Exuberant

I had no idea that this word had a medical meaning. My surgeon used it to describe the "exuberant" growth of hypergranulation that has grown around the aperture on my femur where the rod to attach my prosthesis is. And he asked me to see my plastic surgeon at Hopkins.

It's good to know people because on my own I could not get an appointment with him until mid-November, but his PA got me in this past Monday.

The news I got from him was not what I wanted to hear. Because of the exuberant growth, I have to have surgery to remove it, and I might need a skin graft after the first surgery.

While I am not thrilled to be getting another surgery, I am quite distraught at the possibility of a skin graft. The grafts I received in London took a year to heal. A year. At this point the surgeon thinks I will need to be off my leg and in a wheelchair for two weeks if he has to do a graft, but then conventional wisdom put me using a prosthesis in December, and instead it was nine months later.

The surgery is Wednesday, so in the meantime I am walking with my prosthesis as much as I can.

Today I needed to drop cookies off at the shelter for tomorrow's Barcstoberfest bake sale, and I walked from the car, through the building and down the hall to drop them off. I saw several people I knew and they were thrilled to see me walking. I was thrilled as well.

Friends were over this evening for takeout on the rooftop deck, and I walked to the elevator and out to the deck.

The next few days I am planning on walking as much as I can. I will be in the hospital at least three days, and depending upon what happens, I will either walk out or have to leave in a wheelchair.

I am trying to be optimistic and hope that I either won't need a graft or my surgeon is correct in telling me I will need to be off my leg for only two weeks.

Since my crystal ball isn't working I will just have to take things as they come. And I plan to have fun, and walk a lot, this weekend.

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