Getting personal

Looking at my posts in the last week, it seems it might be time for a personal update. Hence, this is a long one.

I haven't felt much like posting much of anything in the past seven days (aside from my AI rant) for a number of reasons.

Let's start with WORK

I've been pretty tired at the end of the day and the last thing I've wanted to do is bury my head back in a computer on my personal time. Work is very busy right now. Incoming inquiries have picked-up and, at the same time, I'm pro-actively prospecting for new business for the first time.

In the first year of this job I was really getting the lay of the land: organizating, creating systems, contracts, marketing pieces, understanding the customer etc... Virtually all the deals I closed were a result of incoming inquiries either from word-of-mouth, web-searches, or customer referrals - in other words, passive business. This was great because we still had a killer year but, obviously, the job of a sales director is not to sit and wait for the deals to find you, you have to get out there and find the deals.

So, this year I have some sales goals, and I gotta meet them. Unfortunately, the first quarter of the year was taken up with getting a new CRM program online (CRM = customer relationship management) which would enable me to automate a lot of the lead tracking and follow-up so I could effectively manage more leads at one time. In addition, the same program helps us to manage existing customer communication and data (the other 1/2 of my job) so, as a company, we can all work from the same set of information. Researching the program that was right for us, test-driving different products, speaking to sales people, and then eventually getting the product online, customized, all our existing customer data in there, all my leads in there, and then setting up e-marketing materials in there... all of this took a heck of a lot of time. And at the same time I am dealing with incoming inquiries AND trying to create content and web pages for a customer support site.

Fortunately incoming inquiries dipped to virtually nothing in the first quarter, which enabled me to get some of this stuff done. Unfortunately, when it was done, I had nothing serious in my sales pipeline. Hence, yesterday, I closed the first deal I've closed in almost 3 months. What a relief - for me and the team! Incoming inquiries have also picked up and I have some seriously good leads in my pipeline now. But it all adds up to work and at the end of the day I'm too tired to rehash my day or whatever else is going on with me in a blog post.

The WEATHER

The weather here is beautiful in April and May - mid 70s, sunny, clear, and a slight breeze. Because of this, the last thing I've wanted to do is to sit inside and type on a computer, or even just have my head looking at a computer screen (because of course I could take my laptop outside.) When I'm done with work I want to sit outside and play with my dogs, or just enjoy the sounds of frogs croaking or birds chirping or the wind in the trees. Also, when Hubby gets home early enough, getting out on our bikes has become our new favorite (and most importantly free) thing to do after work. When the weather is like this, the last thing I want to do is sit and write about life... I want to be out there living it.

Full HIP disclosure

I've been waiting to post some info on my hip because I wanted to pull together a number of different things that are going on, and summarize them in one post vs. blabbing about things that may or may not be true or surmising vs. knowing.

In general, as you know from my gleefully boasty-posts, I have been recovering at warp speed. I've beaten almost every timeline or expectation for recovery that was set pre-surgery and, for the most part, am back to doing all the things I did before I went under the knife. It's been just over 6 weeks at this point and, all things considered, I am very happy with how fast I've regained my mobility. In fact, I came along so quickly that my Physical Therapist "graduated" me two Wednesdays ago, after only three 30 minute sessions.

Now I know what you're thinking: Wow, this is great! You must be so happy!

Well, let me give you a little reality check: despite having gained back a decent range of motion for the average person, I still have the same pain in the same ranges of motion that I had before the surgery (actually a lot worse), don't have back the full range of motion I had before the surgery, and am still popping like a nuked bag of Orville Redenbacher.

Aparently my HMO PT only covers getting me back to functional, not getting me back to optimal. Within my network, in terms of post-operative care, that is the goal. The PT even told me that the pain I am experiencing may be "in the joint" and may never go away. Ditto the clicking.

Well, I gotta tell you, I may be in my dreaded 30s where everyone tells you things are supposed to start going down-hill, but I aint ready to concede any level of pain, flexibility, range of motion, strength, or ability. I eat right (mostly), I don't do drugs, I exercise regularly, I moisturize, and aside from this hip thing, I consider myself to be in excellent health. I take the time to look after myself and I see the results of that every day. "Graduating" for me isn't walking without a limp, it's seeing not only an improvement from pre-surgery to post-surgery me, but also working back to where I was pre-injury - which for me was better than the average person of my age. Otherwise, what was the point of the surgery, right?

So, as is pretty typical for me, I took matters into my own hands. I Googled "sports physical therapists Sacramento" and started calling around. My goal was to find someone who worked with active people, athletes, getting them back in shape after injury or surgery; an expert who would spend more than 30, interrupted minutes with me, would evaluate me week-to-week, perform some hands-on manual therapy, and have a higher goal for my recovery than for that of a 60 year old woman post hip replacement.

And I think I found him.

Eric is a partner in a physical therapy practice about 10 miles from where I live. Both he and his partner, Chris, have degrees in kinesiology, are licensed physical therapists and personal trainers. I had my 90 minute evaluation with Eric on Monday and immediately started to feel like there was hope for a more complete recovery. He spent the entire 90 minutes with me (no jumping between me and the 2 other people cloaked away in a private room getting ice or ultrasound therapy) and managed to identify some specific problems that are causing my pain:

1) Yes, my IT band is still extremely tight. This is causing the pain around my knee joint and outer hip/thigh in lateral planes of motion. As we know, this can be worked out through manual therapy, massage, some exercises, and some stretching.

2) I also have a tight psoas muscle. The psoas muscles lie behind the abdominal contents, running from the lumbar spine to the inner thighs near the hip joints. (More explanation here, if you're interested). Prescription here is stretching again.

3) I still have swelling in my joint from the surgery. Must not forget, despite appearing to most like I never even had a surgery, I'm just 5-6 weeks out. My body is still repairing itself. The swelling is, of course, preventing full, unobstructed range of motion in my joint and, is in itself, probably painful. Solution? Ice. Still! 5-6 weeks later. Ice!

4) I probably have scar tissue from the surgery in my joint that is preventing my femur from sliding around smoothly in there, meaning that when I pivot I'm still impinging the femur against my acetabular (the edge of the hip socket) resulting in the pain feeling a lot like the initial problem I had surgery to cure - acetabular impingement. Range of motion exercises and some stretching that forces my femur to move within the socket is the solution here.

5) I have weak gluteal (butt) muscles on the right side, probably a result of not really engaging them while being 'injured'. Any weakness in one muscle obviously causes compensation in related or opposing muscles. The related and opposing muscles to the gluteals? The psoas and the IT band!

Aha! It all starts to come together. And it should for a $100 evaluation visit and $80 an hour thereafter. Yes. Ouch. Getting back to optimal health is going to be expensive. Hence, I need to close some more sales!

All of Eric's diagnosis was proven true when I had my 6 week follow-up with my surgeon this past Wednesday. He reassured me that he was confident that everything, structurally, had been taken care of in the surgery. It is very unlikely, he says, that there is any structural reason behind my remaining issues. I told him about my experience with the initial PT and he didn't seem surprised and, while he also thought it sucked that I had to pay, agreed with my course of action in finding a private therapist who could work with me on the remaining issues. I told him the new PT's diagnosis and he felt it made sense also. However, he does want to see me back in 4-6 weeks, perhaps for some x-rays at that time, just to be sure.

So, that's where we're at. Despite having health insurance it's going to cost me $320 a month to get back into shape. It's a lot of money but it's also non-negotiable for me.

So, that about sums it up. This took way too long to write and it's already half way through my Saturday morning. I've got a laundry list of chores to do, including laundry itself, so I'm outta here....

Have a great weekend.

Jesus did it

I have a theory about last night's American Idol results: Jesus voted off Carly Smithson.

There was Hubby and I last night, sitting in front of the tv, giddy with glee in our hearts because this time we were certain, without a doubt, ready to bet our last dime, that either emotional-wreck Brooke ("e-wreck") or dredlocked-stoner Jason Castro ("dreaded-J"), would be voted off this week after their terrible performances on Tuesday night. For those of you who missed it, Brooke forgot the words and made the band start again (the second time she's done this), and Jason murdered one of my favorite songs of all time "Memory" from the musical, Cats - and it was a bloody, ugly murder at that. They were, both of them, trainwreck performances.

As I was getting my hair cut last night pre-show, I conceded to my hairdresser that Brooke may get the sympathy vote but that only left the way even clearer for Jason to get the well-deserved boot.

And then Carly Smithson and Syesha Mercado were dumped in the bottom two and asked to sing again. Which is when it hit me: middle America thought Carly Smithson was blaspheming all over their tv set.

No sooner had the words Jesus Christ come out of her mouth than I knew it was the end for her last night. Without the context of the show (which I'm sure most people who are voting have either never seen or, most likely, never even heard of) it sounded like our Irish girl was cursing (or at least the American/religious interpretation of cursing) all over the stage. Of course, it doesn't help that the song has a rock-type vibe to it and that Carly's vocal influences stem more from Heart than the local church choir.

On Tuesday night I didn't get it - which is not unusual for a Brit who spent her whole life using "Oh God!", "Jesus Christ", and "Hells bells and buckets of blood", as 'acceptable' substitutes for the 'real' four letter swear words - but once she was announced as being in the bottom two it was as plain as day.

