Recovery Requires Innovation!

My husband had a meeting this morning at the church, so I dutifully did my physiotherapy and got dressed and ready for the day. I got looking at the three large loads of laundry sitting in the dining room and thought about how tired my husband has been since his bout of heat stroke a few days ago. I so wanted to surprise by getting at least some of the laundry started, but how to get the clothes downstairs when I can’t juggle crutches, handrails and laundry baskets at the same time???

Finally the lights went on in my brain….doesn’t always happen when needed, so bonus! I remembered we have a box of huge raked leaf collector plastic bags in a cupboard under the kitchen sink. I pulled out a bag  and filled it with towels and facecloths, tied it shut and tossed it gently down the basement stairs. I followed it down with my crutches and was able to wrestle it over to the washing machine! Yay! Got the load washed and into the dryer and brought the second of the three loads down to the basement using the same rolling bag method! Yes! So the towels are in the dryer and the second load is nearing the rinse and spin cycles. If there is time before my husband arrives home I will take the third load downstairs to the washing machine. I know how much my husband was dreading doing laundry today as he is so tired, so I am thrilled to be able to surprise him! All I need from him is to bring the clean, dry laundry back from the basement. If I could roll the full bag back UP the stairs he wouldn’t even need to do that. Darn that gravity, eh? 

I realize figuring out how to use an oversized plastic bag to move the laundry around is not rocket science. It barely rates a mention really, but for me thinking of any sort of viable solution to this problem is a milestone along the return path to clearer thinking and restored energy/motivation. Solving even such a tiny problem means life is on the way to being restored, life is still worth living. After sneaking by with only three hours of sleep again last night due to a pinched nerve, I was questioning the purpose of life by about 5am, truly I was. Now that I have accomplished a “normal”, every day house chore on my own…and without injuring myself in the process….my confidence and joy are on the verge of making a true comeback! Yay! So grateful.

It’s That Last Forkful Of Food! Every Blasted Time! Grrrrrrrr…….

This morning I was up at 7am and by 9am I was all fed, physio’d, dressed and ready to head out of town with my husband so he could preach and preside at the Anglican Church where he did his postulancy years ago. It was wonderful to be back there! The friends there are still friends, for which we are grateful. I was so happy to be wearing a new outfit for the first time and was glad I took the time to dress properly.

My excitement about that lasted until my final forkful of salad at lunch afterward. We were at a restaurant where I very much enjoyed a crispy chicken Caesar Salad and was thrilled to have eaten the majority of it without spilling any of it on myself….spilling food on my clothes IS my gift….however…..I put my fork down 3/4 of the way through the massive salad because I was full and I was proud of myself for not over eating.  As The Good Book warns, “…Pride goeth before a fall…”. Sure enough. I noticed a teensy, particularly fresh lettuce leaf sitting in the bowl and decided I could enjoy that one last itty bitty mouthful…and I would have, had it not slid off my fork just before reaching my mouth, slid down the front of both blouse and skirt, leaving a trail of oily salad dressing stains. Sigh…. I have never learned with this particular Gift Of Spilling when to leave things well enough alone. I was so disappointed in myself. 

So, home we came and I made my first foray down to the basement on the dangerous steps to get the stain remover spray for my outfit. I admit I did it surreptitiously, after my husband was enjoying the sound sleep of a well earned afternoon nap. He would have a cow had he caught me going on my own going down those painted, unbacked basement steps! 

Sometimes ya’ just gotta take a risk and be as wise as possible in the midst of it, right? Of course right! I took my time, placed every foot and crutch leg carefully, prayed the phone would not ring when I was halfway down the steps and all was well. Whew! 

We had a breezy but sunny drive out of town, drove home through a few bands of gentle rain and I loved the feel of the wet grass on my toes as I crutch walked across the grass back here at home. 

Thank you God for a day out of town, reconnecting with old friends, a safe drive and a yummy lunch….despite how the meal ended, haha. 

Good News For Our Son!

 A couple of months ago our son's very expensive bicycle was stolen from his studio by some bored teenagers and as it was his only form of reliable transportation to his studio and he had put thousands of dollars worth of upgrades and repairs into it, he was devastated by the loss.  A very special group of friends and acquaintances  put together a Go Fund Me Page and they reached their goal within ten days. The money was presented to our son and he was able to order a brand new bike.  It just arrived. The look on his face says it all!

 

Can Hardly Wait Until The "Kids" Arrive!

Our son will be here in 10 days, followed the next day by his wife who is spending time with family and friends in Toronto first.  I am beside myself with excitement.  I am actually grateful for the number of medical appointments I have to go to between now and then because it will help the time seem to go faster!  My prayer is that with the two doctor appointments I have when they are here, they will not be hampered finding a day to go out with my husband for a bit of a canoe trip and hike about in the trees an hour or two from the city.  Unfortunately our daughter in law has to work from "home" for the final two days of their visit and I have my two doctor appointments during the first four days of their visit. Sigh....timing could have been better, but unavoidable. I can hardly miss my time sensitive osteoporosis injection and my 5 week checkup with the surgeon to accommodate the canoe trip possibility.  I want to be able to cover a bit more distance with my walking by then in case there are art galleries to go to when they are here.  No doubt there will be some kind of exhibit they want to see. Although they want to clean house for me, I am hoping they can do a quick clean, maybe one morning while I am at a medical appointment, so that we are all free to roam the rest of the time.  Oh, who knows how it will all work out?  I am not going to fret, but trust things will go well and that in between their times spent helping us out, there will be some fun.  There is a nice bbq area at the bnb they are staying at, so they are hoping we will come over for a bbq one evening. They are such fabulous cooks that we only eat out a couple of times usually during their visits.  We buy the groceries and they cook sumptuous meals....it is a great arrangement!

Oh Lord, give me patience to wait. Amen! 

The Longest Day....Aaargh!

Today has been one of those days that started early in the morning and seems to have lasted a whole year already!  I had a great visit with my coffee buddy this morning but after she left it was all downhill from there as far as my ability to cope with the passing of the hours.  It isn't quite 9pm and I am feeling antsy instead of tired.  

This is a regular post-surgical phase for me.  I am right on the cusp of being well enough to want to do more, mentally the fog has cleared and I want to get up/out and GO!  Unfortunately I am not quite healed enough yet for my body to be as busy as my brain wants it to be.  This too shall pass. Mind and body will begin to catch up in a few weeks. It won't be long until the time stops dragging throughout the daytime hours. I am sick to death of books and television and crossword puzzles!

I had a call tonight from my cousin in Ontario who I am only in touch with occasionally.  We had such a nice chat, got caught up with personal and family news and I am just sorry that it has taken us into our senior citizenship to start connecting as family members to at least some degree.  Better late than never, that's for sure.

Tomorrow is Friday. My husband will be busy all day tweaking and re-tweaking his Sunday sermon so that he can take a bit of a break on Saturday to relax and feel prepared for preaching and presiding at the service.   I have not yet decided how I will fill time tomorrow.  It will partly depend on whether or not I get any sleep tonight. Last night went quite well, but my husband woke up at 7am today for some reason and wasn't able to get back to sleep, so that was the end of my own sleep. Perhaps tomorrow morning we will both sleep a little later. That would be nice.  

 

Iced, Iced, Babeeeey!

