better spirits

I'm feeling much better tonight, I took two 10 minute walks around the block with just one crutch and felt pretty good. Karissa is here visiting for the day from her internship in South Carolina, and it was so fun to catch up with all she's doing at work. It's so funny how much of a family our apartment has become, I feel like such a proud momma seeing all the amazing things she's done for Nestle and just in awe of how smart she is. She's going to do some great things for industrial engineers, I just know it. Sarah gave me a project to do for RVC for setting up a system for childcare for RVCtv and the next step classes. I'm excited about it, I really want to do more and be more involved in the RVCkids program, I just don't really know how or what so I'm glad to have something to do. I can't wait for Sunday to get to be in with the pre-k/kindergartners again. I love those kids so much, it's so fun to see them learning about Jesus. I can't wait to see what awesome things we're going to do with the kids when we split to two services in the fall, I'm really pretty excited about it. Even if it means extra work, I'm pretty stoked.

day 2 post op

Thanks for all the posted and emailed prayer, and bringing me dinner, it was really appreciated. Yesterday was a tough one. I started running a fever around noon and it didn't break till this morning. It was just a grumpy day. The only people I saw or spoke to the entire day were the Milks for a few minutes when they brought me a yummy yummy dinner. My knee is really stiff, I have probably like 30% range of motion right now. The muscles in my leg are cramping up a lot but I can't stretch them out since I can't completely straighten my leg or bend it back very far. I'm walking up and down the hallway without my crutches forwards, backwards, and sideways, and I plan to start some therapy exercises I already know on Monday to build up those stabilizing muscles in my knee so it won't feel so wobbly. Thankfully Karissa is visiting from SC today so I'll have someone to talk to and something to do besides watch food network all day. And I can make her drive me to the store. I'm going to go to my lit class today, I walked up and down the street with my crutches yesterday and it felt ok, so I think I can make the trek to campus. Hopefully the fever stays away for good, my stitches will stop hurting, leg stop cramping, and I won't be stuck in my apartment by myself very much more. Good news is tonight I can take a shower! No more sink baths for me :-)

funny post surgery things

Today's a funny day. My knee doesn't really hurt, it just feels like there's a lot of pressure on it. The three stitches hurt though, go figure. But I can't get my stitches wet till Thursday afternoon, so today I attempted a bath in the sink. In the end, I was clean and my stitches dry, but most of the bathroom was wet. And I learned why the doctor said to keep your leg elevated. If you don't, your foot will swell up like a balloon, it looks pretty funny. I was supposed to keep the dressings and ace bandage on till Thursday, but the ace bandage got taken off a few hours ago, and I've unwrapped the gauze twice to check out my stitches. Check out how great my knee looks though, barely any swelling and bruising. I'm such a bad patient! It's only 1:30 of day one and I'm already out of stuff to do and bored stiff. I've read, showered, watched a movie, and did as much of my scrapbook as I could before I ran out of pictures that I already had developed. I just want to drive somewhere and do something! I want to get more scrapbook stuff and pictures to catch up on my scrapbook, I need to get some thank you presents for some people, a birthday present, anything but stare at this apartment more. I But I'm supposed to wait 9 more days till I can drive. I don't think that will happen, I'll wait a few more days till I can move my knee better, but 9 days is just ridiculous. Time to hunt down that ice pack again...

feelin good

Knee surgery was great! It was so much easier than I thought it would be. Big big giant thank you to Emily for sacrificing a very important afternoon to go with me. Anyways, I got there at 1:15, and was on the way home by 5. I did great with the anesthesia, woke up pretty nauseous but they pushed something through my IV and it went away. My knee's not really swollen from what I can see, the only pain I have is at the incision sites that are closed with one stitch each, and I can walk around the apartment with just a small limp because my knee doesn't bend that much right now. I do have crutches that I'll use for a few days if I'm going to be on my leg for more than a few minutes. They gave me prescription pain pills but I haven't needed them yet. I took one before I went to bed just in case, and it has worn off by now and it doesn't really hurt. The worse part of the whole thing was not eating for 18 hours, and the antibiotic that they pushed through my IV that made my whole arm burn. I'm taking it easy till tomorrow when I can take the ace bandage and dressings off, but I'm not released to go back to work, drive, or resume more strenuous activity till next Friday. That's ok, a week and a half off work is a welcome break! Moving it to the couch for the day to watch movies, but I can guarantee by noon I'll be bored stiff. Hopefully I can do something tonight with either Amy, the Milks, or the Ranvestels. I'm going to wait and see how my knee feels later since they said today it should get sore.

frustrated + nerves = unhappy tummy

I'm feeling frustrated right now. The surgical nurse called to pre-register me for tomorrow, and they moved me up 45 minutes, which is nice except I'd already been working on rides to and from. Then she wanted to know who was coming with me. I explained that one friend was dropping me off, and another would pick me up. Apparently you need to have the same someone with you for the whole procedure. Panic! I'm still waiting to hear back from Sarah and Emily, hopefully one of them can come with me. Then she asked who was staying with me for 24 hours. I didn't know that I had to have someone with me for 24 hours afterwards. I should be home by 5, and Ashley doesn't come home from work till 9. Grr. I wish the doctor had told me all of these things earlier. And my mom freaked me out about being put to sleep. I guess I had a bad reaction to anesthesia when I had my tonsils out as a kid. So now I'm frustrated and getting important information late, stressed that I won't be able to find someone to go with me, and nervous about the anesthesia. My tummy is making lots of noise in protest. I'm trying to relax and eat some fresh pineapple (it reduces swelling). Time to finish cleaning, take a shower, sleep early, wake up at 11:45 to eat a snack, then back to bed.

knee surgery

Knee surgery is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at 3. I have to be there at 2 so they can put me to sleep, then in surgery from 3-3:45, and then should be able to go home around 5. It's arthroscopic, there will just be 3 small incisions that they'll close with a stitch or 2. The bummer about doing it in the afternoon is that I still can't eat anything after midnight. Oh well, not really a big deal. The best part is that I can't be in the water for 7-10 days, so I get to take time off work! I only have to take it easy for a few days, and most likely will be able to walk out of surgery on my own. I'm a little nervous about the anesthesia, I tend to get a little sick, but that's not a big deal. I'm just excited that they could schedule it so soon. Now I just need to find a ride to and from surgery.....

impatient

We sang the patience song in RVCkids this morning, and I chuckled to myself again. I love how much I always learn in there with the kiddos. I have been so impatient all weekend waiting to see the surgeon on Monday. I just want to do the surgery this week, really I need to do it this week with my schedule. One of my classes is cancelled for the second half of the week, and I have permission for my other class to miss a few days. I'm not nervous or scared, I just want to get this done and get back to life. I hate not being active, but if I do any kind of physical activity my knee hurts. I just need to be patient. In a few weeks I'll hopefully be back to normal. Patience waiting for the surgery, and even worse will be patience afterwards trying to get back too fast.