The only other possible explanation for last night's voting results was that a good portion of the country are either tone deaf or completely deaf. It's just completely unfathomable that two great voices would get no votes while E-Wreck and Dreaded-J continue on for another week.

Foreign commercials are so entertaining

Why can't we have more ridiculousness like this on our tv? It would at least make the bazillion commercial breaks bearable.



Thanks to Dooce for the vid find.

My coffee drink

Ooh... somebody's wearing their classy pants. You're not extravagant or show-offy, but you appreciate having nice things, like a designer mug instead of a disposable to-go cup. You're calm and confident, so you'd be perfectly comfortable ordering coffee at a sidewalk cafe in Paris or at a restaurant that's so fancy they don't even put the prices on the menu. No matter where you go, you won't let anyone intimidate you -- you demand respect.

That's a crock of **it

Just listening to George Bush's speech to welcome the Pope and I heard him say (and I paraphrase): "The way you measure a great nation is by seeing how it's people treat the needy and most vulnerable among them."

Pah. Tell that to the people in New Orleans or the 47 million Americans who live without health insurance or the 11% of all children lacking coverage or the 36 million people living under the poverty line or the 50% of African American students who drop out of high school. Meanwhile we have a President who gives tax breaks to the rich while sending billions of dollars across the world to wage a war to protect our oil interests.

Yep. That's a measure of a nation alright.

Destructojaws likes hot sauce

Today my dad came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea to help me put a stop to Maggie's destructojaws.

Rather than getting better, our puppy Maggie has actually got worse as the months have rolled on. We now literally cannot leave anything on the floor on any surface she can reach, when we are not physically present or she will steal it, hide it, chew it to pieces, and digest it. It's not just when we leave her for long periods either, she'll do it while we're in the room and thinks we're not looking, or when we leave the room momentarily to go to the bathroom or something. We're at the end of our tether with her as she has literally ingested hundreds of dollars worth of shoes, clothing, books, electrical components... you name it, she'll eat it.

We've tried beating the hell out of her when we catch her, which clearly hasn't worked since (although she is chargrinned at the time) she continues to go back for more with gay abandon. We've tried exchanging the wrong item with a toy of her own, which works while we're in the room but is abandoned when we take our eyes off her. We've tried giving her different bones each day to chew (positively channeling the chewing desire) but she just takes them into the yard and buries them. We've tried giving her differently textured toys, which again works for like a day and then she gets bored of them. Nothing seems to work.

Because of her destructiveness, although she is almost a year old, she is still relegated to only one room in the house and Hubby and I spend our day impaling ourselves while stepping over baby gates just to get in-and-out of the family room and adjoining kitchen. (Yes, this has been great for the hip.) Although we try our best to leave everything out of her reach, we're not perfect and occasionally we slip. For instance, today it was one of Hubby's baseball caps, which he left on the top of the patio table.

Our next stop is an expensive trainer, so you can imagine that I'm ready to seize upon whatever cost-saving bright idea comes my way before I have to resort to this. Either that or this dog is going to the pound. (See, you think I am kidding.)

Dad's idea was to put something hot (like mustard or hot sauce) on something that that wasn't valuable but that we thought she might steal, leave it out in a precarious place (so, like anywhere), the goal being aversion therapy. Maggie would get a burning hot mouth and decide this whole stealing things was a bad idea.

Sounds like a good idea, I thought, so this afternoon I decided to put it to the test. I grabbed an innocuous, decorative, square of soap wrapped in a box, and a plastic covering. I placed a generous dollop of hot tapatio sauce on top (something so hot even I can't eat it) and I left it on top of the side table in the family room. My plan was to check on it every 10-15 minutes but work got in the way and I finally made it down the stairs 45 minutes later.

And what did I find?

The plastic wrapper. Licked clean and no sign of the box or soap itself.

Obviously having got the taste of delicious destruction, she had then progressed on to the trash can, where she pulled out several pieces of rolled-up tissue, leaving small pieces all around the family room and kitchen.

I looked at her to see if there were any obvious ill effects of today's forbidden snacks but so far she seems unaffected. Shame. A little vomiting and diarrhea might teach her a lesson.

I hate this damn dog.

(Again, you think I'm kidding.)

Growing Younger

It appears that my mother may be 2 years younger than she has been claiming most of her life.

This is quite some feat, considering women "of a certain age", when lying about their latest birthday, don't usually add two years to the total. Not so, it seems for my mother, who has been claiming she was born in 1946 on just about every record I've ever seen but now, in going through some legal records (birth, marriage certs etc..) it seems she was actually born in 1948.

How did this happen? You ask. Weeeeeeeeeeell, although Mummy dearest would claim otherwise, after a 45 minute phone conversation with her today (when she asked me not to blog this BTW - tee hee hee) the only thing I can deduce is that she simply lost count somewhere between 1969 and 2008.

Ahem.

In all fairness, I shouldn't put all the blame on her shoulders. My grandparents were alive when she celebrated her 30th and 40th birthdays and didn't raise any red flags, ditto for my father - although he mistakenly believed his birthday was in 1945 instead of 1946 until he was about 40 years old, so nobody was expecting very much from him.

So, as you can imagine, Mum is absolutely frothing at the bit to celebrate her 60th birthday a second time this year.

Unbelievable.

America's Motto

Stephen Levitt, the author of the best-selling eceonomic-come-social commentary on America, Freakonomics, challenged the readers of his New York times blog of the same name, to pick a 6-word motto for the United States.

He was, supposedly, inspired by the apathetic attitude of my countrymen to create a universal statement about what it means to be British - summed-up, I believe, by the winner to a Times contest, that read: “No Motto Please, We’re British.” or, my favorite, "At least we're not French." The latter would have got my vote, but not because I hate the French (which I don't, it's just those snobby Parisiens). The reason I thought it was perfect was because, in that uniquely English way, we managed to state a positive through a negative, avoid the opportunity to say anything grandiose about ourselves, and seize the opportunity to take a stab at our neighbors... and all in just 5 words. Classic.

So... ahem ...exactly. Boastful, chest-pounding, and inspiring statements of national pride are not exactly the British "thing". (Perhaps, the winner was perfect after all.)

Anyway, back to my other home, the U.S...

In this blog post in February, Stephen Levitt made his challenge, and here is the winner and some notable entires.

For those of you who can't be bothered to click through, here the most voted-for 6-word motto:
Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay.

And here was I thinking that Americans would be better at this chest-pounding thing!

Do you have other ideas? I challenge you, my creative readers, to give me your 6 word motto for the U.S. (and/or your home country).

Welcome Gabriel Fong

Gabriel 103
Originally uploaded by Travel Vixen

My friend, Joy, gave birth to her son yesterday. Gabriel joined us at approximately 11:30am yesterday and weighed-in at 6lbs 15ozs. Of course, being the busy-body I am, I launched myself upon the new mom this afternoon to hear the horror stories of a c-section as well as to do the fun stuff - get baby cuddles! Gabriel is absolutely perfect with perfect little, pouty lips, great skin, and good lungs!

Congratulations, Joy, Jenson, and Noelle!

America got it all wrong. Michael Johns is ALRIGHT!

Oh the travesty! Michael Johns, the hottie from down-under with a voice that makes me swoon, was eliminated last night on American Idol.


Although I didn't expect him to win (I think that has to be reserved for the all-around, amazing talent of David Cook), there is no way I would have eliminated him before some of the witless wonders still remaining on the show. For instance:

• The country whiner, Kristy-Lee Cook who is off-key 90% of the time and who, when on stage, looks like she's got a stick up her ass.
• The dreaded-dreadlocks of the whispering wonder, Jason Castro, whose limited vocal talents maxed out weeks ago and whose face alternates between stoned and in-pain when he sings.
• And the oh-so-freakin' annoying, Brooke White, whose sugar-sweetness and heart-on-her-sleeve emotionality is just too sickening for me and Hubby to watch. Oh, and yes, her singing SUCKS too - in the groups numbers on Idol Gives Back the other night, we could hear her through the chorus, flat as a pancake. (Which is the only way you would hear her in a chorus, since her voice has the power of of a 1970s Citroen)

Sniff. I hope he gets a recording contract real soon so these three can attend his concerts when they dissapear back into obscurity.

The trouble with working from home...

... is that you are your own entertainment, source of conversation, admin, support, and... IT PERSON.

Today, inexplicably, my router punked out on me. Working fine, excellent, no problems, I'm jamming away and then... nothing. Can't connect to the internet, can't get emails. This was 4pm. It's now 6:20pm and I JUST finished call #3 to various inept technical support people (first the ISP and then the router manufacturer) and just got connected to the web. For the 2.5 hours of my life I wasted talking to a robot in Bangladesh, I paid the princely sum of $32.95. Granted, I now have internet connection but, in all fairness, they just repeated the exact same steps I had already done 2 hours prior, only it took them painstakingly much longer. (Yes, I know, "exact same" is terrible, redundant English but the double emphasis seemed appropriate.)

It never ceases to amaze me that you can go through all the steps you've learned over the years as a self-taught PC-fixer and then the minute you get on the phone with a dedicated IT person, they go through the same steps again and hey presto it works. I swear to God, it never fails.

However, I should be congratulated for not having punched-in any motherboards this evening. I was the bastion of calm and politeness, even when I was forced to listen to the tech person describing step 4 of the process they wanted me to go to, when I had already moved to step 10.