 I had no idea how wonderfully well an ice pack can ease aching muscles until this latest surgery.  Today I was quite active and by 4pm my leg muscles were feeling tight and sore. Bless my husband for reminding me about our summer cooler ice packs in the freezer.  I put them inside a sock and iced my hip for about 20 minutes and that took care of the problem.  I vaguely remember the nurses at the hospital giving me ice packs after the surgery, but my mind was so fuzzy for the whole hospital stay that I completely forgot. Duh!  Tonight I am going to spend the night in the recliner chair, close to the freezer in the kitchen!!  If I wake up in the middle of the night with achy muscles, now I remember what to do.  How does a person forget something to obvious and simple? Double Duh!!!!

Getting Out Is Healling For the Soul As Well As The Body!

 It is a warm and sunny day today; a few possible thunderheads are building in the sky so perhaps they will amount to a bit of rain later in the afternoon or evening and that will be just fine. Perhaps that will cool the air temperature down before it cycles up to the edge of being uncomfortably hot tomorrow.  It has been a perfect day to be out and about.

At church on Sunday morning my husband had a strong conviction that we needed to assist a former colleague who has fallen on some unexpectedly hard times, so we were able to offer some help to that person this morning.  Praising God that there seems to be some hope for that person's present situation.  It was good to be actively helping someone. It seems like too long since we have had many opportunities to help directly without having to go through a church board or some other third party, but had the chance to pray and talk together in person today.  Wow, we have been SO out of commission in our daily ministry to others the past couple of years. No wonder God is having to grab our attention again now, making us able to hear and obey at least a little bit better than we have been for the past while.  It is SO easy to slip off the track and become enmeshed in things that are easier, or more fun, or more socially acceptable in the wider church culture than some of the things God has asked us to do in the past and we have fallen into the trap with numerous excuses that simply cannot stand any longer. It is freeing, I have to say.

I was able to get into and out of the car for that trip, then into and out of the car so I could pay for our gasoline fill up, then into and out of the car to go into a branch of our bank,  then into and out of Birmingham's for a salad lunch...weeeeellll, it was RIGHT THERE by the bank, ya' know? hahaha  Two restaurant meals in two days was a lovely belated birthday celebration, but that will be enough for a while. I am ploughing along with with my walker, but so hope to be on a cane in the next couple of weeks.  I am not needing to put as much weight on the walker handles and crutch handles, but I still need enough weight taken off that hip that a cane is not quite sufficient support just yet. 

I am up to the full 30 reps on my physio exercises as of this morning.  So, I will be able to do those reps for the next ten days prior to my first check in with the physiotherapists and the hip and joint clinic.  I am conscious of how far I still have to go and of the next 13 exercises I will start (HOPEFULLY) incorporating into my routine after the check in....just hoping I don't have to start doing all 13 of them at one time or I will be doing a total of 780 reps each day.  HOPEFULLY I will get 6 or 7 new ones, be able to drop at least 5 of the current 6 and.....well, we will see how it goes.  I must continue to work hard.   

Tomorrow morning my Thursday Morning Coffee Buddy is planning to come over for our weekly visit. I certainly hope that happens because it is always such an encouragement to us both.  We can tell each other pretty much anything and everything that is going on in our spiritual lives and we help each other cope with a few things at church that neither of us particularly understands nor appreciates at the moment.  It is nice to be able to talk about church things with someone who is not negative about them and who contributes to edifying conversations as to how to best handle the things we don't understand right now.  She will bring the baking treats and I will provide the steamed low fat milk with no sugar peanut butter cup flavouring.  Yum!

Well, time to do afternoon physio and then get the windows open on the side of the building where the sun has now passed on to other places. 

Pooped Out But Happily!

 It has been a wonderful day thus far!  I awakened to an email from dear friends who moved from here to Calgary a couple of weeks ago to be closer to their family and to live in one of the lovelier seniors' facility in the city, the very place I have always wished had been built when my parents sold their condo to move into such a place. They would have thrived there. Anyway, our friends are getting settled and enjoying their new home and that cheered my heart, even though I already miss them terribly.

My husband decided I have been left stranded in this suite for too long now and decided to take me out for a VERY belated birthday lunch.  It was okay food, but just getting out into the public arena again, surrounded by voices and laughter and fun and activity was marvellous.  Although I am often happy with my own company for long periods of time, at some point I find enough is enough and I crave being in a public space.  It was so much fun to be out and about at last.

After that we went to the COOP for some groceries. While my husband did 3/4 of the actual shopping, I did find a couple of things as I made a complete loop around the store with my walker, the longest walk I have taken since the surgery, and happily collapsed on a padded arm chair beside the cash registers to wait for him to pay for the groceries.  I rode happily along with him to a couple of other places he needed to go for a few items, sitting with the windows down in the car while he ran his errands.  Having the gentle breeze blowing through as I sat in the sun was a wonderful experience.  

Now that we are home I am sitting quietly at my computer, about to play a level on my current computer game....an elderly one, Heroes of Hellas Part 3.  It is just my speed and as usual is mostly a form of mahjong with a few fun extras thrown in.  I have no interest in modern computer and video games. I don't want to have to deeply strategize or think much about what I am doing. Some people watch mindless tv shows or fluff filled novels to relax, I play old computer games.

After that it will be time for a nap!!!    

A Little More Activity At Home!

This has been a wonderful day of small accomplishments! While my husband was out at a meeting this morning I was able to get my breakfast and wash dishes, toss out the remains of what were once two beautiful bouquets of flowers and wash out the jars we used as vases, wash my hair and do my physiotherapy.  I made my own lunch, did more physiotherapy, then had a relaxing sponge bath after my husband removed the remains of the bandages over the incisions on my hip and leg.   Soon I will be steady enough and able to put enough weight onto my operated leg to stand in the shower.  Oh how I am looking forward to that!  Here's hoping for next week!! After my shower I dressed and changed all the sheets on the bed without any help. YAY!!  The full impact of what the surgeon told me in regard to a longer than hoped for recovery is hitting me more now, but I am not discouraged.  I am encouraged by seeing what can be accomplished as my brain fog dissipates and my energy level rises and my current physio exercises become much easier to master.  I am up to 25 out of 30 reps so will aim to start the full 30 either tomorrow or the next day. NOW, if I could just convince my body that it is comfortable sleeping on the bed instead of the narrow recliner chair.  In both places I am lying flat out, so what the heck is the difference?  Crazy, but this too shall be worked out in time.

After two days of rain the clouds have parted somewhat today and there have been some times of sunshine. Oh my how that lightens my mood.  It has been very cold overnight, but in a couple of more days the temperatures will be more seasonal, AND not too hot for awhile yet.

Friends of mine have taken time off from going to "The Lake" for their main summer holiday time this year.  They  are having a very exciting and different kind of trip.  Months and months ago they decided to follow up on an invitation from an American gospel composer and arranger they know to come to Nashville as part of a mass choir, with singers coming from all over North America, and record a Christmas album.   For a pair who rarely get to go anywhere farther than a few hours away during the summers, this is a rare and wonderful treat.  I am so very excited and thrilled for them.  One of them is the daughter of a barbershop singer and there is an amazing barbershop singers museum in Nashville. You can bet she will be visiting that while they are there. Her father, who died recently, will have his name engraved on a plaque honouring their singers who have passed.  They will also be meeting one of the "head honchos" of barbershop singing and that will be quite a thrill.  I can't wait until they arrive home in a couple of weeks and share their experiences. I am familiar with the music of the composer they are going to be directed by and I am certain it will be a marvellous, though  hard working, experience making this recording.

