeardesign #flagonfire #burnbabyburn

Posted by Jacob Stewart

View on Instagram https://ift.tt/2BX1NQJ

Hospital Update, Beginning of Week Three

Posted by Jacob Stewart

As I’m now entering my third week in the hospital, I felt it was a good time to give an update on my week and progress.

Giving a fist pump for a hospital selfie before bedtime.

Recovery and Progress

I feel like I’ve gained in strength and vitality upward with an increase of 100% from when I arrived. I felt like I was literally at death’s door, due to my condition when I was brought in, which was one of a lack of vitality, decreasing muscle strength, and shortness of breath during the weeks/months preceding my injury.

[TMI]After a week of increasing bowel backup, as well as increasing daily miralax/docusate dosages I was able to have three (small to medium sized) bowel movements yesterday of soft consistency (think mashed potatoes for disturbing visualization) which made me feel as though I was making progress even if it was not a full and complete evacuation.[/TMI]

My pain level has been down, with equal amounts from the injury/surgical incision and from the back pain and general muscle aches and pains from being so much in bed and stuck in a chair with a dubious, yet minamally adequate comfort rating.

I’m doing exercises at every free moment, and when receiving visitors, etc., including lung capacity work with my Incentive Spirometer, trapeze pull-ups and stretching while in bed; commode & chair pushups, rubber band curls, etc., and leg lifts when seated. Even after only a week or so, I definitely feel strength building and am much more flexible than before.

Routine and eating:

I’ve learned that it’s definitely best to learn the routine of shift change and work yourself around the nurses’ schedule instead of trying to have them accommodate you and strain the available resources when the RNs and CNAs are busiest with other patients.

Luckily, Providence St. Peter’s Hospital, where I’m at for the foreseeable future, (until they can find a nursing home that will accept me AND meet my needs) provides unsurpassable food service, that is equivalent to a 4 Star hotel, with the added benefits of the diverse and extensive menu being designed to provide the healthiest food options possible. Being able to report detailed daily reports, which lists (by meal, and summary) nutritional information about the food you’ve eaten, with granular data including listing ingredients within an entry or salad separately so you can gauge how slightly changing the item can help toward your dietary goals. As such it has been an invaluable resource to help reform my diet. (“I said NO croutons on the Caesar Salad!”)

Hospital Daily Nutritional Report (Detail)

Detailed Daily Patient Nutritional Breakdown Report

Breakfast of Scrambled Eggs, Ham and Chicken Apple Sausage

Tasty Tuna Salad Lunch with Salad

Gratitude

In closing, I need to thanks all my friends, old and new, who have been so supportive since my first post. I’m overwhelmed being reminded of the love and caring so many people have for me, and feel doubly inspired to continue to work hard to get healthy as quickly as possible. Special thanks to the kind and hard-working nurses of St. Peter’s, my spouse Brielle, who is facing a great deal of stress and hard work ahead. As well, to those who have come to visit, or called and messaged with words of support and to catch up and share if we’ve been long absent from each other. You all mean the world to me, and give me hope to live and heal. (Keep up the good work). 😉

In closing, I’ll leave this random emoji of a funicular, one of my favorite modes of transportation developed by mankind. It is one of the emoji that just can’t get the respect it deserves.

🚞

For those concerned. . .

Posted by Jacob Stewart

Selfie after being loaded into the ambulance in the wee hours of Monday, November 19th 2018

Just a quick update to explain what has happened to me and update those who care.

On November 19th, 2018 at approximately 3:15 I fell out of bed at night landed wrong on my foot, and broke by right fibula at the ankle. (Picture below)

Forward view of right foot showing broken fibula

After an aggravating time getting up and onto my bed, with help of my wife Brielle, who graciously struggled to help me up on to the bed and called 911. The paramedics arrived and started looking for ways to extract me from my downstairs cave-like bedroom and get me up to an ambulance, it was decided to put me in a stokes rescue basket, haul me off my back deck, drag my like a dogsled across the gravel back yard, and then pull (not carry) me up the wooden access staircase on the Southwest side of our unit.

The ride was uncomfortable and scary, including episodes of very short breath, which I’ve been experiencing over the last few months, even before this injury when exerting on tasks as light as walking up the stairs, or shopping. Needless to say be the time they got me into the emergency room, I had grave doubts that I was long for this world. (A feeling I’ve been having increasingly over the last few years, as the last energy and vitality I used to possess has waned.)

Surgery, with a spinal anesthetic was performed on Tuesday evening, inserting dual plates and eight pins in my ankle to repair the damaged bone and tendons.

X-Ray of right ankle (anterior view) after surgery showing plate and pins.

So, I’ve decided to re-purpose my blog, from a meaningless and trite series of posts, pictures, and political ramblings (although there is some meat in there, going back to the early “‘aughts” (See article about Rachel Corrie’s death) to a blog updating you about my progress healing. After years of slow decline, and 40 years of being overweight, increasing up to my current state of morbid obesity, I’ve decided to live, and will work as hard as I can to heal, lose weight, get better, and stick around this dumpster fire of a world that we currently live in. After all, I want to see how this craziness is going to end, or least stick around for the next season of Stranger Things, and to see what the Mars Rover Insig ht beams back from the red planet.

For new, I encourage my friends, family and former Lodge Brothers to contact me via the following methods. I’ll answer if I can, and certainly get back if I’m too busy with physical therapy or other crucial activity. It would bring my spirits up to hear from all of those that care about me or who have lost touch.