Having done it myself once, again with the ISP person, then with the ISP escalated support person, and then the router manufacturer tech person... by the time I got to the dude who wanted $32.95 to go through the same process, I should have been the one charging him for the support. Come to think of it, as I don't utilize the company's in-house tech-support, maybe I should ask for extra $$ for saving their resources for more productive tasks?

So, for those of you who bemoan having to get up and go to the office every day to earn your monthly wage, take heed in this experience. The next time you call your IT person to fix your misbehaving computer, think of me.

I'm off to respond to the emails I couldn't get at 4pm...

4 week hip update

Can you believe it? Yesterday marked 4 weeks since my hip surgery. While most of you probably feel like it was just yesterday (considering I haven't exactly been silent on the subject in this blog), Hubby and I were talking last night and agreed that it feels like months ago. This is a good thing by the way because it means that the pain, discomfort, and worry seems worlds away. Already the sharp edges have been blunted in our memory. The human brain is wonderful isn't it?

So where am I at right now?

Well, here's the good: I'm walking almost limp-free; bicycling at the gym and around the neighborhood for 10-15 minutes at a time; squatting and doing walking lunges; my scar-mobilization is going well and all I'm left with is 3 small pink lines on my upper thigh; the numbness in my "bits" is gone; my blood popsicle is going down; and I've gained-back a good 80% of my pre-surgery range of motion.

The other stuff (not necessarily bad... yet): The clicking I had pre-surgery (and that I partly did the surgery to alleviate) is still there through the same planes of motion; the skin/flesh of my thigh is still pretty sore and I still have a numb spot on my outer thigh; my IT band problems seem to have returned; I can't sit down for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time; and I have pain in my hip joint, radiating around my knee in a certain plane of motion only while weight-bearing.

The latter is the most concerning to my Physical Therapist. At first she thought it was tight hip-flexors but I've been doing those exercises and the only way I can reproduce the pain is when standing/weight-bearing and at the same time have my leg behind me (like when pushing off from a long stride) or when standing on one leg, engaging my glutes, and leaning slightly to the side.

Lay me on my back, on my stomach, kneeling on the floor to do a hip-flexor stretch and I'm like a damn rubber band. Yesterday at PT she had me in the most bizarre position, laying on my stomach as she knelt behind me, putting my knee on her shoulder while pressing down on my pelvis to ensure my hips remained square and in contact with the table. She was trying to "get to" the place where I'm feeling the pinching but no matter how high she went, it wasn't replicating the pain. I got an awesome quad stretch and seriously impressed her with the flexibility of my lower back (yay yoga!) but it didn't address the issue at-hand.

It could be partly the IT band (because of the relation to knee pain) but after eliminating every normal hip flexor stretch she knew, my PT pulled a face of concern and said it could be joint related. To which I asked, "That will go away right?" And to which she shrugged and said "I hope so."

Real comforting.

So, my biggest concerns right now are:

1) My numb patch on my thigh is not going away. There's a chance this could be permanent (ack), although I've got another month for it to 'clear up' under normal prognosis.

2) The clicking I wanted to get rid of is back and I've been told it may never go away. Um what!?

3) The new pinching pain I'm feeling and that I didn't have pre-surgery, may be joint-related and may signal something still wrong in there. A new something.

Ok, ok. It's like 4 weeks and I get that the jury is still out... there's still healing to be done by my body and I am absolutely going to give it time. I totally see that I am a lot further along than I expected (or than was predicted), overall I'm impressing my PT with my progress relative to my timeline, and I'm not in a ton of pain. BUT I'm going to be REEEEAAAALY PISSED if I end up in the same place I was pre-surgery but now with a new joint pain and a numb spot on my thigh. You can see how, if you went through all of this, you'd be slightly concerned too, right?

But then I've been concerned about a lot of things related to this surgery that wound up not being anything to fret about. So, I'm not going to focus on it. I'm going to do everything I can to get better, keep-on keeping-on, and reassess 4 weeks from now.

I wish she would keep her "views" to herself

Do any of you watch THE VIEW, the daytime all-women talk show? Since I work from home I often have the tv on in the background and neglect to change channels after Good Morning America. Inevitably, this leads me to subject myself to the journalistic delights of Sacramento & Company and, shortly thereafter, the occasionally amusing chit-chat and cat fights of The View.

For those of you that don't watch, there are five women co-hosts who spent 90% of the show bantering between them about the issues of the day. This is the same show that Rosie O'Donnell got so famously booted from last year, ditto for Star Jones. The chief matriach of the show is Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg is the comic relief, hired to replace Rosie O.

Most of the crew are pretty left-of-center in their views, although I'd place at least 2 of them somewhere closer to dead-center. But then there is Elisabeth Hasselback.

Elisabeth has been with the show for a few years and her dubious pedigree for the job includes being one of the final four in one of the 60 billion Survivor shows. Elisabeth is the token Republican of the show and she drives me crazy. It's not so much that she's Republican (although under normal circumstances this would be enough to turn my nose up) but that she espouses her right-wing views like a rock-star groupie, rapt with adoration for the Bush adminstration and just about any action taken by someone who leans slightly to the right. The right wing can do no wrong in her eyes. She grabs skewed and seemingly ridiculous facts to try and support her ill-informed and ignorant opinions, she's beligerant, and she's not very smart. I have no idea what she's doing on this show but I wish they would get her off.

Nothing gets my goat more than someone who runs their mouth off without knowing what they're talking about. Case in point today, Elisabeth tried arguing with Barbara Walters about the success (or not) of the surge in Iraq. Ms. Hasselback asserted to Barbara (who I consider eminently better positioned to express an opinion on the subject) that (and I paraphrase only slightly) the surge was an exercise in political and military brilliance that would be studied for decades to come.

Um, huh? Is she studying the same surge? Tell that to the families of the 4,000 service men who have been killed and the 40 or so each month who continue to be killed over there. Or to the servicemen themselves who try in vain to train a home-grown security force that is well recognized to be easily corruptible, and with a sticking-rate of about 10%. (My source: NPR) Or, to the Iraqis themselves who live in a war zone, fearful for their lives, and exasperated with their ineffective government.

It's not that I think there shouldn't be a balance of political views on a show that frequently discusses political issues. Just that the person should be well-informed and rational in their presentation of the issues and their opinions.

Checking out the local hospitals: Step 2 - Kaiser

So today Hubby managed to turn the tables on me. At 2am this morning I woke up to find that he had been vomiting for two hours already. By 4am he was dry-heaving every 20 minutes. By 6am it was both ends and I was done - we were off to the emergency room.

6.5 hours, 3 liters of saline, a narcotic, and a 'send you loopy' anti-nausea med later and we managed to re-emerge into the world.

Cripes, what a morning! It was pretty worrying there for a while because he was dehydrating rapidly, the nausea was overwhelming, and then the shivvers and joint-pain set in. I remember all this acutely because I had something similar right before Christmas in 2006. Fortunately I got myself to the urgent care facility right as I started vomiting and they stabbed my right butt cheek with some anti-nausea meds. Hubby said he knew I had to be really sick because I didn't hesitate in pulling down my pants and offering my buttocks for the on-duty doctor and his big ole needle. Any day I beg for the needle is a day you know I'm not doing well.

Unfortunately, Hubby went longer before they got him the anti-nausea meds. Although we got there at 6:30am and nobody (and I mean nobody) was in the waiting area, it took them 3 hours to get us a doctor. The nurse came in and got him started on the saline solution but no meds could be administered until we saw the doctor. Let me tell ya, it was a looooong three hours. And wouldn't you know it? The minute I went downstairs to get a coffee, he comes in! Boy, was he worth the wait though. This was one hot ER doc, not out of place on the TV show itself. Even Hubby, between shivvers, had to admit that was one good looking guy.

The wait was made even longer by the sad plight of the old man in the room next to us. He was clearly in a bad way when we came in. He had fluid on the lungs and, judging by the conversations between nurses, had been dealing with chronic illness for some time. As they were about to treat him, he said "I just want to die," which stopped the doctors and nurses in their tracks. Obviously, now they had to confirm what they heard and validate what he meant. So they set about questioning him to ensure he was of right mind (What is the year? Who is the President?) and then asked him whether he meant that he didn't want them to intubate or resussitate him if needed. It seemed that that was, indeed, what he wanted. The sad result was that the doctor told him he was probably going to die. They tried to get him to let them call a relative but he refused. He had nobody with him. The nurses continued to pursue calling his wife and son and eventually, just before we left, he agreed to allow them to call his wife but refused his son.

Gosh, what a sad state of affairs. You just have to hope that, if you're ever old and thinking about saying goodbye, the people who love you will be there by your side without question, request, or reservation. I can't imagine anything worse than being alone in that situation or, sadder still, feeling that there was nobody you wanted to be there with you.

What a moral dilemma these doctors and nurses face in these situations. This man was in a lot of pain and on a lot of pain meds. How do you make the determination that he is or is not of right mind to request an on-the-spot DNR? On the flip-side, it had Hubby and I wondering what happens when a patient with a DNR on file comes in and, at the penultimate moment, requests that they ignore the DNR? I'm sure there are procedures and policies in place for this but I can't imagine that there isn't some level of subjectivity involved. That, at least, was clear from the number of different ways in which the staff continued to probe him about his wishes

Hubby is doing better, by the way, but the nausea re-emerged late this afternoon. Luckily they sent us home with meds to plug up every possible leaky hole

In other news, while it's 72 degrees here in Sacramento, it's SNOWING in England. My parents rarely get snow as it is but snow in April is almost unheard of. Here is the pic to prove it, however.