In two weeks' time our son will be arriving for a visit.  It has been a distant dream for what seems like months and now suddenly the time is telescoping and soon the visit will happen.  What more motivation do I need to continue working hard on my recovery?  His wife will arrive the following day and then we have a whole week together.  Just hoping to be mobile enough to enjoy a few fun activities while they are here. My husband will try to take them canoeing for a day so I can rest and they can do more than just hang around with the "invalid".  

So, life is improving. I am finding other things to think about and do apart from recovery.  Friends have been very faithful to keep in touch and check on my progress and God is continuing to relieve my husband and I of the burden of trying to "fit in" with certain folk who have reached out to us under some kind of obligatory duress over the past while.  We feel poised on the cusp of God being free to move in our lives with fewer self and church society imposed restrictions, so what that looks like we don't know, but a cloud we didn't know we were carrying is lifting off our shoulders.  We feel free once again to become enthusiastic about what God is doing in our lives, free to share more of that with certain groups of people we have had to pussyfoot around for quite a while and if it bounces us out of their social orbit, that is okay.  We have been lonely since we moved to this city so gave into some of that "gotta fit in to belong" pressure and now feel free to focus only on those who are willing to know the real us, not on those who kind of want to get to know us but get frightened off once they find out what our lives have been like in the past.  God bless them.  Not everyone is able to understand and appreciate everyone else's journey and that is quite fine.  We all have our place in the wonderful world of church and God's Kingdom here on earth!  Life may not change that much, but then again, it could change dramatically. The blessing is to be able to accept what DOES or DOES NOT happen in the future.

 

My Poor Distracted Husband

 I am feeling so badly for my husband. He has been more stressed over my surgery and recovery than either of us realized until yesterday and today. 

A couple of weeks ago he ordered an inexpensive gift for our kids on Amazon, but promptly forgot to track it properly, subsequently missing completely the information that it had been delivered to their building. His plan was to text them the day it was delivered, Since the kids didn’t know anything was being delivered and he didn’t tell them it was there they didn’t check the lobby and of course by yesterday, when my husband discovered it had indeed been delivered, complete with photos of proof, the package had disappeared, either stolen or tossed up on the shelf for unclaimed mail. If it ended up on that shelf then a postal delivery person would have stuffed in a sack of other undelivered mail and taken it Lord knows where. My husband was terribly embarrassed that he forgot to track the very parcel he had been so excited to surprise the kids with.

This morning he received another more nasty surprise when he went to the car to drive himself to church. For the second time in as many years he had heaved heavy refilled water jugs into the house a couple of days ago, realizing he would have to then lock the car after putting the jugs down inside the house, but again, he got distracted and forgot. This morning he discovered our four hundred dollar charging battery had been stolen. Sigh…..he is SO upset with himself. He knows we have regular trawlers checking car doors in our complex’s parking lots most nights looking for unlocked cars, so he is again most embarrassed over his thoughtlessness. 

I keep telling him to stop worrying. We all have things happen that could have been avoided if we had been thinking clearly at the time. Our kids will not be disappointed to have missed out on a small gift they didn’t even know was coming. The thief took a car charging battery, not the whole car. 

I can’t entirely blame him anyway, as I know he sometimes gets distracted from details and forgets them. I could have checked after he brought in the water to make sure the car was locked, I even thought of it at the time, but I didn’t do anything about it. We both messed up but have hopefully learned a valuable lesson. Life goes on and it isn’t all about “stuff” anyway. Right? 

My Current Theme Song!

My husband has chosen a theme song for me during my recovery period: “Day By Day” by Doug and the Slugs.

It’s an old tune from and the lyrics are most appropriate. 

(The first line talks about not getting upset by bad news and today with the U.S. attack on Iran, I will have to work hard at not being upset about another escalation of war in the Middle East.  Lord have mercy on us all.)

A Teeming Deluge Of Water!!

 Despite our city supposedly being outside the heavy rainfall area, we have just experienced over an hour of teeming downpour that has my husband running to the basement every half hour to check his wall and floor patching and ensure the hose he has attached to the one place in the wall where it is impossible to completely seal it, is firmly in place to drain water from that spot into the floor drain.  God bless him.  I can't even go downstairs yet, let alone sop up water and/or repair that hose and basin system he set up a couple of years ago that has saved us countless inches of water building up on our basement floor.  I am SO GRATEFUL for my husband's inventive skills that were honed from his childhood while growing up on a subsistence farm.

Today we have dear friends travelling from here to Calgary, the possible epicentre of flooding from rain storms to the west of us.  I have been praying they are not stuck on flooded highways, or had a breakdown with their vehicle and that they will arrive safely there tonight so they can catch their plane tomorrow for their holiday destination.   I have been watching the highways in Alberta on the cameras there, but some of them are now so rain spattered that the road is not visible through the murk.  So, I am trusting God will help them to get there safely. I do hope the northern fires are getting at least some of this water, but it seems to be contained from the central to the northern part of the prairie provinces.

We just received a notice that our church picnic scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled due to rain and cold weather.  Smart decision and I pray that the kids who were looking forward to it, as well as the people who already purchased their salad and dessert fixings for the BBQ potluck, will not be too disappointed.  Crazy weather abounds everywhere this year. 

Glorious Cleansing Rainfall!

 While the province of Alberta is being deluged in some areas with too much rain and the northwest central portion of our own province is under a heavy rainfall warning this weekend, we are happy to receive some significant rain here as well. It would appear we are not in the area specified to receive an overabundance of rain, but the moisture is most welcome and the drop in temperature is a relief to my husband and myself.  Looks like we have four or five days before the heat makes its way back to us. Whew!

The never ending saga of how to get some sleep at night is kind of getting to me.  I tried for three hours last night to get comfortable enough in bed to drop off, but then gave it up and returned to the recliner in the living room where I was able to get three rounds of two consecutive hours of sleep with only a slight awakening between rounds.  So although I am still tired, I do feel much better today and am ready to do some more dusting around this suite.  I realize that as my mental acuity restores itself I am becoming impatient about how long it takes me to accomplish the simplest task while balancing walkers and crutches and dishes and dusters etc. The impatience is a good sign. It means I am getting well and preparing for more mobility to return. Physio exercises have been most encouraging the past few sessions.  Although I am still behind where I want to be, I am catching up fairly quickly and feel I will be well prepared for my initial meeting with the physiotherapist in two weeks' time.  YAY!

My husband is preaching and presiding at a church out of town a week from tomorrow, so he is busy preparing a sermon and familiarizing himself with the liturgy of the church we will be attending.  It will be my first time back in church since a couple of weeks prior to the surgery, AND it will be among old friends in the congregation so I am very much looking forward to it. We will be arriving at the church far enough ahead of the service time for me to snag one of the beautifully padded chairs and not be stuck suffering on one of the old, harder than a rock pews....they are actually quite comfortable pews, but right now any seat that is not padded properly is difficult for me to sit on for more than 30 minutes at a stretch.  Coffee time afterwards will be the problem...chairs with insufficient padding.  I am going to have to drag along my office chair cushion I suppose. BUT it will be worth it to get out of here and enjoy a really good Anglican service once again.  I love my church here in town, but I still miss the Anglican liturgy I fell in love with years ago.  

Next week my husband and I are going to try to make plans to go and visit a couple of friends. I need to get out here more now that my staples are out and energy is coming back. A change of scene is on the list of needs for me and it won't hurt my husband to see some friends either.  

