A friendly reminder….

For two years now we have had a Christmas Eve Eve tradition of going to the casino just North of Topeka.  Last year we all lost money, but this year I made $300!!!!  I see a new pair of cowboy boots in my future… that or a new windshield.  Sometimes it sucks to be a responsible adult…. 

While I was sitting at a slot machine the woman next to me and I began chatting.  After we established that the creeper who kept coming to talk to her was NOT her spouse/boyfriend/friend and just a creeper in general we got a good laugh out of it.  We continued to chit chat and she asked me why I was on a crutch.  

SIDE BAR - I don't mind talking about it at all (heck, I BLOG about it), but the last couple of weeks have been trying, mainly because I should have been done with the crutch…. and well… I still have to use it to get around.  I'm not going to lie, I have been having some pretty big pity parties about it at home in the evenings the last few days.  

I explained to her what they did and she asked when I had it done.  I told her the beginning of October and that I was hoping to be walking by now, but things were just not progressing the way I thought that they should have been.  She told me she had surgery in September at KU Med as well, it was her 34th and final surgery…. she had part of her leg amputated.  She initially had gone in to have bunions removed and…. well, clearly something went wrong.  

She wasn't bitter about it, she wasn't angry about it and she was by no means looking for sympathy for it.  She had accepted it for what it was, and was going to make the most of what she has in life.  She shared pictures of her children with me and told me all about her husband, her kids and their animals.  She told Kevin and I about the adorable puppy that her husband brought home one day, and told us how she had trained him to be a service dog for her to help her get around in case she happened to fall or needed assistance.  Her outlook on life was so positive and yet so realistic.  

Driving home last night really made me think about a lot of things…. While I may still be on a crutch, and things may not be progressing as quickly as I would like for them to be, I still have so many things to be thankful for in life.  I knew that recovery was going to take an extended amount of time, I am not a super hero (although I like to think that I have super hero powers some days).  I really do need to get over this pity party and DO SOMETHING instead of feel sorry for myself!  

I read a quote a few years ago, it has always stuck in the back of my mind "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about…"  Isn't that the truth!

Kevin and I wish you and your families a Very Merry Christmas!  God's Blessings to all of you reading this!

Are We There Yet?

I'm sure I (along with many other kids) overwhelmed my parents with this question growing up, "Are we there yet?"  You see, patience has never been a strong suit of mine.  In fact, it's something I attempt to work on every day, but I tend to loose my patience in doing so.

That being said, the last 10 weeks have sucked.  I went back and read some of my blog posts earlier today, hoping to remind myself of how far I have come.   While I am allowed to be full weight bearing, let's be realistic, you don't just stand up and miraculously walk.  It's a process (what isn't) and it is a test of patience.  The thing with this is though, I have no choice but to wait it out and work on things.  I can get frustrated all day long, but at the end of the day, it's not going to change anything.

So here is the update.  I have nerve pain, this isn't just the small pinched nerve here or there, this is shoot up your leg, wake you up in the middle of the night nerve pain.  It comes on when you are least expecting it and in technical terms 'zaps and jolts' you.  I have honestly never experienced anything like this before (and I would be okay never experiencing it again).  It has been going on for about a week and a half now.  Today the nerves in my hamstring have been hard at it.  Since this is 'normal' I guess we are going to go with it for now.

Cross your fingers because I think we are going to be crutch fee in one week (I'm at one now, hoping to go to none soon!).

Stay tuned:)

The Russian

Yesterday when I left physical therapy I was told that today we were going to do some massaging on my knee for today's appointment.  I thought, this is great, a massage that my insurance is going to cover… this makes it worth it.

Who was I kidding. I walked in (hobbled in on crutches) for my appointment and my Physical Therapist says to me "Are you ready for the Russian?"  The Russian?  This does NOT sound like a massage to me!  He follow that up with "Have you ever seen Rocky?"  No, I have never seen Rocky, but when anyone talks about Rocky this is the first thought that comes to my mind.