Here he is

I was browsing through Sacramento Magazine while drinking my coffee this morning and who did I see in the medical ads section? The guy who gave me the popsicle, aka: the black Vincent D'Onofrio.

Ok, maybe that's a little harsh; I mean, I'm doing very well and so far I would consider the procedure to be a success (the jury will remain out until we can determine how much of my former mobility I'll actually get back but it's looking good so far.) I also have heard great things about this man from other people who supposedly know. So, credit where credit is due.

Anyway, it was just weird to be flipping through and to have his face smiling out of the pages at me. I wonder if that's one of my x-rays he has on the wall beside him? Perhaps my hip is.... famous!?

In other news, I guess Sacramento isn't the ghetto of medical options that I imagined it to be. The hospital where I had my surgery done, Mercy San Juan, was (for the 2nd year in a row) named one of the Top 100 Hospitals by Thomson Healthcare, who has been doing their annual survey for 15 years. It was "the only California hospital listed in the “large community hospital” category" - whatever that means. Inclusion in the Top 100 means that a hospital has high survival rates, keeps more patients complication-free (hello! blood popsicle and numb woowoo!) and attracts more patients – all while maintaining financial stability.

Well, whooda thunkit? Little ole Sacramento.

I can tell you one thing they can't have taken into consideration: PARKING. Parking is a nightmare at MSJ. They're expanding the hospital and the construction has taken up a lot of the regular parking spots. For my surgery we had to valet the car because it's just about the only way to get parked in less than an hour. It's also one of the reasons why Mr. James was 45 minutes late for my procedure - I don't think the surgeons/staff can use the valet so I think they have to park off-site and be shuttled in. Cripes; that's great in an emergency.

Am I getting OLD?

One of the nifty things about DirectTV is that they stream some of the XM radio stations on their upper channels. Being fairly miffed with the constant repetition of 10 songs and obnoxious ads on commercial radio out here, I have found myself tuning in more and more to XM via DTV. Plus, it has the added advantage of being on every TV in the house, so (unlike my iPod) I can turn on all the TVs and have the music follow me around the house.

Today I found myself tuning into "90s on 9" (a frequent favorite of mine along with reggae on "The Joint" and R&B on"Suite 62") and upon hearing LFO's "Summer Girls", the dreaded thought went through my head that signals the beginning of my mental decline: "Why don't they make songs like this anymore?"

Immediately I recognized that I was standing on a precipice, dangerously close to landing in the land of discontented maturity. What next? Yelling at cheeky teenagers or rolling my eyes at the latest fashion trend? WORSE STILL... complaining about taxes and (God forbid) voting REPUBLICAN!!!???

This has to stop before I sell my soul to the devil (aka: the RNC). I'm changing the channel to XM Hitlist where Timbaland and Timberlake can ressurect whatever's left of my youthful spirit.

Got a raspberry in my pocket, what am I gonna do?

It's an odd morning.

I put my hand in my robe pocket this morning and felt something cool and squishy. Blech. Turns out a raspberry dropped in my pocket this morning while I was making breakfast. I was so grossed out that I jumped around the kitchen squealing (yes, I can jump around.) Hubby found this wildly amusing.

Also this morning, the water company are doing some work on our street and have shut off the water for 6 hours. Of course, I had no desire to hit the ladies room before the 6 hours started, but now...

I feel a stint of working at Starbucks coming on today...

Man Stroke Woman - Unspeakable Evil

You gotta love the Brits. This is funny.

To the guy doing my wife

Aparently this is a real Craigslist posting from Omaha, NE. It gave me a Tuesday morning giggle.

Enjoy!

TV

(p.s. The title of the post is a link to the article)

I did it!

My first post-surgery bike ride!

Hubby and I cruised (and I mean cruised) around the neighborhood for a good 10 minutes. It was easier than I thought. There were some moments of groin-pinching (which the PT gal said I shouldn't be afraid of since I'm not doing any damage) plus a slight incline I didn't get to the gears in time for and ended up having to get off and walk, but otherwise a breeze. I can't believe I got back on my pretty bike so soon!

The crunch and crumble

That's what my hip joint did today at PT. It was less 'ouch' and more like nails down a blackboard.

Who knew (clearly not I), but the directions on my PT prescription for "scar mobilization" actually meant just that - moving my scars around to avoid 'the bumpies' as my PT person calls them. You push them up, you push them in, you push them to the side... it's like the Hokey-Pokey for scar tissue. It was sore but not unbearable, especially since I was motivated by her chat about how the flesh beneath my holes was getting lumpy/knotty and the prodding would help them lay flat when they healed completely. Aparently the first 4-6 weeks after surgery are critical to mobilizing the scar tissue both externally and internally, before everything sort of gets "set" and harder to maneuvre.

I MEAN... THANK GOODNESS I went to PT @ 2 weeks!!!! I KEPT TELLING HUBBY that there HAD TO BE things PT could do for you post-surgery that didn't involve them being able to twist yourself into a pretzel. Yet again, I am right. It's sickening, isn't it!?

So, aside from scar mobilization I have some swelling still in my thigh and groin that I need to take care of with some ice. I can sense it more than see it from my perspective but, aparently, it was like completely obvious to them once I was laying on the table. Huh. The swelling (both that we can see and that is deeper in the joint) is causing some limitations in my range of motion (ROM), so we need to work on that from the inside out also with some pretty tame ROM exercises and stretches. She also moved my leg around a bunch, to try and loosen up the tendons, tissue, and muscles in there, which was where the heinous crunch-and-crumble came in. There's nothing like feeling as though your femur just ran over a gravel pathway located in your hip socket. Lovely. Fortunately, she had the good sense to keep me talking the whole time so it was only on the periphery of my consciousness.

Then we did some electronic pulses coupled with some ice on my thigh and groin, practiced some stretches, and that was it.

Amazingly, my range of motion improved just in that hour! We all saw a big difference from the time I came in to the time I left. PT ROCKS!

My homework:

- Hokey-pokey massage my scars 2x per day
- Hamstring stretches
- Some thigh mobilization through abduction and adduction whilst laying prone
- Some kneeling stretches for the front of my groin (which felt mighty good, I might add)
- Biking 2x daily... yes, on like a regular bike and everything. Whoooeee!
- Occasional swimming (the front-crawl type... grrrr, I'm a breast-stroker)
- Icing 2x a day

My next appointment is Wednesday and thereafter I'll be going 1x per week.

Tonight, I bike!

I showered!

As you can see from the above photo, I didn't mean the wet-and-splashy kind of shower.

Yesterday I threw my first baby shower, for my friend Joy. Her second child, a son (without name - other than her 'affectionate' nickname "lump-o-meat"), is due in about a month.

I just love throwing parties. There is nothing better than looking around once everything has got started and seeing people whose company you enjoy, appreciating the work you've put in on their behalf, as well as having the opportunity to chat with all of them in one day/night.

I think I get this from my parents, whose annual Christmas party was a mini-legend in their circle of friends - everyone knew that when Barry and Pauline threw a party, it was going to be done right. The food would be good-and-plenty, the bar stocked with everything you could wish for, the company dressed-up to the nines and stimulating, the music pounding, and everyone would dance the night away to a mixture of classic East-End post-wartime songs ("Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree...", "Knees up Mother Brown") and current sugary pop songs (think Tiffany's "I think we're alone now"), mixed by your truly. These days, sadly, people rarely dance at at-home parties any more but that doesn't mean I can't have food and drink a-plenty!

So, of course, when my friend Joy got pregnant again, I jumped at the opportunity to host her shower. I threw all caution to the wind and decided that, come surgery, crutches, or canes, I was going to do this no matter what. At the time I had no idea what kind of physical mobility I was going to have just 2 weeks after my surgery, or if I would even feel up to the preparation, so I also enlisted the help of Hubby, who (bless him) agreed instantly to pick-up whatever slack my post-surgery body left in it's party-prep wake. And boy was I thankful for that. While I was busy cooking up a storm, Hubby was vacuuming and cleaning floors, and even had time to make some Sunrise Punch. I also have to recognize him for helping with my first diaper cake; he not only helped rubber-band lord knows how many diapers, he began the assembly process for me. How many husbands do you know who would do that!?

I was pretty impressed with my first diaper-cake attempt... whaddayathink?



Anyway, everything seemed to go swimmingly. My breakfast strata turned out well, my scones weren't bad, my cupcakes were decent, and my party-game went over well. SUCCESS!

If you're interested, you can see more pics here

After the party I was pooped, though. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. So I gave myself permission to leave the majority of the clean-up until later (as it turned out this morning), changed into my sweats, jumped on the couch, covered myself with a blanket and two dogs, and watched Oxygen channel chick-flicks until Hubby arrived home that evening. It was a deliciously indulgent afternoon.

Today it's clean-up and laundry. Tomorrow it's Monday and the first day I'm going to resume my pre-surgery routine. I'm off to the gym first thing to do some upper-body and core work. I've already moved back up into my office for work, the house is back to it's usual arrangement, and it's almost as if the surgery never happened.

Overall, I couldn't ask for more so soon.

