Braces and surgery...

Brooke got braces! actually, to be specific she got a palette expander and braces on just her top teeth. Apparently, her top teeth sit inside her bottom teeth - but not for much longer..

Ashley is right behind her - she was supposed to get hers on the next day, but then I decided to have surgery on my knee so we had to reschedule and the soonest appointment they had was 3 weeks later (which both she and I thought was really annoying). After the first couple of days when Brooke's mouth was pretty sore, Ashley wasn't as excited but now that she isn't hurting much anymore Ashley is continuously asking me how much longer it is until she is getting hers on. She actually said to me, "So I guess your knee is more important than my braces, right?" (insert annoyed tone) Kids sure do know how to push their parents' buttons.

I did have the surgery on my knee a week ago Thursday. It definitely feels different than I thought it would. I guess I was expecting more knee pain, but instead it is a lot of tightness and muscle pain. My quads were actually the most sore. Now that they are loosening up, my knee is starting to hurt more - which I'm figuring means that it is healing, right? By the end of the day it definitely aches quite a bit, and I am still limited in my movement, but I was only using one crutch until Tuesday and off the crutches completely by Thursday. I still limp quite heavily and I am starting to get some serious cabin fever. It is still quite swollen just on the outside (that's from the separating of the muscle on the outside, i guess?), but at least it isn't elephantitis anymore like it was most of last week.

The surgery is called a chondroplasty and a lateral release. My favorite part of the surgery was when it was over and I didn't have to do anything at for 3 days (robie took a few days off work). I just yelled out and one of the kids would bring me a drink or whatever I needed - so nice! Alas, those days couldn't last forever. I was put to sleep with very light anesthesia, but I thought she would take a little longer to make me comfortable or something, but as soon as my back was on the table she was like, "ok, this will take about 10 seconds, just take a deep breath here (puts oxygen mask on)." I really wanted to say, "Ok, thanks," but next thing I knew I was awake again and very curious about my surgery. It was obvious that I was curious because I guess I kept asking the same things over and over again, like, "how did it go", "did they find anything?" All I really remember is asking the nurse and she said, "I guess you don't remember the dr talking to you - he just barely left." I still have no recollectin of that. Then I hear her say to Robie, "she's going to be doing this for a while, just asking the same things over and over again". I thought my questions were quite original - whatever~!

In a couple of weeks I'll let you know if it was a success or not - success would be defined as pain free bending of my leg, running, lunging and kneeling - that's not asking for too much, right? In the meanwhile I can not believe how nice people have been bringing dinners, calling to check up on me, making fun of the way I walk at church (you know who you are, ha ha) - now I'm just ready to get back to real life - yard work here I come..