Uh, No. Thank. You.  I have no desire to come out of PT bloodied and bruised!  I will come back next week for my regular PT appointment full of squats and calf lifts, but for now….I am not interested in your "Russian".

After some hesitations and a few additional questions I discovered that "The Russian" is really just a setting on the electrical stimulation machine.  Well… If you would have said that, I would have been all for it!  E-Stem is my favorite part of Physical Therapy.  In fact, I heard that a person can actually buy their own E-Stem machine at the State Fair (along with getting your teeth whitened, glasses and jewelry cleaned and purchasing exercise equipment, but that post is for another day).  So off we went to the back to do the e-stem!  And let me tell you what, it was great:)  Unfortunately, this is not the same e-stem where they hook you up, turn off the lights, give you a fluffy pillow and let you doze off.  This is the kind where they make you stand up and attempt to activate muscles that have not been activated for about 8 weeks.

But it's all good.  We could see results instantly and several hours later I am still feeling great.

In more serious news. On Monday I will hypothetically be able to walk on my own… sans crutches… but we will see if that becomes a reality, I will take all of the prayers I can get right now.  It has been a long 7-8 weeks, but I have become stronger physically, emotionally and mentally because of it.  There have been so many times that I have said "i can't do it" and guess what… I did…. because I have to.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving this week!

PS - Several of you have asked me about the cat.  We came to the conclusion that we will keep the name Fiona since he already thinks that is his name:)

Fiona vs. Fernando: Part Deux

Fast forward 3 months…..

I do NOT want a cat.  She is mean.  She is mean to my dog, she is mean to Kevin's dog, she is mean to me.  The only person she really gets along with is Kevin.  Kevin calls her and she comes running to him, because she listens to him.  I call her and she runs the other way.  If this photo doesn't convince you about what an awful cat she is I don't know what will!

Every picture of her turns out like this, and this is NOT photoshopped!

There are other reasons I don't like the cat.  When I take a piece of jewelry off she will run off with it if I don't put it away immediately.   One night I took my wedding ring off for a moment and the little sh*t grabbed it and ran, thank goodness I had two working legs at the time!  When I take a bath she sits in the bathroom and stares at you, when you close the curtain she peaks around it.  After I got home from surgery I had to lock her out of the bedroom as she would fight with the dogs constantly, she would then throw herself at the door and make it bang all day.  There are other things she does to me, I can't think of them all right now.

The cat has no fear as you can see from this video and picks on the Abbinator CONSTANTLY:

But Kevin loves this cat, and I know that my dog can be very needy and whiney sometimes as well, and I really need to learn to pick and choose my battles.  So I guess we are keeping the cat.  Today I took Fiona in to get her fixed and declawed (something I swore I would never do to a cat because I think it borders on inhumane but I also don't want to purchase new living room furniture and bedroom furniture in the next year).  So I drop the cat off, go to work and no less than a few minutes later receive a phone call that goes like this…..

The Vet: "Sarah, this is the vet, we uh, I just, well… do you know that Fiona has a p*n!s?"

Me: "*insert awkward uncomfortable laugh here* uh, no? Are you sure?" (How old am I?)

The Vet:"Yea, well, I went in to examine her and get ready to do the procedure, but…. Fiona is a he… I've actually had three other people look at her… him… and come to the same conclusion."

Me:"Ok, well can you fix him then?"

The Vet:"Well, there is the problem, your cat doesn't seem to have any testicles"

Me:"Oh My!  Well…. then what do you recommend?"

The Vet:"Well… I don't really know….. I guess you could just leave him like he is and if anything ever changes you could bring him back…."

Me: Well, ok, hmmmm, well I guess that will be the plan?

There was a lot of laughing during the above conversation!

When I did pick the cat up, the vet was just as perplexed as could be, in all of her years in doing this, she has never encountered a cat like this. 

So, in the long run I guess that the cat saved me some money.  BUT, I think that after today a lot of things have been explained.  It is evident that she has been acting out because she is having an identity crisis:)  Others tell me that her identity crisis is the least of her concerns right now, which is true!