Professionalism personified

Today I received a professional inquiry at work from a real estate broker whose email address began with "theassman". Meanwhile, Hubby tells me he is working with a real estate agent whose email address begins with "IOUGod4Life".

Welcome to the world of real estate people. AKA: Idiots pretending to be professionals and ruining it for the rest of us.

Seam free and ready for PT

There they are! The triplets.

(Like the little bit of lacey panty peeking in from the side?)

Sorry if you didn't want to see that. This is my blog and, well, I get to decide what's TMI.

This morning I got my stitches out. Not nearly as bad as I thought, although I freaked-out a bit when I saw them just before they were removed - they were much bigger than I thought. Also, the skin was growing over them a bit (a fact which Hubby had failed to mention in his bi-weekly wound checks.) The nurse did the undoing (not the surgeon, so no need for the 10-paces at dusk between Hubby and Dr. Glib) and she was very gentle. Mainly I suffered from squeamishness rather than pain; the feeling of her tugging on the stitches was enough to make me woosey.

Anyway, it's done now and all you people who told me it wasn't going to be a big deal can coo over how "you told me so". Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.

Aside from the stitches, the surgeon seemed to think I was doing well. My range of motion is pretty good, or at least he seemed impressed. Everything I described to him - the occasional, out-of-nowhere stabbing pains in my thigh, the blood popsicle (yes it's still there), the numbness, and the pinching in my groin - were considered 'normal' or 'expected'. Since different bodies disburse blood differently, it could take as much as 2 months for the popsicle to go away completely. Blech. Ditto for the nerves/numbness. Ugh. Aparently, I can blame the timeline on my genetics. Finally, I get to blame my parents for some of this! I was seriously missing that inner angst.

Also, I got my PT referral. Yeah! I'm so excited. I got exactly what I want (when don't I, right?) - PT 2 weeks after surgery. Everybody told me pre-surgery I was being too impatient, wanting to run before I could walk (quite literally)... well, now's my opportunity to coo and say "I told you so." (Ok, this makes us even.) My first appointment is Monday lunchtime. I can't wait to get this thing on the mend. After Monday, I have the feeling that my range of motion and strength will come along in leaps and bounds. I'm considering Monday as the first day of the rest of my life. Whooooooooeeeeeee!

Other than that, my current status is that I'm walking with a slight limp still (sometimes it's better than others), I've tried driving but it seems to tweak my groin, and I still wake up in the middle of the night with an aching back, wishing I could lay on my side. I'm guessing this is all good practice for being pregnant some day. God help me.

Making real moms mad?

This past weekend I decided to indulge my occasional need for a little celeb gossip by purchasing a copy of the latest People, featuring an **!Exclusive!** of Jennifer Lopez and her brand new twins babies on the cover. This lunchtime I read it and found myself both mildly amused and frustrated.






AMUSING

The cover teaser: "Twin Bliss" and "Intimate photos at home (and in the nursery!) with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony and babies Marc and Emme"

OHHHH MYYYYY GODDDD! No way! Groundbreaking journalism! TWIN BABIES IN THE NURSERY NO LESS! However did they get the Lopez/Anthonys to agree?

Then of course there's the "Twin Bliss", which just makes me laaaaaaf. Most of the mothers I know are knackered from one baby, let alone two.

Which leads me to...

FRUSTRATING

Now, I don't know (because I'm not a mother) but I have to imagine that mothers reserve a special kind of irritation for these kinds of magazine features.

Here you are as a mere-mortal new mother, eeking out the measly weeks you get of paid maternity leave, holding your eyes open with toothpicks, and barely having the energy to run a brush through your unwashed hair. Make-up is a luxury hidden somewhere under ten packs of diapers, your boobs are leaking like a broken sprinkler pipe, your belly could be mistaken for Jello pudding, and you exist almost entirely in drool-covered sweats because your pregnancy clothes no longer work and your regular clothes probably won't fit for another few months. Your perfume has been swapped for the smell of warm milk and baby puke, your 'got it together' persona has crumbled under a constantly cresting wave of hormones, and there's no amount of Febreze that can eliminate the smell of that doozie of a diaper you just changed.

(How am I doing?)

Finally, your baby nods off to sleep and you settle down on the couch for a rare moment of "me" time, with your trashy-mag, "People". And what do you see? Jennifer Lopez, glowing with airbrush perfection, staring back from the cover, not an eyelash out of place.

Worse still, you open the magazine to read more about this new mother's experience only to find more beautifully posed shots of the Lopez/Anthony clan, dressed in their Sunday designer best - Jennifer with her perfectly pedicured feet, the babies clad in cashmere, Marc dutifully feeding his son (and looking to all the world like he also had a recent pedi), looking at eachother so goo-eyed you'd think they just got through conception not birth, and laughing as if they didn't have a care in the world.

Further insult to injury comes from such clueless comments from Ms. Lopez as:

"I know I'd love them intensely and passionately enough to stay up for the first three days after giving birth, just because I wanted to keep staring at them."

She says this like it was a choice.

Morning Sickness? "None" and, according to Marc, "...no cravings," either. "I had one of the best pregnancies ever."

Ahem. Getting irked yet, moms?

Re: the birth: "No [complications]. It went very fast."

Stay calm!

On, losing her famously hot bod - did she worry about losing it? "I gained a good amount of weight, which I was focused on because twins can soemtimes have low birth weight. I gained 45-50 lbs, a lot for my frame, but for twins it's right on."

Now I respect her for taking care of her babies but this has to be much easier to get onboard with when you know you can just run back to your celebrity personal trainer after 6 weeks.

But worse... she continues....

PEOPLE REPORTER: And after they're born, you lose a lot of that.
JLO: "So much. It's amagzing how your stomach just goes "Boop" and it's this jiggly mass. It's funny."
PEOPLE REPORTER: Do you care about getting your old shape back?
JLO: "Not right now. I even play with my little leftover belly, you know?"

I'm guessing most of you new moms DON'T.

Then, to seal the coffin, she continues to tell us how she plans to enter a triathalon in September or October.

The only telling comment in the whole article that reveals just why JLO seems to be living the new-mommy life through rose-colored glasses...

PEOPLE REPORTER: How is Marc on diaper duty?
JLO: He's the best. He puts the help that we have to shame.

Well, that just about sums it up, doesn't it?

I give all you new Moms permission to buy a copy, pin it to the wall, and lob dirty diapers at it.

How many weeks before I can do this, d'you think?

Don't send a lame eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Can't see the movie? Click here instead.

Foresthill Easter Egg Hunt

As I previously blogged, yesterday Hubby and I headed up the hill to spend Easter with the family. We had a fabulous time, hunting for Easter Eggs with our niece, Adah, eating yummy honey ham, and playing outside in the beautiful weather. Adah is quite the little girl now, gadding around on her own and learning new words every day.

Hubby busied himself by indulging his inner pyromaniac and threatening to burn down every tree in sight. Fortunately, disaster was averted but we all wound up smelling like smoke.




As for me, hip did GREAT. My leg has felt good enough to walk normally but for some reason it's felt 'longer' than my other one and so I've been sort of hobbling or limping. I've been spending a lot of time focusing on what my left leg is doing that my right is not and trying to emulate that muscle motion. Yesterday I stood in one spot for a while and gradually placed more and more weight on my operated leg. The net result was almost normal walking yesterday. I stood up after a rest on the deck and, wouldn't you know it, walked away and down the stairs almost as if I'd never had an operation at all. COOL BEANS, eh?

For more Easter pics, click here.

Happy Easter!

Wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying time with family and/or friends. If you're in California, enjoy this beautiful weather. If you're elsewhere and the weather is miserable - ha ha! I mean, sorry. Hope your Easter's fun anyway.

Hubby and I are heading up the hill to visit my mother-in-law. She's cooking ham, peas, brocolli, and scallopped potatoes. Yummm.

Last night SUCKED.

Going cold turkey on pain meds is not a good idea. This I discovered last night when I barely got any sleep, was hot-and-cold all at once, couldn't get comfortable, felt irritable, kept waking up, felt like crying without knowing why, my arms ached, my back ached... all this on top of dealing with the pain in my leg (which I've, up until now, been protected from). Burning, throbbing, prickling... all at the site of the hematoma and stitches. What made it doubly worse was that I couldn't move positions; I'm still pretty much relegated to lying on my back, since lying on your side is not advised this early on. The pain I probably could have handled but the irritability and discomfort on top of it all just was too much to bear.

Idiot that I am, I fell victim to the stigma of taking narcotics and started to feel guilty or worried about taking/needing them and, with mant hurdles already overcome in the last week, this was one of the few I had left. This, of course, is thoroughly ridiculous because the only person who knows what I need is me: what's right for someone else and all that. I have never denied that I have a low pain threshold. Plus, I firmly believe that alleviating your pain to a level that is bearable for you, enables you to recover more swiftly, keeping your spirits and energy up, and giving you the opportunity to move around and develop strength/stamina without excrutiating pain. If that can be done without pain meds, great, but that decision should be made based upon your pain threshold not based upon any stigma or guilt about taking them.

I was reminded of this when reading some information I received about pain meds, post-op:

ConcernsAboutAddiction:
You are taking narcotics because you hurt. When your pain from surgery decreases, your need for the pain medicine will decrease. The fears you or your family may have about addiction could:
• Prevent you from taking pain medicine.
• Result in you "holding off" as much as possible between doses.
• Result in taking lower doses of pain medicine when you still hurt.