I have been reading "All the Little Monsters: How I Learned To Live With Anxiety" by David A. Robertson.  It is interesting for me, a fellow anxiety sufferer over the course of my younger years in particular and while seeing my son also struggle with inherited family anxiety traits, to read about the struggles particular to the author because of his indigenous background and the subsequent social persecution he has suffered.  It adds a whole new level of consideration for me to the whole issue of anxiety in other contexts than my own; what causes it, what triggers it and other ways to deal with it.  Glad I picked it up at a library sale recently.

Okay, onward to the dusting project! 

 

Breaking Out!

 I am so grateful for the chance to get out of this place for most of the morning today!  Thank you Lord as it gives me a happier lease on life!

The 45 staples were removed from my leg this morning with no problems whatsoever and I have been relieved of the discomfort where a couple of them have been pulling the past couple of days. The nurse who removed them was friendly and efficient. She found no signs of infection at the site. My husband, who insisted on accompanying me into the surgical removal room managed not to pass out once the procedure began, so it was a winning scenario all around!  Hallelujah!

Afterwards I sat in the car while he ran a couple of errands. It was fun to see that this city still stands in all its brown, grey, gravelly, dusty, (punctuated by some gorgeous trees), glory.   It was a somewhat heady experience being able to sit in the car and get moving out of this suite for an hour or two. YES!

When the errands were completed my husband drove me immediately to A&W for my desperately craved Buddy Burger with added lettuce and tomato.  He ordered one as well and purchased an order of unsalted french fries for himself, of which I ate my limit of six, as well as a diet root beer for me.  We sat in the parking lot to eat so we could enjoy the hotness of the food and it was so much fun. Such a simple, unremarkable outing, but it brought great joy to my heart.

It was good to get home and remove the long pants and socks as they felt so hot and confining, then put on another sun dress for the rest of the day.  My husband has his own doctor's appointment in a couple of hours and I am suspecting I will fall asleep for the entire time he is gone.  hahaha  Even that short jaunt this morning was exhausting after a broken night's sleep, BUT I did manage to remain in bed all night and not have to hobble downstairs to the recliner chair.  When the staples were coming out the nurse had me lying on my side with no pillow between my legs for hip support and you know, it felt so much better than using a pillow here at home in an attempt to sleep on my side.  Pinched nerves in my back from lying on it all night are partly responsible for the lack of sleep, but fussing with a leg pillow has been uncomfortable and impossible to handle for more than about 20 sleepless minutes at a time twice a night.

Gosh it has been a good day.  When I took my pre-removal pain killers 40 minutes ahead of my appointment, it had been 48 hours since taking any painkillers, so I hope that the ones I took this morning will turn out to be the end of having to take them at all.  

Since I did my morning physio at 6:30am today, I suppose I had better go and do the second round of exercises.  Doing physio prior to breakfast and heading to the appointment made more sense to me than either missing a session or having to start in the afternoon and try to find enough energy to do Round Two after dinner tonight. 

So grateful for the overcast, somewhat cooler day today.  Very thankful and feeling blessed by the weather.  I am keeping an eye on the Alberta weather as the forecast has not been good....an overabundance of rain perhaps and snow in the upper elevations.  We have not had ground level forest fire smoke here for a few days and that has been a relief. 

Bye Bye Staples!

 I am using the Mystery Quest font because until I am actually at the health centre tomorrow morning for having my staples removed from the incision, it will be a mystery as to whether or not I will have healed sufficiently for it to happen. Here's hoping!!!  

By juggling my sleeping hours between my own bed and the recliner chair downstairs I have been managing to pull off a fair number of hours of consecutive sleep each night lately.  What a blessing.  I am learning what constitutes "overdoing it" with the walking out of doors, so for now am restraining myself from walking more than about 120 feet or so and back once a day.  Twice is still pushing it and the day I arrogantly and ignorantly went for three walks I paid for it all that night....dumb, dumb, dumb.  I know better than that.

Assuming I don't get light headed after the staple removal tomorrow I will be able to accompany my husband while we drive to the water jug refill business where we purchase our drinking water...perhaps I will also be able to con a Buddy Burger out of him.  One of those little buns and about six french fries constitute quite a rare treat and I have had no restaurant food in about three weeks, so what the heck.  If that doesn't work out we have several cartons of my husband's delicious celery soup to eat.  Healthy, schmealthy, I want ONE treat, ONE Buddy Burger.  Then I will most happily return to our salt free, home made fabulous foods here at home for the next few weeks.  I rarely crave any particular foods, but for some reason that Buddy Burger is taking over my thoughts. If it doesn't sit well, okay, but I would like to try it...maybe with a diet root beer too! 

We have decided to go in with my walking partner and her family in purchasing a case of peaches from her church fundraiser.  They will be delivered here toward the end of August and wow, we are already looking forward to their juicy deliciousness.  Fresh peach kuchen for breakfast.....Oooh, I am almost drooling already. My husband has the best recipe ever for that.  

Can you tell my taste buds have finally returned??? hahaha I had zero sense of taste in the hospital and it has taken me the better part of this last two weeks to be able to recover the actual flavour of food at mealtime.  Yum!  The happiest part of recovery, teehee.... 

It appears at the moment that the thunder storm watch that was issued earlier this evening may amount to not so much as a drop of rain.  We need rain to cool things down after a couple of extremely hot days in this suite.  

We are saddened this evening by the report from Parks Canada of a rock slide that occurred this afternoon in one of our favourite areas of Alberta, the Bow Valley Trail, north of Lake Louise.  My husband has hiked and climbed in that area numerous times and so enjoyed it.  Unfortunately the rock slide today has killed at least one climber and injured many more.  We are still awaiting reports on how many people were involved in this mountain tragedy.  Sigh,...it has been a long time since anything this drastic has occurred in that area.  Praying for the survivors and the families awaiting news of the fate of their loved ones.

Can We All Just Grow Up Please? PLEASE???

A few days ago a Canadian politician attended a rap concert. Turns out the American performing rap artist has been feuding with a Canadian rap artist for some months over some seemingly ridiculous (at least to me, anyway) personal issue. Canadian rap artist publicly calls out Canadian politician for having the unmitigated gall to attend the concert of the American rapper with whom he is conducting said feud. So, Canadian politician issues a public apology and apologizes for attending the concert. WHA?????

I have heard of some ridiculous interchanges between people since the advent of social media, but this situation is truly stupid and makes me ashamed to be a Canadian. The politician involved has just been relieved of the position of headship of his party. Not great for him, now he is not allowed to attend a concert of his choice without being made to feel like a schmo for simply going out and enjoying himself? 

Get over yourselves people. You are musicians, not heads of state. Your personal fame and fortune are temporary and I dare say there are people in the world who have never heard of either of you and don’t care. Canadian politician, stop grovelling to a spoiled brat in a grown up body.

Sorry for the rant. What I read hit me the wrong way in view of the many ACTUAL disasters going on worldwide right now. Once in awhile I just have to share my own opinions about these childish antics. You don’t have to agree with me, it is only my opinion, but I had to let off steam.

Thank you.

Lots Of Zzzzzzzz’s Last Night!

