Knee update

Today marks 6 weeks out from my surgery. I wish I could say I am good as new. Sadly I am far from it. I am still feeling a lot of pain, I have minimal movement and the worst part is the almost protruding pins. As you can see in the pictures. I still have severe swelling, especially once I start walking on it, so basically as soon as I get out of bed. This definitely inhibits motion and we are thinking it is a result of the irritation from the wire and pins. So bummed!




Good news is that I am brace free. I am slowly rebuilding my strength in my quad and...drum roll please, I went back to the gym on Monday and swam almost 3/4 of a mile and didn't drown. Thank heavens for lap swimming. That time in the pool may help me keep my sanity as I wait this out. Last I heard the Dr. didn't want to take the hardware out until 6 months out, but I am going to really push for sooner. The other crazy thing which I think belongs in bad news is this sedentary lifestyle for me has ended up in a 10 pound loss. I don't really have 10 pounds to lose and I can only deduct that all my hard work for triathlon training has melted away in 10 pounds of lost muscle. Grrr.. just typing this depresses me. I will be back I promise!

Other happenings

Conor loves to help his Dad mow the lawn

Not a day goes by that there isn't some incident with a balloon at our house, water or not. I have found balloons to be a great and cheap toy.

Conor the zoo keeper-I love this picture of Conor

Josie was a good frog spotter, but preferred not to hold them. For a few weeks we had habitats on the deck for salamanders, frogs, snakes and for "Skippy's" (fuzzy caterpillars.) We had a few deaths, but no worries, easily replaced. It cracks me up to hear Josie say habitat.

Josie ended up in a little predicament in the toy room. I had to drag her out by her feet, but not until I snapped a picture.

Josie is still saying cute things as she expands her vocabulary. She brought a fossil home from preschool the other day and she told me numerous times that it was her waffle. She sometimes calls pumpkins, comptons, and one of my favorites is her word for commercial; mercialo.

Spokane got a Costa Vida!

Lincoln has mastered the stairs. He got tired of waiting for gimp Mom to hobble him up and down the stairs. He beats me up and down numerous times a day. Pretty sad when your crawling 1 year old out moves you.

Spokane Shadow

This is what Conor has been spending a lot of time doing this year. He has practice 2 times a week and games on Saturday. We decided to put him into a developmental U10 soccer program. This team will funnel into the club team. We weren't sure that we were ready to take this route, but now that the decision has been made we feel like he has really improved. He learned more on his 1st day of practice then he learned in a whole year of regular Rec soccer. I have missed a lot of the games and practices, so not a lot of great pictures.

Can you believe my baby is 1?

September 27th was a big day for Lincoln. Did he know or care? NO!! Happy 1st birthday Lincoln. He was really funny about the cupcake and the candle. He actually cried and cried and didn't want anything to do with it. Now ice cream was another story, he would eat any spoon full of ice cream given to him. He was fine with the kids opening his presents and like any normal one year old he was more interested in the box and wrappings. He got some boring clothes and a toy drum. Josie liked it more then him. This year has gone by so fast and I can't believe how blessed I am to have been given such a sweet little guy.

Before the cupcake came out! After the cupcake...who knew cupcakes were so upsetting? We even tried it the next day to see if it was just a tired thing, but nope. Lincoln does not like candles on cupcakes.

Pancakes-now that's another story all together. This little guy can put down a few pancakes. On his birthday he ate something like 8 pancakes, it was crazy.

The Ooohhh before the AhhhhHappy to eat Grandpa's ice cream. He is all dirty because Kevin was trying to force feed him some of the cupcake and Lincoln was putting up a good fight.

Presents

G&G Visit

Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen were taking a trip up the Oregon coast and ended up at our house! We were so happy to see them. They came just in time because I still wasn't driving, the house was a mess and everyone was a little stir crazy. They drove me to the Dr. and did some grocery shopping and cleaned my house and played with the kids and really helped out. We even had an early birthday celebration for Lincoln and Grandma. Grandpa decided Conor needed a new remote control airplane because we kept repairing the one he had. Hours of fun were had with the new one. More Lincoln birthday pictures to come.

Shucking corn with Grandpa

Chill time with Grandma-a rare moment that Grandma wasn't working hard for us

The new and improved remote control airplane

Grandma, me and the dreaded knee brace

Grandparents and the kids before church

The Birthday celebration for all! Everyone wanted a chance to blow out the candle on the cupcake except for Lincoln! The only legitimate blower.

Josie starts Preschool

Josie in front of preschool on the 1st day! So excited.

Josie and Taj

Josie with her favorite cupcake toy

Josie, Taj and Bree

Josie started Preschool at Wandermere Christian preschool on September 12th. She was lucky enough to be able to go with her best buddy Taj and cute friend Bree. Thanks to Amina for taking such awesome pictures for me and for getting Josie there. I was not able to take Josie on her 1st day and believe me I was a lot more disappointed then she was. Thankfully Amina has been able to take her. Thank you! Josie thinks preschool is fabulous and wishes she could go every day instead of just MWF.

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.