All of these result in needless suffering. Unrelieved pain robs your energy and takes away important time you could spend with your loved ones.

FactsAboutAddiction:
• Addiction rarely happens in patients taking pain medicine to relieve post-operative
pain (less than 1% of patients)
• Most people are able to reduce and/or stop pain medicine when the pain decreases
and/or disappears.

Anyway, I learned my lesson at about 4am this morning. For about the hundredth time, Hubby reminded me that narcotics should be decreased slowly and not stopped abruptly. He told me that, even if I was in danger of addiction (which he highly doubted, especially given my indomitable will-power in just about every other area of my life), that I had friends and family around me who loved me and wouldn't let that happen to me. He told me that the withdrawal symptoms I was going through were needless, that I could, would, and should get off the meds but properly and when the time was right. Then he gave me half a pill and, blissfully, I got 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The one good thing about my little experiment is that I've learned that the level of pain I have right now is not excrutiating and could probably be managed with another type of OTC pain killer. So, all I need to do now is to wean myself off the Norco slowly and sensibly.

Again, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have Hubby as my husband. The last week has made me love him even more than I did before, if that's at all possible.

He's been impossibly supportive both physically and emotionally. He's changed the dressings to my wounds every other day, putting up with my squealing and squeamishness (I still won't look at the wounds). He moves me and my entourage of books, laptops, blankets, pillows, remote-controls, phones, and drinks around the house, so I can sit/be wherever is most comfortable at the time. He put on my socks when I couldn't reach down that far (although this wasn't his most accomplished skill, I have to say). He cooks for me, cleans around me, and watches whatever I want on the tv (ok, he does the latter all the time but he deserves the kudos anyway). He stays in when I want to and takes me out when I want to. He does thoughtful little things like setting out a mug and the sugar next to the kettle, so I can easily make myself a cup of tea during the day. He takes care of the dogs. He's listened to me as I talk myself through and out-of one of the many, sometimes irrational, little freak-outs I've had pre- and post-operatively, never tells me I'm being stupid or to snap out of it, yet always manages to offer words of comfort or logic, as needed. Not once has he made me feel as though I'm a pain or taking up too much time.

I truly am a very, very lucky girl. Thanks Hubby. I love you!

Off pain meds. CHECK. Off crutches. CHECK

Today I went off my pain meds. This morning I just decided that the only way to find out if I actually needed them was to stop taking them. So far it's been 9 hours since my last one and I don't feel the need to take another. I have some soreness in my right thigh, related to my previous post, but otherwise appear to be pain free at this time. Of course, these things take 24 hours to get of your system sometimes, so the book is not entirely closed.

Along with the realization that the meds were not obscuring any major pain, I was able to properly assess how much weight I'm safely able to put on my leg. I've been basically walking all but normally but have remained a little cautious about putting all my weight on my leg and so have been sort-of using one crutch. Honestly, today I realized I just don't need it. I can walk 90% normally without it. So, I ditched it. It's not an ego thing, so if I find that the situation re: pain and stability changes, I'm happy to pick up the cane or crutch again. I just don't see why I should pretend to hobble around when it feels perfectly normal to walk again.

Now, if I could just resolve the issues with my two nerves: my pudendal nerve and the blood popsicle which could or could not be damage to my lateral cutaneous nerve. Damage to the pudendal is most often transient, as a result of traction, but the lateral cutaneous (where the numbness and swelling is) can be either transient or, in some cases, permanent. This would be a result of the actual procedure damaging the nerve. Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything I can do to speed the process along in either cases.

Another 6 days to my first post-op appointment. Even 2 weeks seems too long now. I don't know what they were thinking with 3 weeks. I really just want to get checked-out, properly assessed, and sent to PT at this point.

Anyone for a popsicle?

Back to work today.

In true form, last night I developed (or just noticed) a new "symptom" ready for my first day back: I have a 3" x 1.5" bulge on my right thigh, located laterally across from one of my holes.

It's fairly defined in that you can run your hand up my thigh (oooo laa laa) and you can feel the beginning and end of it, and it's not squishy like normal swelling, it's quite firm. There's no discoloration - it's not red and it's not blue/black like a bruise. Therefore, we (Hubby and I) diagnosed swelling and last night Hubby suggested I ice it to see if we could get it down. But this morning it was no better. It's slightly sore but not excrutiatingly so (at least not with the narcotics flowing through my veins.)

Today I called the surgeon to see if I should be worried and he told me (in that glib, casual tone he has) that I probably have a cup of blood sitting under there, waiting for my body to flush it out. He said it like I had a cup of tea sitting on my coffee table, waiting for me to drink it. But cups of tea don't make me feel woosey... this DID.

So, I have internal bleeding!? Well, yes, and no. It's blood from the surgery trapped internally between layers of flesh, so strictly speaking yes but in the way that we normally think about internal bleeding no. (Yeah, semantics makes it feel all better.) He said that the hole it's closest to is the one that they spent the most time 'in', 'jabbing around'. OMG, how I didn't just collapse right there I don't know. Hubby said thatw this made sense since he could 'tell' that this hole had been worked on more. I don't even want to know what it is about that hole that gives off that impression, I still haven't even looked at my holes and have absolutely no plan or desire to until at least the stitches come out.

Anyway, now I'm freaking that I've been icing this 'blood' under my thigh tissue. My skin was cool to the touch and I pictured there being a blood-flavored popsicle sitting under the flesh on my right thigh. So, now i'm warming it up a bit, to see if that helps redistribute it. God, I feel nauseous.

Hubby also suggested lightly combing it tonight, to encourage it to make it's way through my system. This is a technique he learned in his baseball days and I have no idea if it will work on my blood popsicle but I'm willing to try it.

So, tonight, we'll add yet another first to our marriage: we'll comb my thigh.


Also during my conversation with my surgeon, I mentioned my stitches (because nobody else at the hospital ever thought to mention them to me.) I asked if I would be getting them out at our post-op appointment next week and he said I would be. Yay. NOT. When I told him that I was not looking forward to that and asked him if he would be gentle with me, you know what he said? "No, I want to draw tears."

He thinks he's funny, I'm not getting the humor. So, I told him my husband would be with me and he would beat him up if he made me cry. (Hey, I never had a brother and so this was my first opportunity to use the trusty ole 'be nice to me or some man who loves me will kick your ass'). You know what he said to THAT!? "Is that the same guy I met after your surgery? I think I could take him. I could kick his ass."

What, now he's slighting my husband's masculinity? He who impersonates the slightly-schitzophrenic-Vincent-D'Onofrio? He does not know who he's messin' with. I'll beat him around the head with my blood popsicle!

I lied!

Boy did I get good sleep last night. So good I could barely pull myself out of bed this morning. The good news is that I feel great! I did my bed exercises before I went to sleep last night and woke up feeling fairly limber.

This morning I had Hubby bring down my dumbells so I could do some upper-body strength training and just did some dumbell curls, extensions, chest and shoulder presses. I also did my standing leg exercises. Everything felt good and I can almost get my knee up to waist level - that and the side leg raises are the hardest ones. I can definitely see an improvement from Sunday to today already, however! So, I lied. I'm not exactly taking it easy today.

Tomorrow I'm back to work, so today I'm going to enjoy reading more of my book as well as watching crap tv. I was only gone 5 days so hopefully I didn't miss much. I also have my friend, Mala, visiting for lunch today. She's my first non-family visitor and it will be nice to hang out and chat for a while.

Toodleooo...

Stiff

I can tell I walked and moved more today because I'm stiff and in a little pain tonight. Just feel "tweaky" from groin to toe. Holes are also feeling a bit sore, probably as they're healing and the skin is tightening up. 5.5 hours between painkillers still, though - I'm still eeking it out. Tired tonight. I think I'll take it a tad easier tomorrow. Nite nite.

Puppy Pile

To avoid toppling their unstable mommy, the puppies have been relegated to the back yard.

Here is a photo of them luxuriating in the sun on our deck - so hard done by are they.

The apples and pears

More "firsts" abounded last night, making my sorrowful goodbyes and series of "lasts" before the surgery seem somewhat pitiful.

First, when Hubby was out at work and I was forced to fend for myself, I realized it was actually much easier to get around on one crutch vs. two. Two crutches are more unwieldy and pretty much made me more focused on how to coordinate or avoid hitting stuff with them, rather than zeroing-in on what to do with my leg/hip. In addition, both of my hands were tied-up, meaning there was no way to take something from one room or surface to another: I couldn't make myself a cup of tea unless I drank it where I made it, or bring in an oatmeal cookie to munch on while I watched movies. Finally, I realized, I wasn't really 'using' the one on my right side - I just didn't seem to need it - so, I ditched it for a few minutes to see how it felt. Again, it felt better, more stable not less. I tried the cane instead (which would seem to make sense if I've dropped a crutch) but I didn't feel as supported or stable. Decision pretty much made there. So, I'm down to one crutch and walking relatively normally overall. Small, slow steps but toes, knees, hips straight ahead, with barely any limp. Yipee!