I was so exhausted by the time dinner ended last evening that I was in bed and asleep shortly after 8pm. Yes! I spent some time rearranging pillows during a couple of short times of awakening to relieve the stress on my sciatic nerve, but slept most of a seven hour period. It was wonderful. I fidgeted for awhile when I woke up just before 4am, but another strategic placement of pillows resulted in me zonking out again from 6-8am. It was marvellous and to day I feel like I am finally turning another corner in the healing process.  Morning physio exercises and outdoor walk are completed, so as soon as my husband returns from his own walk we will enjoy eating his fabulous home made celery soup for lunch. For dinner we will finish the rest of the delicious flayed chicken thighs with rice, broccoli and mushrooms some friends dropped off for last night’s dinner. We were able to freeze a couple of cartons of chili and soup for future use…..meal times where my husband simply cannot face cooking yet another meal from scratch. I think I will be able to help him more by this weekend. So, life is improving bit by bit, day by day, it is all good. Thank you friends and family who prayed about my sleep deprivation. Seems I have finally figured out how to get comfortable enough to sleep. Other good news: it has been 14 hours since I last took any pain meds. Looks like I just may make it until bedtime tonight. Yay!

Releasing My Husband From Being My Physio Valet!

 Milestone today! As of this afternoon I am capable of setting up my own physio equipment and getting all the exercises done on my own. My husband no longer has to assist me in getting pool noodles and coffee cans arranged under my knees, has got his old phone timer set up for my final “hang lower part of leg off the side of the bed for five minutes” routine, AND I can now scoochie around sufficiently to get the plastic bag under my legs for the lateral movement exercises. Since he got stuck doing the laundry today, being officially relieved of physio duties seemed like good news to give him. He has been making his fantastic celery soup recipe today, but is behind with preparing dinner and just got the wonderful news that friends are dropping off a meal for us tonight. I am delighted for him and we are both looking forward to having something unexpected for dinner tonight.  God bless these dear friends!

Here is my favourite joke for this week:

I’ve been on a no sugar diet for three months now. No candy, no cake, no pie, no cinnamon buns. It must be working. You can see it in my face: no joy….

Teehee……

Good To Hear From Our Kids!

 Yesterday was Father’s Day.  Our son phoned his dad, “even though I know you don’t pay attention to Hallmark Card holidays Dad.”  Our son knows his father is secretly pleased about receiving a call.  📞  It was fun to chatter with our son’s wife and by the time we were done we had half planned a trip to Montana together next year sometime, haha. She is always brimming with excellent ideas! Who knows if the trip will actually happen, but what fun we had discussing the possibilities.  

I cannot sleep these days it seems. At some point during the earliest hours of the morning my hip and back become too uncomfortable to deal with. Sitting up, lying down, flexing the muscles, taking a short walk around…none of it helps.  Meds at bedtime help me sleep soundly for about three to four hours, but thus endeth any sort of decent dozing.  I go through this after every surgery and thankfully had not remembered prior to this one.  Tonight I abandoned the living room recliner and returned to the bedroom, thinking being able to sprawl out flat would help me sleep. 💤   Nope.  I got extra pillows to help me roll over on my good side with my hip well supported. Tried it twice and lasted about ten minutes each time. Just as my back was letting me know it appreciated the change of position the hip muscles would start aching enough to require the removal of the extra pillow support and a return to lying flat on my back. Guess I returned to bed too soon and will go back to the recliner chair tonight.  I do know that one of these nights I will sleep.  The lack of sleep will catch up with me eventually. Thankfully it always does.

This afternoon a retired pastor friend of my husband’s is bringing his wife over for a visit.  She recently had major joint surgery and is hoping to swap recovery stories. They are a nice couple I met once about seven or eight years ago, so I am going to enjoy the visit. 

Out walking in front of our place yesterday I received my first mosquito bite of the season. Stupid bugs…..the bane of an otherwise beautiful summer season.  Forecast rain, if it actually arrives, will cause the mosquito population to rise. My husband rarely gets bitten. I am glad one of us is not a target for the little blighters. 

Well, time to turn out the light and try once more for an hour or two of precious sleep.

There Truly Are Appropriate Birthday Cards For Every Circumstance!

I had company this afternoon. They brought me a birthday card after discovering I was in hospital on that auspicious day of celebration. Apparently it was purchased some months ago for no other reason than they found it funny, but it was more appropriate for me this year than the card creator had likely originally planned the card to be. 

On the front cover: Happy Birthday! Hip hip…..

Inside: Replacement! 

Hahahaha….how much more perfect could a card be for my birthday this year, right?? Hahaha……

The Return Of My “Hippie Hair”

 I am very happy I decided not to get my hair cut before the surgery! It has not been cut for a couple of months and is hanging about two inches below my ear, heavy enough to contain the frizz and chaos that happens with a short haircut when I don’t put product in it and blow it dry.  Over the past week washing it has produced the same waves it had back in my 1970’s days, which my husband has found to be quite delightful, but today I awoke with the post operative return to energy I have been waiting for, so once washed my hair received a bit of product and a blowing out with the dryer. Oh gosh, oh gee, I look almost human again. Added to my long and luxurious sponge bath and the putting on of a full set of clothes for the first time in nine days, life is feeling quite a bit more manageable today. Usually the energy spike after surgery takes only a few days so I am most grateful for my surgeon’s warning that everything will take longer this time. The lateral movement physio exercises are finding a bit more success each day, and although I still cannot easily move my leg laterally on and off the bed without a lot of work, I no longer need either my strip of cheesecloth or to place the toes of my good foot under my bad leg’s ankle to lift it up on or over the edge of the mattress. Visitors are coming this afternoon. My husband is getting over his stress about my situation. It is a good day thus far. 

I am reading a very exciting testimony book titled “Hiding In The Light” by Rifqa Barry. Her story is inspiring me to continue looking expectantly for the leading of the Holy Spirit the way I always did before age, certain church and society expectations etc., began getting in the way twenty years ago. I am not expecting my life to suddenly flip upside down or anything hugely significant to descend from the heavens, but I do, do, do have to stop being so hesitant in my expectations of how God may choose to work in my life. A person does not outgrow the need for leading from the Holy Spirit that manifests itself in God’s way and time, even if His way occasionally embarrasses some of my spiritual community! Teehee 

Great Day In The Morning!

My father used to say that when some surprising news or turn of events would happen. I don’t know where the expression originated, but I certainly had that reaction yesterday when an older couple from church arrived unexpectedly for a visit just before dinner. 

My husband had just finished helping me with my physio when he happened to glance out the window and hollered, “The So’n’So’s are here!!!! My own reaction, as stated above, was due to the fact that for the last nearly seven years Mrs. So has been too immobilized to come to our suite! It was a hip replacement gone completely awry that stopped her very active life in its tracks.  She spent all of last winter in hospital and rehab for various issues and was finally issued a knee brace she should have had a few years ago. Yesterday I watched this amazing woman who, until a few weeks ago could barely hobble across her own kitchen while clinging to her walker, cross our bumpy back lawn with relative ease and more speed than I could ever have imagined. Her walker was really moving! She used the handrails on the back deck to hoist herself up the five steps with little help from Mr. So and got herself into our living fairly easily. It was nearly miraculous to me and gave me hope! 

My husband was SO excited to have friends to cook for so he hounded them to stay for dinner until they agreed, haha. He cooked peas and sausages and his wonderful potato salad, (he finely chops radishes, sweet and dill pickles into it as well as fresh dill, basal and cilantro, then adds a bit of sweet pickle juice to the mayo…yum), along with some locally produced lower sodium and fats Farmer Sausage, and we all enjoyed it enough to have seconds. We had some iced cream treats in the freezer so there was, unusually for us, an actual dessert to serve. 

