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.