You'd think that while spending so much time resting and recovering from my arthroscopic knee surgery, I could have found time to update my Blog. Shame on you, Sherry. The surgery went well, according to the doctor. And the amazing thing was that I felt absolutely no pain for 24 hours. (My surgeon had given me a hefty shot of morphine in my knee - Wow!) However, it wore off and I spent a sleepless night wishing it would stop aching, but afraid to take too much Darvocet. (I was scared of the throwing up I'd done on pain meds before.) I finally took enough the next night and slept. My knee is stable now and I can walk pretty well after I get moving if I don't walk too far. However, shopping is no longer any fun. (Now don't all you guys make your wives have knee surgery.) (grin)
The doctor showed me pictures they took of the large pieces of cartilage they removed that had been floating around and causing trouble. He cut out my torn piece of meniscus, smoothed off a lot of rough arthritic edges, and spent awhile on the back of my knee. He said there isn't much cartilage left there, and I'll probably want a knee replacement in a year or two or three. I sure hope the end comes before I have to do that, because I haven't heard very good reports on it. I did lose a little weight because the kitchen is downstairs and I was in bed upstairs, and didn't want to constantly bother Will when he wasn't gone hunting.
Before the surgery were too other events, one very sad and the other very special.
My sister Susan's daughter Beth died of a heart attack at the age of 32, leaving behind her son Carter and husband, Bob. My mother, brother Adrian and sister Melissa flew out from Georgia to be here for Susan. Adrian and Melissa stayed with us while Mother stayed at a motel in town. I'm so glad that they could make the trip. It meant a lot that we could all be together. And Mother was such a trooper about not getting much sleep and terribly long problems with connecting flights.
The day after my family left for Georgia, I left for Utah to be with Carolyn when her baby was born. They were going to induce her Friday, but she was already in labor that evening when they had told her to come in. Everyone at the hospital was excited to see Brandon, who used to work there as an OB surgical tech and promised to take good care of Carolyn. Unfortunately, she started throwing up at 7 cm. and nothing they put in her IV helped. Finally, she said, "I think I feel like pushing," and as she threw up again, out popped the baby's head. I ran into the hall to get the nurse. She reassured us that everything was fine (Abigail had already started to cry) and delivered the rest of the baby. Meantime, lots of people were rushing into the room. (hospital people, that is) The doctor arrived in time to stitch up Carolyn. And the funny thing is, we aren't sure about the exact time the baby was born. We were all so busy and focused on the baby and Carolyn we didn't look at the clock until 12:30 am. So it was sometimes between 12:20 and 12:30. And Abigail weighed 7'3". Brandon took me home at 4:00 that morning. I was not much use that day, I was so tired and my knee hurt so badly. But later I did better, playing a lot with Xander and doing some sweet bonding. I took the kids to church Sunday and Brandon brought Carolyn home that afternoon. It was a very precious experience.
