Like New

Well, that's what I am hoping my knee is now - like new. I went in to have my knee surgery on Monday morning, bright and early. We had to be there at 7am, so Whizzy came to stay with the girls that morning to get them off to school (and she managed to get them fed, dressed, and to school by 7:30 that morning...Jerry and I are in awe).

Once we arrived I got all settled in the pre-op area, complete with my IV and then Jerry could come back. He got to meet the doc, who again explained the possible treatments he may do once he got into the surgery. After that we just had to wait a bit, so we looked like total geeks with our phones playing games and Jerry taking pictures of me with my little temperature sticker on my forehead. Eventually they came back and gave me some "I don't care" medicine (their words - not mine!), and it truly made me not give a damn. About 10 minutes afterwards they took me back to the OR, I scooted over to the other bed, and that's the last thing I remember.

Next thing I knew I was waking up being offered some coke. Anesthesia is an amazing thing. They brought Jerry back and he wsa the one that broke the news to me that they did in fact have to do the microfracture procedure. I was reeeealllly hoping they weren't going to have to do that, mainly because it just sounded like it would be painful. There was a pretty significant portion of missing cartilage on my bone (not sure which one, if it's the femur or tibia, but will ask today at my doctor's appointment), so hopefully this surgery will do the trick. Apparently if it doesn't, I'm in for another more involved surgery...but I'm not even going to go down that road yet!

So for the past few days I've just been hanging out on the couch watching trash TV, reading books, cross-stitching....doing stuff I normally don't have much time to do when I'm healthy! I wasn't having too much pain until last night. I think all of the meds finally wore off completely last night and even the percocet wasn't doing a great job of keeping the pain at bay. But I go back to the doc today so perhaps he'll have some more advice on how I can manage it better.

Carrie has been too sweet through all of this. She always wants to bring me my crutches and will come over to me and hug me and say "it's okay, sweetie." I mean, how cute is that?! Anna, on the other hand, is just as silly and crazy as ever...I just have to make sure my knee is out of her path of destruction!

Like I said, I go back to the doctor today for my post-op follow-up. We'll see what he has to say about when I can go back to work, how long I have to use crutches, and all that good stuff!

Funny Conversation

Me: Carrie, do you know what tomorrow is?
Carrie: Sunday
Me: Yes, but it's a special Sunday.
Carrie: EASTER!
Me: Very good! And what does it mean that it's Easter?
Carrie: EASTER EGGS!
Me: Well, yes, but what else does it mean?
Carrie: Jesus died on the cross.
Me: Yep, but do you know why he did that?
Carrie: Nope. Why?
Me: He did it for our sins
Carrie: Oh. What are sins?
Me: Bad things we do that we may or may not really have meant to do.
Carrie: Oh.
Me: Because he did that, one day we can go live in Heaven.
Carrie: Cool! (then silence.....) But what about our house??

Gotta love the logic of a four-year-old.

Plica bands, microfractions and arthroscopic surgery, oh my!

I had my second opinion today. It's not that I didn't like my other doctor, but let's get real - in the same breath he tells me that my plica band will almost definitely need to be taken out due to the pain/swelling....but let's wait ANOTHER 6 weeks before we decide on anything. I realize I'm not usually a patient person anyways, but I've been doing this hobbling thing for 2 months now...not cool when you have two children under the age of 5, a job, and the desire to actually do something other than sit on the couch all day long.

I immediately really liked this doctor. He came highly recommended from the wife of a board member at work who has just had knee replacement surgery, so the guy has to know his knee stuff, right? He came in and immediately put me at ease, looked over my chart, asked me all sorts of questions and torqued my knee in all sorts of directions (um, OUCH.). He took a couple of new x-rays to make sure my alignment was as it should be and that I wasn't causing myself the problem by walking funky (although by now I think I really am walking funky to compensate). Alignment was fine, so he presented me with the three possibilities of what he thinks could be wrong:
1) Plica band - an odd little band in your knee which is apparently a lot like your appendix or spleen. It doesn't really do anything to help you, but if it gets hurt it can cause problems
2) Cartilage problem - he best explained it by likening my bones to an M&M. The hard candy coating shell on the M&M "protects" it, but if there's a chip in it (i.e. chip or missing piece of cartilage on my bones), then that needs to be resolved
3) Nothing - that would suck because then I guess that means the pain is in my head??

Then he presented me with the two options:
1) Brace my leg/knee for a month or so, which may or may not help and he's not entirely sure what he'd be bracing my knee against
2) Surgery. Scope to be exact. If he gets in there and it's the plica, then remove it and I'm looking at a week or so of recovery. If it's the cartilage, then do a procedure called microfracture and everything heals up and I'm looking at another 6 weeks of crutches. If it's nothing, then they stitch up my incisions and I go home, probably with a brace to see if that can help.

I chose option 2, based on his recommendation. After talking it over with him, it does seem like this is the best option. I've tried the wait and see thing for 2 months, with my right knee completely healing and the left one getting worse. We've had MRIs and x-rays, but the problem is with the things that he thinks it may be, they don't show up on those diagnostic tools and the only real way to know what's going on is to get in there and take a peek.

So there you have it - I'm signed up for a diagnostic scope a week from Monday.

Good thing I've got great health insurance.

Oh yeah - and I've already met my deductible for the year, and I imagine I'm pretty damn close to the out of pocket max too.

And it's only April.

An Ah-Ha Moment

I promise I will post on Carrie's birthday festivities in a day or so (once I download the pics, which I know will make my mom happy!!), but I've just had this post rolling around in my head since yesterday afternoon now, and I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't get it out.