All in all, I have been laughing about this all day today - One of the funniest things that has happened in quite some time!

The ultimate question still remains though, do we change her/his/it's name?  My vote is for Fernando, Kevin says we need to leave it as Fiona (it is his cat ultimately).  He continues to refer to it as a she, I'm pretty sure it is an it at this point. 

Fiona vs. Fernando Part 1

The story really begins several months ago all because of a rodent.  

Several months ago when I was in the basement doing laundry and changing out the sheets on the guest bed I noticed that we had evidence of a mouse.  If there is one thing I hate more than anything else in this world, it is a mouse.  I screamed, I cried, I ran upstairs, I refused to go back downstairs, I cried some more and declared that I was going to move out of our house because there was a mouse in the basement (more like a family, but that is a story for another day).  I bought packages and packages of sticky traps and snap traps - the little rodents would get stuck and then peel themselves off of the traps or set the traps off but escape.  I had caught a total of 0 after several weeks (at which point I am sure the things had multiplied).  This was also about the time that one of my favorite episodes of Duck Dynasty came out, when the Robertson's had mice, Miss Kay got three cats!

SO……...

I begged Kevin for a cat, I just KNEW that if we had a cat it would catch the mice, I had to have a cat… but Kevin was 'allergic'. 

My dear Neighbor Ms M. knew how much I wanted a cat (although I don't think she knew about the rodent issue), so one day in the middle of July she shows up to my front door with a present.  A sweet little kitten from her parents farm.  It was the saddest looking kitten, barely pushing 4 weeks, had eye issues, the momma cat had abandoned it and "Sarah, it's going to get run over by a combine if you don't take it… "  If you know me at all, you know I am a sucker for situations like this, but at the same time the thing was as HOMELY and UGLY as a toad.  I turned to look at Kevin and he said "sure, we can keep it"  (wrong answer!).  So we started off with the kitten on a trial period.  It used it's litter box, it didn't make a lot of noise, it didn't do much of anything but sit on top of our laptops to stay warm.  For several weeks I nursed this cat back to health. 

And then…. Kevin named it.  On the way home from somewhere he looks at me and says "I think we should name the cat Fiona" (it was obviously a girl, it didn't have boy parts).  Once you name an animal you are stuck with it. There are no take-backsies 

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I think the title of this blog says it all.  I don't know specifically what it was this weekend, but something happened.  I had a revelation that not only have I far passed the halfway point, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

So Wednesday I am going to be starting to add weight to my leg when I walk, but on Saturday morning I figured what the heck, why not start now.  Honestly, what are 4 days going to do after 5 1/2 weeks?  So far so good!  This means that I am just at 3 weeks from ditching the crutches and having my life completely back!  Let me tell you about the to do list I have in store for housework - I may have to take more time off from work just to get my list taken care of!

Blessings

Today officially marks 4 weeks from surgery.  I have come so far (but still have a long ways to go).  One of my milestones for today is that I am DONE sleeping with the awful machine at night.  Don't get me wrong I cheated for the last 2 nights and haven't worn it the entire time, it had been causing me pain and discomfort while I tried to sleep!  The box to ship it back should be here tomorrow!  insert happy dance

This also means that in two weeks I can start adding weight.  I am looking forward to this A LOT!  We will start to see a tremendous amount of strength improvement once we start adding weight, in the mean time, we are still working on making my leg go straight and bending it all of the way, still not there.

Talking about my knee has really made me thing about a lot of things (you can only talk to the animals for so long).  Today it was raining when I woke up, crutches and wetness just do not mix so I opted to work from home.  When it was time to go to physical therapy I gave my mom a call to see if she would take me so I didn't have to do wetness alone.  This is when it all kind of hit me (don't get me wrong, I have been very aware at how blessed I am for quite some time).