Last night, after Hubby got home, I decided I wanted to see if I could get up the stairs (hence the title of this blog: apples and pears are cockney rhyming slang for "stairs"). Since there are 13, unbroken stairs between the top and bottom floor of our house, I was pefectly prepared not to make it all the way up but I wanted to try. In the afternoon I did some research on proper crutch/cane technique for climbing stairs on the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons website and my plan was to test their tips on 4-5 stairs up, then down, to see how it felt, Hubby standing by just in case. So, after dinner, we geared-up and I nervously followed the instructions I'd printed up from the web. I was prepared for pain, stiffness, and (especially on the way down) instability and feeling top-heavy. However, it was surprisingly easy. So easy, I was a little miffed, as was Hubby. As I reached the bottom stair without problem, we both looked at each other and sort of mumbled, "Huh." Like, who knew? We'd really built this stair-climbing thing up to be a monumental task and it seemed like it really wasn't going to be.

So, after initial reconnaissance, the plan was hatched: we would get me up the stairs approximately 30 minutes before scheduled bed time, I would take a shower (whoeeee, my first since the op), get in my PJs and.... wait for it... SLEEP IN BED! Hubby was practically giddy with anticipation - this could mean he could also sleep in bed for the first time since the surgery. No more cricked-necks from the couch for us, baby!

The plan went really well. Getting up the stairs was slow but not physically painful or taxing. Showering was a little harder, even with my cool 'spa-seat'. Issues came up like: how do you get your own pants off when you can't bend down to pull them off and can't lift your leg high enough to facilitate, or where do you put the crutches once you've got yourself in the stall, and how do you reach over to pick up the shower gel from the floor? But generally speaking it wasn't too bad and it was certainly nice to have warm water flowing all over my body. Then Hubby got me set-up on the bed with my books, pills, a hot chocolate, the remote controls, blankets, heating pads, and a bevvy of pillows large and small. It was delicious, laying there on my comfy, cozy bed - a place I didn't think I'd see for a couple of weeks at least.

I also started doing some post-op exercises that were listed on the AAOS site for patients who had complete hip replacement. They were bed exercises that were recommended immediately following surgery to help ensure good circulation and avoid muscle stiffness or atrophy. I had found them when looking for crutch and cane techniques. (Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?) Before you start worrying, the exercises are very mild, done whilst laying on the bed and, again, designed for patients with total hip replacement immediately after surgery. Given then my op wasn't anywhere near as drastic, that it's been 4 days since my procedure, and that I found the workout on a reputable site, I felt very confident that they would not hinder my recovery. However, I was prepared to stop if anything hurt or felt funky. I also had Hubby standing by to support the movement with the first few reps, to ease me in slowly. They weren't exactly easy, especially the one involving abduction of the leg (I was nervous about that) but I did them and felt pleased I was able to. I'm going to do them every night before I go to sleep now. Hopefully they will help me be in good shape for PT in a week or so from now.

Sleeping in bed was wonderful for both Hubby and I. You would have thought you'd just put us in the Queen's rooms at Buckingham Palace, we were so giggly and excited to be back in bed for the night. Not only could we actually sleep next to each other again (something we missed) but we had more room, AND I was closer to a bathroom, meaning Hubby didn't have to get up to clear the way for me during the night. Talk about win-win all round! We could barely force ourselves out of bed this morning, it was so comfy-cozy.

But we had to get up because this morning we had our appointment with the tax consultant at 8:30am.

More good news there, too. Our tax guy recommended we file married/jointly this year as it would reduce my effective tax rate from 28% to 15%. Um, like... WOW! He also gave us some tips on how to use the townhouse rental to it's full decuctible advantage in '08. The only disadvantage, of course, is that instead of me getting a fat refund this year, my refund and Hubby's taxes (which he pays at year end, being self-employed) may cancel each other out. Either way, it's a better financial outcome for us and will help us pay for our upcoming trip to Jamaica. Woohooo!

The only bad news about visiting this guy was that he didn't have a bathroom in his office. It was one of those business parks where several suites share a common bathroom and you get a key to access it. When the receptionist began to describe the walk to the bathroom from their suite, I had to shake my head - I'm doing well but there was no way I could walk that far in one go! It was bad enough they were on the 2nd floor without an elevator. Oh well, my adjusted tax rate made up for having to cork it for 30 minutes.

Back at home now and excited about a day relaxing in front of the tv, watching some chick-flicks. I still get the occasional wave of sleepiness come over me and I plan to indulge it perhaps once today and again tomorrow. I'm back to work on Wednesday, so I'm resolved to enjoy what's left of my medical leave.

Later...

A note about new comment rules

As you may or may not have noticed, I have put in place the comment verification process for my posts moving forward.

I know this is a pain in the butt (because I hate it when fellow bloggers make me do this too) but I've done this in response to a bogus comment from an unknown person on my previous post. The comment contained links that appeared to facilitate phishing and/or the distribution of a virus or spyware on your computer. I have reported the offending comment and user to blogger.com but wanted to explain the extra precautions.

Thanks for going through the extra step to share your thoughts on my blog. I hope it doesn't deter you.

Speedy Sunday

They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I much prefer my own version: when life gives you a bum hip, terrorize post-church-going shoppers on an electric shopping cart.

Yes, this is me in Raleys this morning, zooming down the aisles for the weekly shop. The entire outing was wildly entertaining, from the way the cart cornered like a Mini-Cooper on The Italian Job, to the quizzical looks of standing shoppers - yes, people seemed to be wondering whether this laughing, hell-raising, 33 year old, was really immobile enough to warrant hogging an electronic shopping cart from some old granny who probably 'really' needed it. Others, still, looked mildly annoyed as they rounded the corner of an aisle, only to see me blocking the way (and I'm sad to say that I recognized myself in their impatience.) I was even challenged to a race by a similarly spunky middle-aged man on another electronic cart. I declined to rise to his challenge, given my cart was full and his was empty - hardly a fair match-up!

More than anything, however, I realized how self-absorbed the majority of us are while shopping. While I was hypersensitive to rounding corners, making my way around displays, and 'pulling out' into the main shopping lane, most people are so busy on their phones, scolding their kids, or reading the calories on food labels that they don't watch where they're going. They back-up without looking, try to get around you without warning and then tutt when you unknowingly block their way, or park their carts in the middle of the aisle while they silently deliberate the merits of Campbells or Progresso, completely oblivious to you waiting to pass. As I said, I'm ashamed to recognize myself in some of their behaviors, and henceforth intend to be a more considerate grocery shopper.

I also have a new sympathy for those people who have no choice but to use the electronic carts for their shopping and who must shop alone: it left most of the shelves entirely inaccessible either in height and/or depth, the aisles were too narrow to get more than me and one other cart through, there were too many obstacles in the form of inconsiderately placed promotional displays, and there is only one check-out lane wide enough for you to get through. So, for as much fun as it was to zoom around on my electronic cart today, I can imagine the novelty wearing off fairly fast.

Fortunately for me, the Dove anti-perspirant was on one of the bottom shelves.I also had Hubby to help me get to the upper shelves, but most people shopping alone would be forced to decide their weekly menus based almost entirely on accessibility.

Super-social Saturday

Today was my friend, Kim's, son's first birthday party. When I knew I was going in for surgery, a few days before the big event I promised myself that I would aim to be there. Although I knew that it was entirely possible that the last thing I wanted to do 3 days post-op was attent a kid's birthday party, I also wanted to have a goal and a little something to look forward to.

In the days before my surgery and as I thought about my recovery, I daydreamed of arriving on Kim's doorstep, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, further proving that I am a woman made of steel. I pictured my triumphant entrance as everyone gasped and said things like: "Ohmygod! You only had surgery 3 days ago? You look wonderful!" and "Wow! I can't believe you recovered so fast." In return I would smile smugly, basking in the fact that I can indeed 'pop-up' out of any illness, hip-surgery included. Just call me invincible! (This is a family trait by the way - blame both my mother and maternal grandmother for this.)



Of course, deep down, I had only the faintest glimmer of hope that any of this would actually come to pass. Realistically, I saw myself, at most showing up for 10-15 minutes through a haze of pain-killers and pain, just to prove a point and retreating home for a long nap feeling a little defeated.



Rarely do your daydreams come true quite so literally. How wonderful it was to show up to little Hudson's birthday party feeling great and looking practically normal. How fantastic to feel so good that I stood for almost 3 hours (without pushing myself) chatting with friends and co-workers. Of course, I can attribute much of my euphoria and lack of pain to my pain meds (which I continue to use) but still, even with that taken into account, I didn't expect to feel so good.

The above pic is me with my co-worker, Wuri, and her daughter, Veronica. Pretty normal, huh?

NONE of this, however, happened without some considerable work on Hubby's behalf. From 9am this morning through to 11:45am when we left, Hubby was 100% devoted to the pre-part prep of yours truly.

Everything I do right now requires his help, since I am unable to both move myself and needed supplies - it's one or the other, since both hands are on the crutches. First there came the washing of the TV bod, then the washing of the TV hair, then the make-up, then the hair styling, then the dressing. I'm tellin' ya, it was a full-time, all-hands-on-deck task. Thank goodness I work from home and need this kind of sprucing up quite rarely.

The process was made more difficult due to the fact that I never really thought I would be well enough to go. So while I had prepped for and basketed all my needs downstairs in the living room pre-surgery, I had not accounted for things like make-up, blow-dryer, jewelry, shoes, etc... My expectations re: my recovery were clear by the piles of sweatpants, sweaters, fluffy socks, and zit cream. So, in order for all of these other things to materialize at my side, I had to list my needs specifically to Hubby (inc.. such details as bottle shape, size, color, brand), tell him where the things I needed were upstairs (when I could remember), and plan for things like where and how to sit, where to balance mirrors and brushes, where to plug in lights and blow-dryers etc... Again, everything required a "honey do". Stepping up to the challenge yet again for a 4th day, Hubby did a stellar job. While it took us a couple of hours and resulted in the house looking like a bomb had gone off in it when we left, I managed to leave the house looking relatively coiffed.

