My summer fun is officially over

This is an x-ray of my right knee cap as you can see in the upper left corner a chunk is completely broken off and displaced.

This is how my knee looked a few hours before surgery

This is how my knee looked after surgery (the weird lines around my knee are from the wrap)

My carefree, easy, walking, running, biking and generally moving at anything more then a snail pace life ended on Sept. 5th around 10:30 am. Kevin and I decided to get in a fun labor day mountain bike ride, so we got a babysitter and went down to riverside to take in a quick trail. We had only gone about 3 miles when I started down this trail that I panicked for some stupid reason and hit my brakes just hard enough that my back wheel bumped up and threw me off balance and I came crashing down on my right knee. We are assuming I hit a rock just right and I had a good gash/puncture wound that made me queesy and was sending me into shock. I was yelling down the trail to Kevin that I thought I was hurt pretty bad, but I honestly thought I could maybe shake it off. I laid in the dirt for a few minutes hoping I could regain composure, but I just wasn't feeling it so Kevin rode a ways out and found a place that he could bring the car fairly close (we were fortunate in that regard.) I barely drug myself out to the car and we headed to Kevin's clinic where Dr. Barrow was so kind to meet us to clean out the wound and stitch it up. I was not feeling good at all at this point. They numbed it up and cleaned it out for a good 1/2 hour then stitched up the inside then the outside and decided I was going to survive. So home I went with a healthy dose of antibiotics to take and orders to get better.

Well...Tuesday morning I was still hurting but determined to get better, I also had 2 boxes of peaches to can. I loaded up and went and stood on my leg the majority of the day. Got my canning done and came home wanting to die. Kevin took one look at it and said we needed to go get x-rays. We waited for Conor to get home from his first day of school then we all went down to his office for x-rays. Joy of joys. Kevin just glanced at the x-rays and said: It is broken. I was sure he was lying, but then he held it up for me and the whole office to see. This was about the time that I started to cry. I was mourning my knee I guess, and I just never really thought it was really going to be broken. Everyone walked in to look at the x-rays and they all gave me this oh sorry Julie look as they left. Grrr...Surgery was scheduled for early the next morning. Kevin called his Mom and said...you know how you were going to babysit for us next week for our mountain biking trip? Well we don't need you next week, but we need you now." She was so awesome and was here within a few hours.

Surgery went fine, They put in a pin and some kwire which will need to be removed in a few months. See the picture below. I am now in a full straight leg brace for 6 weeks. I have been on pain pills for the last week, but I am finally starting to wean off today. Still hurts something awful and I can't drive, but hopefully that will come. Dr. Barrow told me I should be able to drive, but I should practice in a parking lot first. (super comforting.) Not that I even want to go anywhere because my movement is so slow. Josie says I walk like a pirate and everything I undertake is at a snails pace. Thanks to some awesome friends who have totally stepped up and taken the kids where they need to be and brought in meals. I couldn't survive with out them.

This is 4 different views. The wire looks pretty crazy.

Here is my newest accessory-for 6 forever weeks. So monster big.

This is what my life looked like for a week. Where ever
I went this stash came with me.