Last week we sent out an announcement that Holly was pregnant. But some - in fact most - didn't quite get it. So for those of you who missed it this is the remedial version of the announcement. We will say if very slowly - Holly - is - preg -nant. We found out 2 days before I went in for surgery. We just had to laugh since the whole time we were planning for this surgery we kept saying, "Well at least Holly isn't pregnant this time" (last time I had ACL surgery Holly was pregnant with Brigham and on bed rest).
Holly had her first real ultrasound yesterday. The baby looks good and she is about 8.5 weeks along. It looks like the due date is around the end of September. Because we have busy schedules we have already set a tentative date for the C-section of Sept 18th.
Holly will have her cerclage probably near the end of March.
I am doing better. I can now be upright for longer stretches of time. Brigham has come back to live with us. He had been so good. He is very concerned with Daddy's owie and keeps telling me "Daddy get better." He has only had one slip. Last night he got overly excited and attacked my leg. I obviously let out a yell and he felt very bad. He likes to kiss things better so I told him he could kiss my knee better since he had jumped on it. He went up to kiss it and started crying "I don't want to kiss it. That's gross. That's gross." Apparently he doesn't like the look of my knee.
I will finally get to start walking next Thursday. I can't wait.
It hasn't all been bad. I have lost about 10 lbs. on the "I can only get food if my wife brings it to me and she is tired and pregnant so she gets grumpy every time that I ask her for food so I only ask for food if I am REALLY hungry" diet. It is quite effective.
Yesterday I got dressed and forgot to put a belt on. I had to go to he bathroom and got up off the couch only to have my pants fall down. Jacob was in the next room with two of this therapists and somehow I had to make it past them to the bathroom without losing my pants. Let me tell you, walking with crutches while trying to hold your pants on is not an easy thing to do. I remembered the belt today.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Sunday, February 12, 2006
ACL 2.2
So Friday I went back in for part 2 of my ACL surgery. By Friday morning I was feeling pretty good and was off of the pain meds from Wednesday's experience.
I discussed things with the anesthesiologist and he said that doing an epidural instead of general anesthesia. This would hopefully result in less nausea. So I went in, got my epidural, got a little "thwighlight" (this basically made it so I didn't remember the operation) and they finished the surgery.
Coming back into the recovery room I had the shakes pretty bad. I guess that is normal with epidurals. It tool awhile for my legs to get feeling back. It was kind of freeky because they felt like they where bent but I could see that they were lying flat.
The big challenge then became to pee. I couldn't go home until I emptied my bladder. I had had problems with that on Wednesday. Well, I found out that epidurals are worse in this sense. Finally at around 5 or 6 the doctor said they needed to give me catheter and admit me to the hospital overnight.
The pain really hadn't been too bad up to this point. They had given me some pain meds that had helped. One of the meds made me feel just a little bit queasy. The nurse asked if I wanted some anit-nausea medicine. I said that I as probably fine but she insisted that it would only get worse if I didn't take the medicine. It completely knocked me out. I couldn't really sleep but I could not keep my eyes open. So I was a bit incoherent for the next couple of hours.
While they were figuring out where they were going to admit me and how they were going to get me there I was detached from my ice machine almost the entire time. A couple of hours had passed by the time I was settled in the hospital room and hooked up again. During that time my leg had really swelled up and that caused a lot of pain.
Nathan and Kiersten came by as did Brad Smith. Nathan and Brad gave me a blessing and then let me rest. I still couldn't keep my eyes open for more than 30 seconds at a time.
I tried to just stick with my Tylenol medicine but by around 2am the pain was just too intense. The nurse gave me some morphine and that helped a little bit. I was able to sleep for an hour at a time and then would just be counting the minutes until my next dose of morphine.
By the morning the swelling had gone down and the pain was much better. They tool the catheter out and gave me another chance on the potty. No luck. At around 12:30 I was about to explode and the catheter had to go back in.
After that I was able to get my best sleep yet. I then spoke to the doctor and he said that they would take the catheter out again at 4pm and if I could empty my bladder before 10pm I could go home.
So after 4pm I tried for the next 6 hours. Finally at 9:30 I was able to. There had been a shift change though and the new nurses didn't seem to understand the instructions. They were going to make us stay until the next morning. We told them they needed to call the doctor. Finally at 11pm they told us we could leave.
By 11:30 we were finally home. Last night wasn't too bad. I started using my perpetual motion machine and that felt good. My pain is really gone as long as I stay horizontal.
I discussed things with the anesthesiologist and he said that doing an epidural instead of general anesthesia. This would hopefully result in less nausea. So I went in, got my epidural, got a little "thwighlight" (this basically made it so I didn't remember the operation) and they finished the surgery.
Coming back into the recovery room I had the shakes pretty bad. I guess that is normal with epidurals. It tool awhile for my legs to get feeling back. It was kind of freeky because they felt like they where bent but I could see that they were lying flat.
The big challenge then became to pee. I couldn't go home until I emptied my bladder. I had had problems with that on Wednesday. Well, I found out that epidurals are worse in this sense. Finally at around 5 or 6 the doctor said they needed to give me catheter and admit me to the hospital overnight.