And no, he's not available for rent. ;o)

This afternoon we watched a movie together: the 'uplifting' 28 Weeks Later. If you haven't seen it or it's sister film, 28 Days Later, it's a bit gorey but I enjoy it mostly for the fact that it's one of the few disaster movies that actually considers England/London important enough to be the first place to get destroyed, in this case, by a killer virus. Usually, when the world is about to end, global warming is going to drown us, or aliens are going to blow us up, the process starts in New York or L.A. Sadly, in this film, the U.S. military came to save poor ole London from itself. Sigh.

Tomorrow's planned adventure is a trip to the grocery store, including a ride on the motorized shopping cart. Tee hee! Hopefully we'll get pics of that!

Still backing slowly off the meds. Today I managed to go just over 5 hours between doses. The main thing I'm noticing at the tail-end right now is a growing tightness especially on the inside of my hip/groin area. If the meds manage to keep this down and allow me to be comfortable, building strength and stability slowly, I'm happy to keep taking them for now. I am beginning to notice the light-headedness they induce, since I'm more clear headed as they wear-off, so I'm still motivated to get off them as soon as it makes sense.

Fun-packed Friday

Ok, maybe that was overselling it a bit but it has been as fun as any Friday 2 days after a surgery can be.

As you can see from the bright-and-peppy TV of the previous post, I felt good this morning. I had a good night's sleep and managed to give myself a decent wash in the downstairs bathroom, not without the aid of Hubby I might add. As pathetic as this may have sounded to pre-op me just a few days ago, it's actually been fun to spend time with him and have him look after me. There is humor in the basic things we've been forced to share in the past few days. Moment-by-moment I am reminded (although I always knew it before) of what a wonderful relationship... friendship... we have and how I just plain enjoy who he is and spending time with him.

Hubby got up and brewed some coffee, then made me oatmeal with glazed walnuts and bananas for breakfast, getting my day off to a yummy and healthy start. Then, somehow the morning passed, doing what exactly I've forgotten. I seem to remember Hubby working a bit from his laptop and me mentally checking in-and-out of such intellectually stimulating Travel Channel shows as "The 10 Sexiest Beaches" and "Top Ten Owned Islands". Then there was a lunch of 1/2 a turkey sandwich lined with English Branston Pickle, and a bowl of low-sodium beef barley soup.

At around 2pm, however, the dreaded time came - time to change the dressing on my holes! After making Hubby run through the process like preparation for a military coup, I hunkered down on the couch, hugging a pillow for dear life, and bared my buttocks. Then followed a process of poor Hubby gingerly picking away at taping and dressing, and a strange moment of pain mixed with tiggling as we negotiated some dressing stuck to my groin and inner thigh (both of which are very sensitive even under normal circumstances). Although I made a meal of it, yelping and groaning like an abandoned puppy, Hubby did a stellar job of cleaning me up and now, replacing the scary looking 6x6 blood-soaked gauze. are 3 relatively-tame bandaids. I guess I have some surface stitches after all (something the surgeon did not mention) and so I suppose these will need to come out at some point? Who knows, nobody ever mentioned anything at the hospital. I hope they just dissolve or something but Hubby seemed to think they weren't the right type. Groan. Something else to look forward to.

Anyway, getting through this made me feel much lighter - both metaphorically as well as physically. My leg is literally 4 inches narrower without all that gauze and taping! So , to reward myself, we took a trip to Starbucks. This time I actually got out of the car and we enjoyed our coffees sitting in the store, like two regular people, as if one of us hadn't just had a surgery less than 48 hours before. How cool is that? My progress is so far thrilling, even more so since I'm not pushing or forcing myself to do anything.

This evening, Hubby continued his culinary caress by delivering a candle-lit dinner on tv-tray - Teriyaki chicken, brown rice, and steamed veggies. It was delicious and nutritious! Again, my Hubby is quite literally the best a girl could wish for.

Also, I started to back-off my pain meds a little today. Instead of taking 2 pills every 4 hours, we're up to 4.5-5 hours now. It gets pretty tough toward the end but I'm planning to keep stringing it out as long as I can, then eventually go down to 1.5 pills, then 1, and so on.

Surgeon's office called this afternoon to reschedule my follow-up appointment. Instead of being 3 weeks out from the surgery, it's going to be 2 weeks - so the 26th. Hopefully I'll be off to PT at this point too. My co-surgeon said to me that I could be doing 10 minute stints on the eliptical trainer and recumbant bike as early as this. I'm being a good girl and staying on my crutches even though I could probably switch to a cane already, eagerly anticipating proving my worth for a PT referral at this appointment.

Tonight I'm pretty zonked. I'm going to sleep well I can tell, and am looking forward to another day of positives, progress, and spending time with Hubby.

Later...

C'mon over!

People have been asking if I'm up for visitors and the answer is "yes!"

Please shoot me an email if you'd like to come over. The only 'price' I exact is that, if you're coming for lunch, you must bring food and it must be healthy. Hee hee.

Hey there!

All cleaned-up and taking a quick stroll out my front door to enjoy the unexpected sunshine. It was supposed to be rain and thunderstorms today and yesterday but instead we've had partly cloudy skies, punctuated by brilliant sunshine.

Today's big hurlde is changing the dressing on my holes. Loverly.

Bloody Hell! (Warning for the sqeamish!)

Or, as we Brits also like to say: "Hells bells and buckets of blood." (Serious kudos to anyone who can tell me where that came from and sorry to Joy for all the h words... the moment requires.)

Right after I blogged that I didn't think my bandage would make it through 2 days, I got up to go to the bathroom only to be confronted with blood streaming down my leg. The banages were soaked and it was leaking through my shrink wrap. Um... ewww... and YIKES! I am not good with blood, as you're no doubt guessing... I was freaking out but in my own internalalized sort of way. Thankfully hubby has no such problems (or if he does, he's doing a stellar job of hiding it) and came to the rescue with some additional stuff to put on top but, in hindsight, it was just a little comical because every time he tried to clean it up to put the new bandages on, more blood leaked from somewhere else. How I stayed calm and didn't faint, I have no clue - I did feel a little lightheaded and was hyperventilating slightly.

In other news, I managed to pee on myself a little last night. Another highlight in the depridification of me (hey, if W can make up words, so can I.) Obvy it has something to do with my numb.... whatsit... but it was clearly the lowpoint of my marriage as Hubby had to help me out of my blood and urine spotted pants. I'm praying things get better in this department as the thought of resorting to Depends is really not something I want to consider on top of everything else right now. (Hubby proclaimed this was all a real turn-on but admitted it was better that this happened several years into our relationship and after we got married.)

In terms of sleeping, I think we did... on-and-off. Since I have no compulsions about taking pain meds, especially in these first few days, we set our alarm to wake us up every 4-4.5 hours. Inevitably, waking up also meant another trip to the bathroom, so all-in-all what should have been a quick pill-popping session, turned into a 15 minute outing.

Then there was getting comfy again. I have a tendency to tell Hubby that I'm ok before I've actually taken time to consider the real answer to that question. So, he would just be settling down on the couch again, and out would peep a: "Do you think it would bleed less if I raised my leg up on some pillows?"; or a "Do you think I'm shivvering because I'm losing too much blood or because I'm cold?". There were others but I can't remember them all. Hubby says his favorite was: "I think I just peed on myself." Yep, that would be the winner. Poor guy. In my defense, I figure I'm a dependent in-training: I'm not used to having to really consider how I'm doing in order to communicate my needs clearly to someone else. Who knew but this is going to actually take some practice!

Pain is mostly under control but I've started to get pain from the incision site - the burning I was expecting initially. The meds seem to knock most of it out but I do have two open-wound holes in my upper thigh, so a little soreness is to be expected. Again, I am not looking forward to changing this dressing.

Movement is ok so far. I'm able to move my leg enough to get on and off the armchair and I can put a little weight on it to get up and down the stairs (just the 2 small ones through my family room) for the bathroom. There's no pain so far when I put pressure on it but I'm taking it slow and feeling it out conservatively - I'm giving myself at least 48-72 hours before I try anything new (and by new I do not mean radical.) I just want my body to recalibrate from the shock of the actual surgery first, before dealing with the residual issues of movement, stiffness and pain. I'm glad that I feel ok with giving myself permission for this - that may sound like a strange statement but to me it means everything and is a good omen for what is to come, I think.

Now, if we can only get the bleeding to stop. Hubby seems to think it has but it did already seep through the second layer of bandages... no more leakage yet, though. Just the thought of what's going on down there is enough to send me into mini panic attacks every now and again, so the key is distraction, distraction, distraction. Hence, this may not be the only long-winded post of the day. Again, sorry... I'll find something else to talk about next time, hopefully.

Hubby will call the surgeon today to ensure the bleeding and numbness is normal and to check on things like icing the area since my thigh is still quite swollen.

About 30 mins to my next meds, so I'm going to sign-off here... need some mental space to deal with the pain that resurges.

So, until later...