Happy New Year!

Here's a quick glance at how I finished out the year with my fitbit stats. My fitbit died on vacation in mid July so that explains that "empty space". The fitbit company sent me a replacement shortly after, and shortly before I had my injury.  The graph shows my pre-surgery progress in late August and then my slow recovery in Fall.  This chart would have looked much different had I finished 2015 the way I started but things happen!  Let's make 2016 great!

First Week Of Recovery

Been a minute since I've posted so let me see if I can bring us up to speed.  In my last post I talked about the surgery and how weird that experience was. Now let me see if I can appropriately recap the past ten days...

The first couple days after surgery were definitely the worst.  I didn't put many steps on the fitbit meter the day after surgery!  I spent most of the day on the couch. Oh, but I did go in for a followup with the doctor. We got our first look at it under the bandages. And it didn't look all that bad all things considered.  The doctor did confirm that I had some meniscus repair and that I wouldn't be able to put weight on my leg for four weeks. We asked about driving and he said that I could when I was feeling able to. He also drained some blood out of the knee cause it was pretty swollen and felt super tight. Flexion was a bit difficult and I had quite a ways to go with that, but I was able to straighten it and that was a great place to already be at.  If you can't straighten your leg after this surgery they basically have to do the surgery again.  That'd be awful! After the appointment we were on our merry way back home to rest, feeling a little bit better.

First look day after!

So pretty!

On Sunday I was able to keep my podcast on schedule, publishing episode 19. I used a bunch of songs that referenced doctors and knees, haha. I had planned to return back to work on Monday but by Sunday night I didn't feel quite ready to return. I emailed my boss and asked for a couple more days to recover. I did work from home on Monday and was able to get caught up on some of my work. I took Tuesday off.  On Tuesday I remember thinking that the previous 5 days or so just slipped by, even though I had spent 98% of that time on the couch. It was time to get out of the house! By this point I had weened off the painkillers. I believe I had 1 at night Monday and Tuesday but other than it not feeling super awesome, it felt alright. Still pretty tight. Earlier in the day on Tuesday I went out to see how it would feel driving. The leg was a bit ginger but I drove around the neighborhood a bit. Driving wasn't all that bad so I planned on driving to work the next day. Wednesday morning I woke up and drove into work. No problems. 

The first day back at work was a bit rough. Playing catch up never is fun. We have a lot going on. I felt super tired about half way through the day but was able to, somehow, power thru the day. My oldest started Kindergarten the day before surgery and since she's right next to where I work, I get to pick her up. I managed to crutch into the school to pick her up that day and every day since.

On Thursday I had another post-op followup with the doctor to remove the staples. The doctor again reiterated that I needed to keep using the sticks for another three weeks and that he would see me again on October 8th. (basically the day I am counting down to now). The knee was still swollen but he said that it was looking good and that I was doing great so far. It felt great to get the staples out. I had been looking forward to it for a few days at this point!

No more staples!

I had Friday off as part of my 9 day schedule. I had my first post-op PT session in the morning and because I can't start putting weight on the leg we started pretty simple. A lot of leg lifts and working on the flexion. The leg lifts were really hard the first couple days and have been hard. I wasn't able to lift it at all the first couple days in recovery. He gave me some pointers on how to work on a few of the exercises and everything went well. Starting over is a bit tricky considering how far I had progressed before surgery. Every day gets better. I go again today after this post gets finished.  After PT, I returned home and took it easy for the day.  At night I met up with some kickball friends and went to the WAKA end of season party.  I got voted the Prince of kickball lol. I was so confused when they said my name. All like, what's this for?? haha..

Let's Party!

Hanging with The Box!

With some of my favorite people from other teams! -- Terri is hilarious!

I always hate the last day of kickball cause I don't get to see everyone over the winter. With our team not playing Fall ball the off-season has come (and in my case especially) even quicker than I would like. But them the breaks. It is what it is to borrow an oldie but goodie.  At the end of the night I was super tired and headed home! We hung with the neighbors, the Cocoa bunch, on Saturday and on Sunday I enjoyed one of the best days of football I've had in a while.  Both of my teams (Falcons and Patriots) beat local teams and their obnoxious fans had to stick forks in their mouths by 5 o'clock.  It was glorious.

This week so far has been pretty manageable. I'm super busy at work so that has made the time go by pretty quick.  We have some fun weekend plans for Saturday so that will be nice.  And as I mentioned before, I am basically counting down the days until October 8th when he'll say that I can start putting weight on this leg.  It was tricky the first time starting to relearn how to walk after two plus weeks, I imagine it will be as tricky after four weeks. I need to keep working on flexion and getting the swelling to go down more and more. In time these things will come. Everything has gone as expected. Every day is slightly better than the previous. People at work that I see in the halls wondered why I was using two crutches after they had seen me get down to one. I had the surgery yo! No, it didn't get worse. It got fixed!  Now it just needs to heal up a bit more so I can progress towards the end goal.  It's definitely uplifting to know that there is a light at the end of this tunnel and that I'm not where I was a month ago, in a holding pattern waiting to get the surgery.  I'm staying as positive as I can. Like I said, every day is better, and new days come all the time!  I'll write again soon. I definitely missed being able to do a 5k at lunch time today with the weather cooling down.  Some day again. Some day.  I'll get there.  It may take a bit, but I'll get there.  Love you all.  Thanks for reading!