Updates from the Couch

Hi everyone,

Not going to lie. Nothing extraordinary happened this week. So I'm just going to give an update about the knee surgery and submitting proof that my family does indeed have the worst luck ever. 

When we last wrote, we were preparing for my knee surgery (arthroscopic meniscal surgery) and being generally optimistic about the new year. My surgery was originally scheduled for January 10th at 11:45 AM, but the day before ended up being bumped up to 9:00 AM. This actually worked out a lot better, given that the boys would be in school during the whole procedure and post-op recovery. Sure enough though, things never work out the way they're supposed to. 

We went to bed around 11:00 PM, trying to fall asleep, which was difficult as I was as excited as a kid on Christmas eve. Finally though, we slept until we heard retching sounds in the kids' bathroom at around 3:00 AM. Next thing we hear is a pitiful sounding Darren saying, "Mom....TJ....I'm not feeling good."

I'm sure wherever you're reading this from, that there have been nasty stomach bugs going around. According to my Facebook feed, many of my friends from all over the country have been hit with these nasty viruses, and sure enough just hours before my surgery, my son had been hit with it too. 

TJ decided to let me sleep so he could care for Darren and eventually they were both able to sleep. We were hoping that Darren would be feeling up to going to school when he got up, and figured that we didn't need to panic just yet. At 6:00 AM that all changed. As we got up to get ready to go to the hospital and get the kids ready for school, we realized that TJ was now sick with the stomach virus. We began to panic and tried to figure out how to get through the day. We called for reinforcements (both of our moms) but with the morning traffic they wouldn't arrive in time to help. The kids made it off to school, though poor Darren had a rough day since he was still recovering and also very worried about my surgery. TJ was such a trooper and stayed by my side, even though he wasn't feeling well himself. As they were getting my IV into place, TJ almost passed out, and for a little while, he was my neighbor on the gurney next to me.

After joking with my geeky, yet fun anesthesiologist, I was finally ready for surgery. Next thing I know, I woke up, and in a great deal of pain. I have a resistance to pain medication, and it took three different pain medications to finally dull the pain. This became quite an issue later as I battled with my doctor (who couldn't even grace me with his presence) over the pain medication prescription, I lost. As far as the surgery, I'm assuming it went well, as I mentioned before, my doctor didn't take the time to speak with me or TJ, so I'm sure I'll find out more after my appointment on Wednesday. 

The recovery is going well so far, it's painful and the recovery is slow, but I'm able to bend my knee as I walk, and I can walk on my own for up to 5 minutes at a time. I'm still stuck on the couch more than I'd like to be, however I've made a discovery that will make this recovery far easier. Netflix has Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, as well as every Star Trek episode ever made!

So there you have it, we survived the day of the surgery, and I'm on the road to recovery, hopefully we'll have more exciting and fun things to share in the future, until then you have to deal with the updates from the couch.