We had a marvellous time, good sleeps last night and are both joyously exhausted today! hahaha 

So, my morning physio is done, bringing a bit more progress so next week I will start increasing the number of reps at each session.  Now, while my husband is out refilling our RO water jugs I will get started on last night’s dishes. We were too tired to do more than soak them overnight. How wonderful to have the luxury of retirement and recovery times these days. Wow! 

A Short But Welcome Respite From The Smoke

Today has been hot and muggy inside our suite, but until an hour ago there was too much low hanging smoke to even consider opening a window. Thankfully the smoke has lifted just enough to risk opening a couple of windows for an hour or so to cool us down a bit. Whew! Excess heat on top of immobility and pain was getting to me. 

Last night I gave up trying to sleep in bed. The sheets felt slippery, my nightwear was slidey, I couldn’t get comfortable, so I gave up at about 1am, packed a book and some essentials into a string bag, grabbed my crutches and slowly wended my way downstairs to the living room where I finally had a wonderful sleep in my recliner chair. My swollen ankle began to de-puff, my eyes finally closed as my muscles relaxed and I slept for five peaceful hours. After a brief wake up at 6am I slept again for 90 minutes when the alarm rang to remind me to take pain meds. I feel SO much better today. 

I am able to do a few small tasks around the house: dishes and wiping up the kitchen, making breakfast and sweeping the kitchen floor, although that is an interesting procedure involving sweeping crumbs into a pile, using my long handled claw grabber to lower the dust pan to the floor since I am not allowed to bend over, holding the dust pan down with my good foot while sweeping the pile of crumbs into it, dusting off my good foot toes with the clean edge of the broom and then calling my husband to come empty the pan. There, job done and it only took ten minutes! Hahahaha….

I had a visitor today which was fun, two long phone calls this afternoon from long time friends….yup, each day sees a tad of improvement in one area of this experience or another, plus more energy to socialize. Yay!

The Welcome Gift Of Encouragement!

 I have been remarkably blessed by having a husband who honestly encourages my every endeavour and after a weepy, painful night last night I especially appreciated him this morning during my physio.  It was terribly discouraging to hear from the surgeon on the weekend that it could be 2 to 3 months before I experience any real restoration of lateral movement in my hip.  One of my exercises is lying on my back with a plastic bag under my heels to facilitate getting my legs moving apart from each other as I pull each leg across the plastic.  Alternating legs, so of course my surgically untouched hip is sliding way over to the edge of the bed and back to centre with no problem, but the other leg has refused to budge at all.  I was crying with frustration at this morning's attempts, when suddenly my  husband began beaming at me and told me that my leg had moved nearly a half inch laterally.  I tried pulling it back to centre and it actually HAD moved....IT MOVED!!!!  Okay, I admit a half inch or less is not a great deal of movement, but it is SOME movement and the most I have experienced since the surgery.  So of course I started getting weepy again, this time with relief that there is hope for a faster restoration of lateral movement than I dared to hope.  Thank the Lord and praying friends and family.  

Yesterday was also a most encouraging day in other ways: emails and phone calls from friends and family, including a connection with my former and only roommate from back in the day.  She lives in another province, we were out of touch for some years, but now we contact each other at least once a year to celebrate our birthdays, which fall within 3 days of each other.  A local friend brought over the most delicious dinner last night, not because we needed the food but because that is just what she does anytime someone in the church, along with her many other friends, needs encouragement. That is one sweet ministry! Another set of friends brought a giant bouquet of flowers and special food treats for us to share.  My Thursday morning coffee buddy confirmed she is coming over here in the morning for our usual chit chat. Thankfully my husband will be here to make the steamed milk as it will be too awkward for me to carry cups of hot liquid  just yet.  ALTHOUGH, I DID MAKE MY OWN BREAKFAST THIS MORNING!  It took me twenty minutes to prepare a slice of bread, a cup of yogurt and a glass of milk and get everything transported to the table, BUT I DID IT MYSELF!  (There is nothing like surgical recovery to make any adult feel like a three year old in their determination to gain their independence!)  Friends from a spiritual encouragement group hope to come over later this week or on the weekend.

Today I feel well enough and just mobile enough to wash my hair and have a proper sponge bath scrub down once again.  I am a little bit obsessed with personal hygiene since my hospital experience. So, being able to do that with minimal assistance is encouraging. 

Yesterday I heard from the suture clinic. I will be having my staples removed in less than two weeks and this morning the surgeon's office called to let me know I will be seeing him right in the middle of the week my son and his wife will be here visiting.  That is the second appointment I will have to go to while they are here. Good grief!! Hopefully I can stack the other appointment so it doesn't ruin any of our family plans.  

So many encouragements in the past day and a half.  Thank you friends and family who have sent emails and made phone calls.  Those are the precious pieces of encouragement I can look at over and over again to encourage me on the rest of the trial producing days along the road to recovery. 

AND you all be encouraged too: it won't be too many more posts before I hopefully have something to talk about other than my own health!! 

 

 

….Then Came The Roommate!! And Then Some….

 ….late in the afternoon on the day following my surgery my roommate arrived;  a nice mid thirties aged fellow who was in excruciating pain from gall bladder inflammation and a blockage. He was suffering tremendously. He was unable to breathe due to the forest fire smoke outside and needed his CPAP machine to sleep. The poor guy was so alone in his distress as his family live in another province and his one brother who does live here was too drunk to be of any use. Finally he was able to locate a friend to bring the CPAP, but it was no help to him, resulting in two nights of no sleep for either of us due to his pain, and the extreme heat in our room until a nurse discovered the thermostat had been turned to the highest level earlier that day. His blood sugar dipped, his heart rate was tachy, his blood pressure shot up and down like a yo-yo, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t sit up, he couldn’t do anything so the staff was running in and out of our room constantly  all that night, the next day and the following night trying to keep him going while his doctor was AWOL. The poor guy didn’t get so much as a scope until Monday morning. With the whirring and beeping of the various machines he was hooked up to the entire time, his late night panic attacks and his constant bell ringing to ask the nurses on every shift if there was any word yet from his doctor, I soon gave up any notion of sleep. At least I was awake for his 3am panic attacks and was able to talk him down from the ceiling. As an experienced sufferer of panic attacks myself in younger days, I certainly did not mind being there for him. He was facing his first surgery, was all alone, deserted by every person he called because they “aren’t comfortable in hospitals”, that poor fellow was terrified. His pain was real, his other medical conditions confirmed, he was not overreacting to his body’s distress. I can only hope he has had his surgery and is now on the mend.

When the staff were not surrounding his bed, they were struggling to care for two dementia afflicted surgical patients who took turns screaming and crying. They had no idea what was happening to them. It was heartbreaking.

