Dog Days of Summer

Even though the summer hasn't been too hot overall, I am ready for cooler weather and so are the dogs.  They haven't been spending much time outside these days and Tank has been ready for a short haircut for a couple of weeks.

Meet the parents

On Saturday we went over to Jeff's parents' house to celebrate Butch's birthday with lunch.  I got to meet his mom, Debbie, for the first time and Jennifer, his sister. Even though it was the first time meeting Jennifer in this setting, I remember her from the many years that I took our dogs to Village Animal Hospital.  It's so funny the memories that I have....I remember her dark eyeliner and I'm pretty sure she had some black jelly bracelets.:)

It's so nice to finally have faces and personalities to put together with the stories that I've heard about everyone.  They are a lively group and I was thoroughly entertained the entire time I was there.  I'm already looking forward to experiencing the holidays with Jeff's family.  Debbie has multiple Christmas trees that she decorates and Jeff has already told me how he's ready for Christmas music after he gets back from the beach in October, so I'm in good company with my love of the holidays. 

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for everyone!  Emily and Hailey both reported that they liked their teachers and had a good first day of school.  My knee made it through the first day, but I needed some ice by the last block.  So far my kiddos seem pretty good, let's hope they stay that way! 

Hailey was just a little excited.

First day of 1st grade!

First day of 2nd grade!

Cheese

My classroom all ready for the kiddos

Check out this picture from the first day of 1st grade.  Emily's hair has grown a lot!

Kings Dominion

On Monday a new yearly tradition emerged out of a father/daughter trip to Kings Dominion.  Emily thought they were going to Bass Pro, but instead got surprised with something even better.  I hear that Em had a great time and made Daddy proud by not complaining even one time.  She had no fear riding the big rides, including riding the Rebel Yell with her hands up the entire way and several rounds of the Drop Zone. 
 

A Little Girl Time

Emily and I got to spend a little time just being girls while I put Jeff to work outside weedeating and changing light bulbs.  We took turns painting each others nails and chatted quite a bit about school.  Emily wanted her toenails to be purple and green like the colors of my classroom.  She later told me that it was perfect because when she started to miss me then she could just look at her toes....so cute:) 

We made big grilled chicken salads for dinner and I got made fun of for putting more tangy bacon tomato dressing on my salad after I gave someone else a hard time for using a lot of dressing. ;) Emily and I played a few computer games after dinner.  It doesn't matter how early they come over, it's never enough time. 

Luckily, I was able to head over the mountain on Sunday for dinner to see them for a little bit.  We had fun watching American's Funniest Home Videos and being silly.   Emily's laugh cracks me up which makes it that much funnier.  I so enjoy having normal days together, just sitting on the couch watching television with Jeff rubbing my feet and Em playing on the bed. 

Playing computer games and dress up

Emily did a nice job with my nails

Grocery Shoppin'

This cutie patootie enjoys going to Martin's just to use the Scan It tool.  I'd be lying if I didn't enjoy it and grocery shopping with her cutie patootie dad just as much. :) 

Pups and playtime

Just a few random shots of my girl, Hay Hay, and the crazy pups that love her to death!

They've taken over Jessica's bedroom

Too early for anyone to be up

Tank wanted to play too

He does love her, I promise

Insert laughter here.

Deer watching

While I had time off over the summer, Jeff and I spent lots of evenings watching deer.  We watched a few deer from the land that he hunts on and spent many evenings looking for them around Waynesboro after dinner.  We have a few spots that we like to check out, but one of our favorites is where we can see two albino deer together. 

I look forward to taking my hunter education class and getting some camo so that I can go hunting with him this fall. :)  

Momma and fawn behind my parents house

The albinos

Oh My Knee!

Even though I'd rather just move on past it, it's probably a good thing to look at the progress that I've made over the last several months.

April 27th, 2014- Tore my ACL and fractured my tibia at WAHS during the last 3 minutes our playoff game, which we won by the way (3-1).   A girl from the opposing team hit me from the side right at the sideline and when I tried to stop myself I felt my leg lock and then go in different directions.  I felt my ACL tear, but my main pain was from my hamstring tendon.  I rolled around and pounded my fists on the turf for what seemed like an eternity.  Luckily, Leslie was there to calm me down and before I knew it the game had been called and I had ice and a vehicle on the track ready to take me to the hospital.  By the time Leslie and I got to the hospital the ice was working and I was feeling a little silly for causing such a scene.  The ER doctors said my knee was fine after some x-rays and tests; gave me some pain killers, a brace and crutches and said follow up with an orthopedist in a week if it didn't get better.

I knew there was no way they were right about the diagnosis. I called several orthos the following Monday morning and got in to see one on Wednesday at MJH.  The swelling seemed to be causing me the most pain, so he decided to drain my knee because whatever came out of it could tell us what I had likely done to it while we waiting on the MRI.  The syringes that he drew were full of blood with a little fat on top.  The blood indicated a torn ACL and the fat indicated something broken.  Wouldn't you know that he was correct?  I got the MRI done just a couple of hours later which showed both injuries. From this point I decided to switch to UVA to the sports medicine clinic because their surgeons work on lots of athletes.

Dr. Miller was going out of town at the end of May, so he suggested we do my surgery the last week of May.  At this point I thought it would set me back to wait several weeks.  In hindsight, I should have done this because I ended up rushing surgery on May 15th so that it would be done before he went out of town.  It probably would have been better to let the bone heal and swelling go down first, but no one explained that to me at the time.  I did PT with Cindy and Emily for a couple of week prior to surgery in order to regain some of the motion that I had lost.  I got to 100 degrees of flexion which was the goal, the day before surgery.