The pain really hadn't been too bad up to this point. They had given me some pain meds that had helped. One of the meds made me feel just a little bit queasy. The nurse asked if I wanted some anit-nausea medicine. I said that I as probably fine but she insisted that it would only get worse if I didn't take the medicine. It completely knocked me out. I couldn't really sleep but I could not keep my eyes open. So I was a bit incoherent for the next couple of hours.
While they were figuring out where they were going to admit me and how they were going to get me there I was detached from my ice machine almost the entire time. A couple of hours had passed by the time I was settled in the hospital room and hooked up again. During that time my leg had really swelled up and that caused a lot of pain.
Nathan and Kiersten came by as did Brad Smith. Nathan and Brad gave me a blessing and then let me rest. I still couldn't keep my eyes open for more than 30 seconds at a time.
I tried to just stick with my Tylenol medicine but by around 2am the pain was just too intense. The nurse gave me some morphine and that helped a little bit. I was able to sleep for an hour at a time and then would just be counting the minutes until my next dose of morphine.
By the morning the swelling had gone down and the pain was much better. They tool the catheter out and gave me another chance on the potty. No luck. At around 12:30 I was about to explode and the catheter had to go back in.
After that I was able to get my best sleep yet. I then spoke to the doctor and he said that they would take the catheter out again at 4pm and if I could empty my bladder before 10pm I could go home.
So after 4pm I tried for the next 6 hours. Finally at 9:30 I was able to. There had been a shift change though and the new nurses didn't seem to understand the instructions. They were going to make us stay until the next morning. We told them they needed to call the doctor. Finally at 11pm they told us we could leave.
By 11:30 we were finally home. Last night wasn't too bad. I started using my perpetual motion machine and that felt good. My pain is really gone as long as I stay horizontal.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
ACL
As most of you know I had ACL replacement surgery yesterday. The only problem was that the ACL didn't get replaced. I am having a cadaver ACL placed in my right knee. The doctor got all the holes drilled in my knee ready to apply the graft. The cadaver ACL comes frozen so he had gotten it out earlier to thaw it out. The way they "install" it is by attaching it to a cord that goes into the bottom left of the knee, goes through the joint and then comes out the top right of the knee. They then pull the ACL through and insert the cadaver bone into my bone.
Everything was going fine until this last part. The cadaver bone crumbled. This presented a problem as there was not another ACL immediately available. I woke up and Holly came in. She said, "I have some bad news. We have to come back on Friday." The doctor was very apologetic. He said in all of the grafts he has done this has never happened. It was just a bad bone. The hospital is supposed to have a freezer where they can store backup ACLs in case something like this happens. They have the funds approved but haven't installed it yet.
So tomorrow I get to go back again. When Holly told me I just had to laugh.
This whole process has been full of bad luck. When I went for my pre-op they had to do some blood tests. I don't know if the lady was new or not but she stuck my 4 times. I have these huge bruises on my arms that make it look like Holly abuses me.
The one thing that has been great is this new ice machine called the Ice Man. They wrap some sort of pad in the bandaging that has two tubes sticking out of it. You connect the tubes to an ice machine, plug it in and instant cold on your knee. It is fantastic. The only problem was that mine didn't work. I told the nurse that it didn't feel cold at all. She said that it was just because of the wrapping. Later that night it still feel cold. We checked it out and it definitely wasn't working. Luckily Nathan had just had knee surgery so he brought his over. What a difference when it was actually cooling.
Coming out of the anesthesia was awful as usual. The surgery "finished" at 12:30 but we didn't leave the hospital until 5:30. Every time I tried to get up I vomited. That continued most of last night. I have to say that the anesthesia has been the worst part. My knee really hasn't been that bad.
That is all so far. We will keep you posted on what happens tomorrow.
Everything was going fine until this last part. The cadaver bone crumbled. This presented a problem as there was not another ACL immediately available. I woke up and Holly came in. She said, "I have some bad news. We have to come back on Friday." The doctor was very apologetic. He said in all of the grafts he has done this has never happened. It was just a bad bone. The hospital is supposed to have a freezer where they can store backup ACLs in case something like this happens. They have the funds approved but haven't installed it yet.
So tomorrow I get to go back again. When Holly told me I just had to laugh.
This whole process has been full of bad luck. When I went for my pre-op they had to do some blood tests. I don't know if the lady was new or not but she stuck my 4 times. I have these huge bruises on my arms that make it look like Holly abuses me.
The one thing that has been great is this new ice machine called the Ice Man. They wrap some sort of pad in the bandaging that has two tubes sticking out of it. You connect the tubes to an ice machine, plug it in and instant cold on your knee. It is fantastic. The only problem was that mine didn't work. I told the nurse that it didn't feel cold at all. She said that it was just because of the wrapping. Later that night it still feel cold. We checked it out and it definitely wasn't working. Luckily Nathan had just had knee surgery so he brought his over. What a difference when it was actually cooling.
Coming out of the anesthesia was awful as usual. The surgery "finished" at 12:30 but we didn't leave the hospital until 5:30. Every time I tried to get up I vomited. That continued most of last night. I have to say that the anesthesia has been the worst part. My knee really hasn't been that bad.
That is all so far. We will keep you posted on what happens tomorrow.
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