I am pretty sure that I would NOT have been able to have surgery without some pretty important folks in my life.  My husband, my mom, my step-dad, our friends and family.  If you would have asked me 15 years ago if I would live 7 minutes from my mom I would have hesitated.  Ask me now and I wouldn't change it for the world.  Moving to Manhattan was one of the BEST things for Kevin and I!  Mom being retired is also one of the BEST things for me right now!  Having help with the laundry, cooking, cleaning and picking up has been an absolute blessing, in the beginning I was so upset that she was doing so much to help me, I felt like I should at least be helping.  Four weeks later, I know better!  She has been so amazing, coming over at the smallest text, taking me shopping, cooking me lunch and just providing me with some human interaction.  I am so blessed to have such a great relationship with my mom and to have such an amazing woman in my life, I know not everyone can say that!  She has definitely been an amazing role model for me growing up and continues that to this very day.

Working from home has actually posed some issues for me, I cannot get around to eat lunch because I can't really carry anything around to different rooms, pocket food like Halloween candy works best:)  Kevin has been a real trouper throughout the last 4 weeks, letting the dogs in and out, keeping the cat away from me, and he has even started to learn how to cook (we are talking beyond frozen pizza here folks)!  While the last 4 weeks have been trying on our marriage at times, it is truly making our relationship stronger.  More importantly we both have a better understanding and appreciation of what the other one does around our home.

Enough sappiness, one of my FAVORITE things to do when I go out in public now is to ride the electric wheelchairs around businesses.  Thus far my favorite electric wheelchair is the one at Dillons, hands down.  It feels clean.  Today I checked out the ones at Target, not fast enough for me, but it will do for now.

Birthday Month! (and another knee update)

Today marks three weeks to the day since surgery.  This means that I have three more weeks left of walking around with crutches being non-weight bearing.  This also means that I have 6 weeks left of crutches in general.   I am counting down the days!  I also have some good news from the physical therapist, when I first started seeing him my knee measured at 66 degrees, as of today we are at 96 degrees!  The goal is to get to 110-120 degrees.  So progress is being made!

This week is also our Annual Meeting/Conference that Extension Employees have each year.  Tonight, after all of the meetings were over, two good friends, B and D brought over a birthday cookie to help celebrate the big 3-0!  While my birthday was two weeks ago, I was pretty out of it and wasn't able to get around very well - How exciting was this!  We ate cookie pizza and B watched her first ever episode of Duck Dynasty!  While she assured us that this was probably the last as well, I suspect that she will secretly start watching Willie and his family on a more regular basis:)

Thank you for all of the prayers and thoughts, things are starting to progress in a positive direction!

Knee Update

I was afraid that this would happen.  I started my blog and wrote everything that I wanted to say in two blog posts. I keep thinking to myself "what should I write about tonight on my blog?" and nothing!

I even started two other posts but never published them because I didn't find them very entertaining or informative.  Here are some of the topics I considered writing about

1 - How much being dependent upon others SUCKS.  From having someone clean your home, do your laundry and dishes all the way to help getting in and out of buildings, your car, and bed.  This blog was just a big whine fest.

2 - Kevin and I often give our animals voices and then our animals have conversations with us.  I thought an entire blog dedicated to the smart remarks we 'think' our animals would say to us what be entertaining, but then I realized that you have to be there to find the humor in it!

So I have decided to write you another informative blog about knee surgery/osteotomy recovery.

Two works. IT SUCKS.

I have lost about 20 pounds thus far, pretty sure this is for a few reasons.

1. By the time I hobble to the kitchen I am too tired to eat so I turn around and go back to bed. 
2. In general I have not been finding food very appetizing, the other day I got Chinese take out for dinner.  I took one bite and decided I was full.  So wasteful, I know. 
3. I have lost some muscle mass in my left leg, but I have also gained some muscle in my arms, I am going to have some big muscles when this thing is all said and done with!

I wouldn't recommend this as a diet plan, but for the time being I'll take it!