Surgery went well.  I decided to have two compartments release in my calf at the same time because compartment syndrome had been plaguing me for the last 10 years or so.  Again, hindsight tells me this was probably too much for my body to handle!  I stayed quite drugged up for weeks and all I can say is thank god for the nerve blocks after surgery, otherwise those first 24 hours would have been even worse.

I could not return to school, couldn't drive, couldn't get in and out of the recliner by myself or in and out of bed.  I basically just moved from the recliner to the couch to my bed all day long for weeks on end.  I had to ride in the back of my mom's highlander to get to PT because I couldn't bend my knee.  The combination of back seat riding and pain pills made the rides miserable due to nausea.  I had alarms set on my phone of when to take all of the drugs that I had in my system.  Then of course you get the side effects like nausea and constipation which make you feel even worse.  I'm pretty sure all I ate for a few weeks was graham crackers, toast, popcorn, and soda.  I don't know why that's all that was appealing, but at least I was eating something.

Megan came to stay with me for a weekend and was really helpful.  It was nice to get to visit with her even though I was in and out of it the entire time.  My mom and dad brought me food and mom thankfully helped me get in bed at night and check on me during the day.  My foot was so swollen that even with constant icing all day it just ached and ached so she would rub it in the evenings.  She did her fair share of cleaning and vacuuming and helping with the dogs.

Thank goodness for Jeff being in the picture, even though he left me for the first week after my injury to go fishing;).  He didn't care what I looked like and I promise I looked something special...not showering for days, only fitting in sweat pants, drugged up and in pain.  He did everything he could to be helpful including vacuuming, dusting, cooking and doing dishes.  I couldn't carry much of anything with the crutches so he'd make sure I was set up for the day before he left.  It was so nice to have someone constantly checking on me and texting me to keep me entertained throughout the day.

That's my man

PT was absolute torture most days.  I couldn't get my knee to bend and had to endure massages to try to break up scar tissue at the incision sites.  I had a tens unit that Pam brought over to help with pain management and regaining some muscle.  To this day my leg looks like a stick with hanging skin and fat.  My quad was completely shut down for quite some time.  I couldn't get it to flex unless I was hooked up to a stim unit. I remember rejoicing when I could finally flex it on my own and see my knee cap move and when I could finally get my leg to do a full rotation around on the bike, not just rocking back and forth.

Love the colors

Cankle?!

After a 4 weeks, I stopped showing any improvement.  I couldn't bend my knee more than 80 degrees and my hamstring tendon and hip were killing me.  Dr. Miller said that I would need to have it manipulated under anesthesia and have the scar tissue cleaned up.  I was devastated because I was working so hard in PT and at home all day long.  So I went back to PT and asked them to try to break through the scar tissue so I wouldn't have to have surgery.  I took several pain killers ahead of each session and had them push me until I was crying.  The week of surgery, Cindy had me lying on my belly while she tried to push my ankle to my butt to get my knee to bend.  It got stuck as it usually did but then something popped lose and she just kept  on pushing while i came up off the table crying and yelling.  There was a pop, pop, pop that people around me could actually hear and they obviously heard and saw the scene that I caused.  That was worse pain than the injury itself, but I was so happy to have broken through some of the scarring.  Cindy said that in 25 years she's only been able to do that to one other patient.  So yes, I am a badass for hanging in there and pushing through it.  However, it wasn't enough to cancel the surgery so June 26, I went in for the manipulation.

How many days have I spent like this?!

I was extremely nervous about the manipulation because the thought of bending my ankle to my butt when it couldn't even get to 90 degrees just made me sick.  I've heard that it's loud when they break through the scar tissue and in rare cases they can break your femur.  That's just scary and gross.  Luckily the surgery went well and I'm glad that I went through with it because there was so much scar tissue that you couldn't even see my ACL.

Can't even see my ACL b/c of scarring

Very angry after the manipulation and scar tissue removal

Showing the full bend after the manipulation

I had to get in to PT the next morning and continue for 7 straight days in order to keep my range of motion going.  I also had to continue all the pain meds so that I could push through during PT.  Nothing about that process was fun!  

Everyday I had to do my PT exercises at home multiple times.  Between the icing and the exercises I felt like I had a full time job.

Practicing my wall slides, hurts so bad

Ice and ice and ice again

After about a week, my quad function started to return.  It is the strangest feeling to tell your muscles to do something and have nothing happen.  I was thrilled to be able to flex my quad finally! 

Finally able to get a quad contraction on my own after stim

This was major progress to have my foot flat on the floor and knee bent.  It didn't want to stay there long, but I kept practicing. One of the worst parts of this process was coming off all of the pain meds.  Jeff stayed with me for the 4th of July weekend and tried to help distract me as I stopped taking everything. I wanted to crawl out of my skin and have never felt that sort of anxiousness or tiredness.  I felt exhausted all of the time. 

After a few days, I started to come around and clearly remember driving to summer school and singing aloud in the car.  I was starting to feel alive again after weeks of feeling depressed and miserable!

Practicing the bend

These two pictures make me happy...no more stitches and some pool therapy, as well as getting back in the gym and getting my knee to bend.  It was so nice to feel my calf touch my hamstring for the first time.  Hallelujah!

Got a couple of pool days in after the stitches were out and before school started

It bends!

I'm still going to PT and working as hard as I can.  Although it's still frustrating and will take at least a year to get back to "normal" I just have to remember how far I've come.  Baby steps are key, so I have to be patient as hard as that is.