At long last Monday morning rolled around. I was nauseous from the lack of sleep and the pain induced rise in my blood sugar…happens every surgery…and after overhearing the shift change nursing consult outside my door early in the morning, hearing how slow I seemed to be with my movement, despite being left sitting by my bed on the commode the afternoon before when the nurse who guided me there left me, never to return and I had managed very successfully on my own to get back to bed, waking up Monday morning to discover the commode had been awarded to my roommate, thereby forcing me to shuffle with my walker to the room bathroom where the toilet seat was too low for me and I had one hell of a struggle to haul my numb butt off that thing without falling, no one on staff had been anywhere around when I accomplished what I considered to be great feats of mobility. Sigh…not one person noticed! Just after getting back into bed after my foray into the bathroom, someone stuck her head around the bed curtain and announced that I would be going to physio in twenty minutes before disappearing again. I bolted down half a piece of dry toast, shuffled back to the bathroom again to brush my teeth and wash my face, found my wadded up dressing gown stuffed between the end of my mattress and the footboard, and seated myself in the waiting wheelchair so my ride to physio could just come in and whisk me away. Brushing my teeth in the bathroom was marvellous! I had been using my hot water cup at each meal sans the teabag, for sterilizing my toothbrush, and as a spit cup before using clean water from the carafe and the breakfast napkin to rinse and dry the brush off. Yup, that toothbrush now resides in the garbage can! 

When my ride came to take me to physio I mentioned to the wheelchair pusher what I overheard that morning about my slowness to gain ground and so was assuming I would have to stay in another day. “ Oh no, you WILL pass your physio. Your bed is needed.” I didn’t ask him what had happened to the cheery, “You just stay as long as you need to!”, I had been placated with for the previous three days. Well, he was right of course, I did pass. Instead of having to do the prescribed exercises to prove I was capable, my test consisted of one attempt at using a cane and handrail to go up three steps, then turn around and come back down. Even that was barely successful because my hospital slippers stuck to the edging strips on each step and I could barely slide the toes of my bad foot past them to step down. That morning’s physiotherapist who I had not seen before, announced, “OK, you pass. Enjoy going home.” I was back in my room less than five minutes after I left it. Ten minutes later a nurse appeared to ask me if I had called my husband yet to come get me. I told her I had no phone so she raced off to get one, coming back in a very few minutes with my discharge papers and the list of what will happen next in terms of staple removal and my six week check up with the surgeon, when I see a physiotherapist at the hip and joint clinic to hopefully be able to do all my present exercises well enough to graduate to the next ones. My husband arrived, he popped me into the wheelchair he was told to use once he arrived, no one came to collect the phone, the nursing desk outside my room was deserted, so we put the phone there and left. In the HeyDay of our system every patient had to be escorted out of the hospital by a nurse who pushed the wheelchair, and secured the patient into the homebound vehicle. Once I “passed” physio I became a nonentity who was tying up space and time for cleaning that space for the next patient. I don’t blame the staff. Overcrowding of patients and big time staff shortages are a poor combination happening in every public hospital in the country. 

The situation on the day of my leaving made me even more grateful for the unexpected visit I had from my surgeon the day after my surgery. He explained to me the unimaginable amount of muscle damage and scar tissue he found around my hip and told me it will take 2-3 MONTHS to regain lateral movement. He enquired solicitously about my pain levels and how to properly use the drugs he prescribed for me. It was like a calm, gentle hug in the midst of the three ring circus my roommate introduced to our room. (The suffering man was so apologetic for it too…no need to be.)

So, this new health care debacle is new to me but something I will be prepared for when the next surgery rolls around. There, I hope these three rambling posts have answered all the questions you wonderful supporters had. Bless you!

The Hospital Visit….hahaha! Aiiiiyiiiiyiiii….HaHa!

Spending time in a hospital these days is certainly a different experience than it was during what I call The Golden Age of Canadian Healthcare, between somewhere in the 1960’s and the middle 1990’s. In those days most hospitals had sufficient staff that nurses actually were able to take time to care for the patients: fresh towels and facecloths along with a clean gown each morning, back rubs with lotion before bed, short wait times between ringing the call bell and the arrival of a helpful nurse or LPN. Then we got greedy as a population, running off to the ER unnecessarily, costs of supplies, services and wages etc., began to rise and the system began to fail. The arrival of COVID was the death knell for our faltering health care programs.

My most recent visit gave me even more sympathy for medical workers than I already had. They are run off their feet! Gone are the days of daily clean facecloths…I was issued two on the first day along with two towels, but being unable to walk to the bathroom I eventually shared with a roommate, I was stuck with a bedside commode and zero access to any water for washing my hands after use. Fortunately I took a small bottle of hand sanitizer with me so that I was able to wait for my husband’s arrival at noon hours, when he would take the facecloth and soak it in hot water so I could get cleaned up. A fresh gown was brought in on day three by a care aid, who dropped it onto a side table completely inaccessible to me as she was called to help with an emergency just seconds after entering my room. I never saw her again. The cleanest I got to be was the morning of my discharge when I was able to grab my walker, get out of bed unassisted and hobble to the bathroom to soak my facecloth in hot water and the previously elusive soap all by myself. Once word got out from physio on Sunday afternoon that they hoped I could pass their exercises Monday morning and go home, I was visited exactly three times over that last twenty hours by any medical staff, aids, cleaning staff until it was time to sign discharge papers and receive final instructions. It was like an apocalypse had occurred and I had been left behind. So many really needy patients and far too few staff to help even them. 

I learned after deciding to try my first spinal anaesthetic that I will NEVER do that again! At the time it was marvellous! The sleeping meds wore off a good half hour prior to the end of the surgery so I got to experience what it is like in an OR first hand for the first time. There were at least six people in there under the bright lights, along with boxes of hip and other hardware pieces and sterilized installation tools were wrapped up on a side table for the surgeon. I was able to experience the full body jolts of the final hardware installation…now I know how the nails we used in our construction business “felt” when we pounded them into place! It was an amazing experience! After a limited time in recovery I was transferred to my room at the end of a long hallway, right beside a nursing station and, miracle of miracles I had no roommate! The other bed was empty and remained so until the following afternoon. I was fully conscious and feeling better than I had after all previous surgeries. What a blessing…especially for the absent roommate because a couple of hours later I began the type of vomiting that only about 2% of spinal anaesthetic patients experience. (Insert my husband sighing and saying “Of course you did.”, here.) Oh dear Lord, it was wicked and continued for over 12 hours. I don’t remember the last time I was so ill. Someone must have come in to clean me up between times, but I have no consciousness of anyone being there. I woke up only to my tummy roiling about with the inevitable results. 

Be that as it may, there was no time for wallowing in the night’s misery and I was whisked off to physio immediately after breakfast in the morning! (No, to answer, I was not able to eat anything beyond a quarter slice of dry whole wheat toast that had a taste like what I would suspect to be similar to rotting seaweed. Yukko! 

At physio the three therapists took one look at me and asked what had happened to me, so I told them. The response was, “ Yeah, that happens sometimes. Hop up on this bed and we’ll get started. Crap birthday eh?” (Yes, it was my 71st birthday….as if I cared….or even had the mental wherewithal to remember!) Sonehow I sort of slogged my way through some semblance of the physio exercises then retreated thankfully back to my room where a nurse appeared just as I managed to haul my painful leg back onto the bed using some kind of modern torture device that is only a long piece of cheeseclothy stuff to be slung under the foot and then that leg is to be guided by one hand holding the cloth and pulling the leg over in tandem with the good leg, all the while grasping frantically at the bed clothes while trying to keep butt and back and head from falling off the other side of the bed. It proved impossible for me for the first two days so one of the night nurses showed me how to also hook the toes on my good foot under the ankle of the disobedient foot without ruining body alignment so I wouldn’t have to ring for help all the time. She was a wonderful Trinidadian nurse who also showed me how to utilize the bed rails to haul my sprawled out self back up and over the pad under my butt and lower back that the staff use to pull patients up to where their heads connect with the pillows. That blasted pad clung to me like glue and manoeuvring myself up and over the blessed thing was the bane of my stay. However, thanks to that one night nurse I finally began progressing with my teensy bit of mobility. Without her assistance I would still be stuck “inside”. God bless her. The physio instructors instructions were clear as mud to me for all three weekend sessions, between their thick foreign accents and my light headedness brought on by the first night’s disaster, followed by two nights with less than seven hours of shuteye between them.