Physical Therapy has also been incredibly frustrating.  I have a great Physical Therapist who I would strongly recommend anyone who has to go through PT use, his name is Nick and he is at Mercy West. He has been doing a great job, so encouraging and supportive.  The frustrating part is that my knee is just not progressing how I have been wanting it to. In fact, today I was not able to straighten it out for my PT exercises at home.  

Many of you know, patience is not my strong-suit.  I have been reaching into the bottom of the barrel for more patience.  We must be out.  

We have had so many folks ask us what we need, or what they can do to help out.  We just need prayers.  Prayers for healing, prayers for patience, prayers for progress. 

My Knee

As many of you know, I had knee surgery just two weeks ago today.  It was my 4th knee surgery before the age of 30 (I got the surgery in just a week before my 30th bday, because who doesn't want to spend their birthday drugged up and on crutches!).

My first post that I decided not to publish was essentially my medical history.  Didn't think you wanted to read that (and HIPPA may have something to say about that as well).

This is also for all of my friends out there who ask me what happened, or what I had done.  It is much easier to just point you here:)

In the last 6 months my knee had been locking and catching so I knew something was wrong, referral after referral led me to KUMed. I have to say, I was a bit intimidated being referred to a specialist at KUMed.  The Dr. that I had at KUMed I could not have been more impressed with.  My mom went with me to that first appointment and he sat down with us for almost 2 hours and went over everything.  Showed us the X-Rays, showed us why that was bad, shared with us the procedures that he was going to do, etc. etc.  This man NEVER looked at his watch, we were clearly his number 1 priority at that point.  You don't experience that very often!  He showed me that my left leg was crooked, it was between 12-14 degrees off, after 7 degrees that is considered a problem.  Because my leg was off I was putting extra weight on the outside of my joint, which is also where I had all of the meniscus and tissue removed.  Long story short - we had bone on bone action here and the beginnings of some intense arthritis.  We had to schedule surgery for about 3 months out at that point, because of all of the cortisone that had been injected into my knee in the last month he did not feel comfortable operating right away.  I also had a few things in my life that I wanted to get done and over with before we went through with this operation.  Each time I go back and visit with the Dr in my post op appointments, I keep discovering more and more things that were done in my surgery to help me out.  So here is a break down of what happened.
     1- The screws from my previous surgery were removed (which they do not allow you to keep at        KUMed.. BUMMER!)
    2 - What was left of my torn cartilage under my knee was removed, I also had a bone spur growing on the underside of my knee cap so that was smoothed out and taken care of
   3- A wedge was cut into my femur and a 13 degree angle was made, they 'harvested' bone marrow from my femur and used that to fill in the wedge that they had removed.  That was then covered with a plate and 10 screws (the X-ray shows only 8, but 10 sounds even more awesome)
   4- I then had what they call a micro fracture procedure done.  This is when they make a lot of little micro-fractures in your tibia which spurs the regrowth of cartilage.  While this isn't the same type of cartilage that you initially had there, it gives you some new cushion with that regrowth.  It takes the cartilage about 6 weeks to grow.

I am absolutely amazed at what modern medicine can do for us!  This last surgery is what Dr. Munn's called a salvable surgery.  It is the next step to having a total knee replacement done.  The reason they wouldn't do a total knee replacement is because of my age.  These issues are so uncommon that he doesn't really do a whole lot of these a year, but he specializes in this type of surgery and rehabilitation. He even told me that he is currently in the process of writing a paper about doing Osteotomy's (which is what step 3 is called), I am hoping that I am referenced in his work!

I had set a few goals after surgery of things that I wanted to accomplish, one of those was to run another 5K in a year.  I was sharing this with Dr Munns at my last appointment, he informed me that it was a terrible idea to do that.  He said that running itself will tear the cartilage that I am regrowing right now up and that he does NOT want me doing that.  SO... back to the drawing board I go for goal setting, I am sure I will come up with something fun and exciting!