****MASCARA ALERT********

I had to add that in there for my mom, cause I'm pretty sure it will make her tear up. And I'm not putting this out there to make my mom & dad feel guilty about having to leave yesterday!!

So my mom has been here since last Saturday, and my dad came on Thursday. We had a great week. I know the girls were testing Mom's patience at times (heck, they test mine on a regular basis). Ken showed up on Thursday and we all took Carrie to gymnastics and just had a wonderful time together. Jerry got back into town late Thursday and we spent the weekend getting ready for Carrie's party and enjoying the company of family and friends.

Then after the party on Saturday came the time I knew was coming - I knew Mom would get sad at the idea of having to leave the girls. Carrie didn't help things because Mom was telling her that she had to leave to go back to Atlanta and she said "I love you Lady!" My mom told her she loved her too, then Carrie responds "I love you SO MUCH." That's enough to make anyone get sappy. So both of them are teary-eyed, which made me teary-eyed. It's a domino effect I think.

We got my parents off and headed back north, and all hell broke loose. Anna was clearly tired but thought a nap was optional, and Carrie was still getting upset that Lady and KnowMan had to leave. I knew one of the gifts she received from a friend was the movie Tangled so we broke that out and popped it in the player.

For the rest of the day, she'd be fine then all of a sudden she would bust out in tears saying "I want Lady & KnowMan!" I was trying so hard not to get sad myself in front of her, but I wasn't doing a very good job (you are NEVER too old to miss your parents!).

They finally went to bed around 7:30-8. Anna started crying because she was just exhausted, and then Carrie joined in. I went into Carrie's room and laid down with her and asked what was wrong, already knowing full well what it was. She missed my parents, and nothing I did or said was helping, so I just let her cry some to get it all out. And that's when it hit me - this is the beginning of what I can only imagine is one of the hardest things about being a parent - seeing your child hurting and not being able to do a damn thing about it. I mean, Carrie's been upset before, but it's usually because I won't let her do what she wants to do, or she's scraped her knee or something like that. Nothing like her missing a person and not understanding why she can't just see my parents whenever she wants to. I felt like my heart was being ripped out when she was crying. I wanted so badly to make everything right and make her feel better, but I knew nothing was going to help her right in that minute, and it sucked.

All I can say is I may not be able to get my parents' jobs moved down here so they can be around all the time and Carrie can see them whenever she wants, but God help the boy that breaks my baby's heart :)

Scariest Day of My Life

That was yesterday - the scariest day of my life. Why, you might ask? Because I had to drive this:

That would be my mother's car. She is down visiting to help out with the girls while Jerry's away (and thank goodness, cause I think they are figuring out finally that Mommy can't possibly chase after them). I had to stay at work late yesterday because of some meetings, which meant she would need to pick up the girls. She already had one car seat in the back of that beast, and we, being apparently as ridiculous as we are, thought we could shove another car seat in the back of the Mustang.

It didn't work.

I probably didn't even need to tell you that, huh?

I am sure it was quite the sight to see my mother and I taking turns at trying to wrestle another Britax into the back of that car. After about 15 minutes of sweating and wrestling, we gave up and came to the conclusion that I would just drive her car to work and she could use the Expo. I have always been terrified of driving my mother's cars. She doesn't get new ones very often....as in the last car she had she drove for 20 years and is still in the garage at home (I think it was 20 years - correct me if I am wrong Mom!). She takes EXCELLENT care of her cars, so that she can drive the wheels off of them. And besides that - this friggin' car is a beast. I mean, you crank it up and everyone within a 5 mile radius knows it. And it has a lot of get up and go, obviously. I was scared to death I was going to have an accident or someone was going to ram into me. Before I left she said "why are you freaking out? It's just a car!" Um, okay :) I didn't want to make that phone call to say guess what? Just wrapped your car around a tree!!

It's been awhile since I called or texted my mother to let her know whenever I arrived at my destination, but I did that yesterday. "Made it to doc - didn't bend your car!" "Made it to work - didn't bend your car!" "On my way home now - hopefully won't bend your car!"

I have to admit - while I felt like I was riding about 2 inches off the road, it was quite fun to drive something other than the Mommy SUV for a change. But I am also quite glad to have my giant SUV back today so I can see everything going on around me!

A Favorite Hangout

The girls and I were on our own tonight while Daddy is hanging out for work in San Diego (rough life, huh?). I was chatting with a friend today and she said she was taking her and her sister's kiddos to Island Playground and asked if we wanted to go. I initially told her no since I can't really chase the girls around (and by girls, I mean Anna, cause she is all. over. the. place), but she offered to keep them wrangled. So I stopped by Starbucks, got us some java chip fraps as a thank you for keeping my kids in line, and the girls some milk, and off we went. Carrie's been many times, but this was really Anna's first time where she knew what to do and could play in all of the bounce houses. I think Anna spent the first 10 minutes just squealing at the top of her lungs checking everything out. She had a great time playing with all the other kids. It was so nice because it was practically empty. Most of the times we go it's either a Saturday, raining, cold, or some other variable that means every other child in HHI and Bluffton are there. Literally there were only our 7 munchkins and two other kids. It was great to just get out and hang out with a good friend I haven't seen in awhile and let the girls burn off some toddler energy. And the fact that I captured this little picture definitely topped off the trip:

Thanks Ms. Anna (not to be confused with my little Anna!) for helping wrangle my kids and getting me out of the house!!

Mommy Guilt

Um, did someone actually provide funding for a study like this??

Cause I'm pretty sure this is a little common sense...but then again, common sense ain't common.