Sleep was impossible because…..

Exhausted, In Pain Of Course, But HOME!!!!! Yay!!!!

It is a marvellous blessing to be back at home! My faithful, caring husband rearranged the bedroom to accommodate all my mobility equipment, the canes, crutches, walker etc. etc.  God bless him for the food he had prepared so I could have healthy meals immediately upon arrival. Since my surgery was not an original hip replacement surgery but a revision surgery where former, different types of hardware had to be removed first, my recovery will take about twice as long as the next replacement surgery on the other hip will take once I am sufficiently healed to have it….there will be a delay on surgery two now due to this extra healing time on surgery one. On the grander scale of things it means we will still not be able to look for a new place to live for quite some time. The whole, “gotta move” scenario has become so ludicrous, so ridiculous, that I know God has something up his always generous sleeve eventually. hahaha! Hurry up and wait….how very like him when he knows we are willing to wait for his best answer and not settle for the merely adequate one.

In the meantime I will have virtually no lateral movement in this new hip for two to three months, making physio somewhat torturous, but I will continue plugging along for two sessions each day regardless. I have dealt with such discouragements before and overcome them. 

Just being home with my dear husband, who is slowly unfrazzling since my arrival, makes all that is to come worth the effort. It is all good. Oh how grateful I am that my son and his wife had to cancel their original plans to travel here next week! When they come to visit a month from now, I will be at least somewhat more mobile. Yay! Thanks everyone who has expressed such interest and concern! As you will read on the next post, I do think the very worst of this experience has passed.

Taking An Electronic Break

I was planning to use my iPad while recovering in hospital, but I am rethinking that. I think instead I will just take a break and spend time resting and reading a book. 📕 I am remembering how wiped out I always am after any surgery and don’t want to stress myself out thinking I have to keep up my usual pattern of communication. I will compile a list of the friends and family who requested an email right after the surgery to see if it was successful so that my husband can sent out a brief group notice. 

Thanks for understanding. I will post and send out personal emails again next week after I get home.

Again, many many many thanks for all of you for caring, praying, hoping for the best for me. The Lord be with you and grant you good health, joy and peace.

LOOKS Like All Systems Are Firing!

It has been a wonderfully busy day!  This morning my husband and I had a virtual pre-op final appointment and that went very well.  The nurse looking at my test results thought about a certain anomaly that cropped up and decided it isn't significant enough to delay the surgery, although she told me if anything changed in terms of developing certain symptoms between now and then to cancel it and re-book. So, I am holding my breath still, just a little.  For now I am assuming I will be able to go to the hospital as planned.  

There wasn't much time between the end of that appointment and heading out to the hospital for my final ECG.  I forget how quickly those procedures can go if the tech is not trying to trace a specifically new issue.  I think I waited longer in admitting than I did to complete the test and I didn't wait more than 5 or 10 minutes in admitting.  

The last thing to wait for now is a confirmation call on Thursday from the hospital confirming that an OR and a recovery room are going to be ready for me on Friday. Lord willing there will be no huge emergencies coming into the hospitals that require all the OR's.  As I mentioned previously, nothing is ever completely guaranteed to move forward as planned until I am actually in the OR area meeting with the surgeon and anaesthetist about the anaesthesia possibilities.  My dear husband will be staying with me until I am taken for the surgery procedure and oh how grateful I am for his calming presence.  

In the meantime I had a WONDERFUL afternoon shopping!!!!  I have an event coming up soon and decided that as wonderful as a new hip will be to have as a gift to celebrate it, I wanted something a little more "girly" than that. After all, once I start recovering at home I am going to need some cool summer dresses, right?  There are two here at home that have, shall we say, passed their prime, so I was able to replace them and I am SO HAPPY. My husband had to go to Dutch Growers to get the final two herb plants he needs for his herb pots and also purchased a small tray of blue and white lobelias to keep the pansies from getting lonely as the only other flowers out there on the deck.  It was fun for me to spend my time trying on and purchasing clothes from the lines of clothing they keep there....why they also sell women's wear at a massive greenhouse I have no idea, but FINALLY, something different around here that is still relatively affordable!  I had a great time!   

Since we both had to cram down a minimal amount of snacky lunch between appointments today my husband decided we should go out for a light early dinner later on.  I am delighted by that.  We have hardly been out anywhere in the past 3 weeks, so I am going to mask up and go today. 

The forest fire smoke has stuck pretty much to the higher altitudes since early yesterday evening so we were able to open some windows at bedtime last night and leave them open until we went out this afternoon.  Now the sky is clouding up for.....maybe some rain?  It hasn't been forecast, but I am ever hopeful as we are in such need of it.....not as badly as the areas where the fires are burning of course, but still we do need it as the ground is SO dry! It was nice to go out today and not come home with smoke induced  tearing eyes and burning lungs.   

Well, time to think of where we would like to go for our light dinner! Thank you God for such an excellent day. 

Quick, Shut The Windows...Quick, Open The Windows....Quick Shut The Windows....Quick, Open The Windows........

Last night we had to go to sleep with all the windows closed due to the thick forest fire smoke outside. It was ghastly!   At about 4am I woke up and it was desperately hot in our suite, so I peeled open a window on each side of the place and checked the smoke.  It wasn't completely clear outside, but the odour wasn't too noticeable.  I am grateful I was able to leave them open for a full 20 minutes before the strengthening winds brought more smoke and smell back into the suite.  I did sleep much more soundly after that.  By 9am the place was heating up again despite closed blinds and curtains and the billowing smoke keeping the worst of the radiant heat at bay.  So, we kept the windows closed while we Zoom'd our way into the adult class at church.  In the half hour between class and the church service proper, my husband told me if I was going to pick up a few badly  needed grocery items for the coming week, best to do it before the smoke had a chance to worsen this afternoon as even stronger winds are forecast....right now, at about 12:30pm there is quite a gale blowing out there, BUT it is dissipating some of the smoke, so the windows are open again....guess I am going to have to do an excellent dusting job once again before I head for the hospital in a few days' time....LORD WILLING, as I continue to remind myself.

The grocery store was pretty calm for a later Sunday morning time.  While there were quite a few customers, they seemed to be bunched up in the produce and bread sections, leaving me free to browse throughout the rest of the store. Checkout went very quickly and I was home before too long.  It was good to get out on my own and drive myself for a change.  I will have up to 6 weeks of having to be driven post surgery and that has been one of the biggest annoyances for me after every lower limb and wrist surgery I have ever had.  I would gladly trade doing an extra round of physio each day for the ability to get behind the wheel of our car myself.  hahaha

My husband purchased some shirts when we were "oot and aboot" yesterday, so I washed them when we got home and now they are waiting to be ironed.  After lunch I will do that and then watch the church service I missed on the church's website.  I am so grateful for online recording options available nowadays.  It is rare that we have to totally miss any of the meetings happening at the church. YAY!