The biggest question I am asked is "what did you do to it" to get to this point.  Honestly, nothing, I was born crooked I suppose and over time it progressively got worse.  I do know that this is the 15-20 year fix instead of the steady ever 5 year ones.  The next one will be to have a knee replacement.  We will cross that bridge when we get there, a lot can happen in 15-20 years in the medical world!

I will say that I have been overwhelmed with everyone's generosity!  K was not much of a cook before hand, but now he is making dinner every night!  From the bottom of my heart I cannot thank everyone enough! The prayers, phone calls, text messages and facebook messages have meant more to me than so many of you can imagine!  I couldn't have gotten through the last two weeks without my mom and K's help, they have been awesome.  I was pretty sure it was a terrible idea to send me home from the hospital on the last day, but my mom and K made it work, got me home, comfortable and settled in.  If either of them ever needed a reference to be a home health nurse, I'm that person:)

Here is the x-ray of my left leg.  The plate and screws are on the outside of my femur.  If you see the green arrow that is drawn on the picture that is the wedge that they cut into my leg and filled with bone marrow!

Introduction

I have been contemplating starting a blog for several weeks now, this afternoon I finally decided to jump in and do it!  SO, welcome to my blog, I'm glad that you have taken a few minutes to delve into my life and share some of those "oh so funny moments" with me!

Quick History - My husband, who I will call 'K' for all intents and purposes is the love of my life, he makes me laugh until I cry and is truly my best friend.  We have been married for just over a year!

Happy Anniversary to us!

As you can tell we are also DIE HARD K-State fans, as a gift last year K got me season basketball tickets and I LOVED them, so much that we got them again this year!

While we don't have children (yet....) we do have some fur children of our own.  A quick introduction:

Maggie: Ultimately called "Sarah's Dog" it is not a secret that Maggie and K have a deep seeded friendship (and love) for each other.  This is typically displayed during late night work sessions and Sunday afternoon football.  They truly do LOVE each other.  Currently Maggie is sporting her Bob Marley look as we have not taken her to get a hair cut in quite some time, I will be sure to post before and after pictures!  Since I have been layed up the last two weeks, this dog has not left my side and has been there for me the entire time!

 Abbie:  Kevin thought he needed a dog "to go running with" so he got a greyhound/whippet. While Abbie is technically "Kevin's Dog" she really enjoys hanging out with me. She is a great nap taker and always up for a little entertainment when we go outside and she has to show off for our guests.  I have never met an animal who is as incredibly OCD as she is, this is one of THE cleanest dogs I have ever met - - - to the point she will clean Maggie as well.

Our final family member is Fiona - there is a bit of a backstory that goes with this child.  For MONTHS I had BEGGED K to let me get a cat.  When I found out that we had a slight issue with mice in our basement I was CONVINCED I needed a cat to take care of this problem.  I whined and whined and WHINED for one and even tried to trap the neighborhood stray!  Our lovely neighbor knew how bad I wanted a cat so one day she showed up at our house with this kitten from her parents farm.  The kitten had been abandoned by the mother (for good reason as you will find out), it's little eyes were matted shut and it was pretty pathetic.  Looking back K and I are pretty sure that it was on it's final few days.  Not really wanting this kitten I politely asked K if we could keep it (knowing that he would say 'no, I'm allergic').  To my absolute surprise he said sure - - - for the next few days I spend feeding this kitten soft kitty food, washing it's little face and nursing it back to health.  In the beginning 'the cat' was on probation, we were just 'trying it out' -  -  -  and honestly, it was pretty chill, it would sit on our computer keyboards and just hang out.  So K named her Fiona

AND THEN the holy terror grew up.  I could go on and on about all of the naughty things this cat does.  One day I took off my wedding ring and set it on the end table next to me, only to see the cat grab it in her mouth and take off.  She seems to like to carry my jewelry around the house.  She instigates fights among the dogs during the middle of the night, she crawls on the very top of my headboard, she jumps in the shower and bathtub with you, she is awful.  But we named her, and K loves her, so I guess we are stuck.  I tried to get her to run away one day by putting her outside, she came back.  SO, I guess we are stuck with her.