11:25 a.m. - Happy Easter - glad to be home.
This is my morning briefing for Tuesday.
Good Morning Illinois City Elementary Staff,
The box of goodies and cards that Wendy dropped off were awesome...thank you. The surgery and initial recovery have all been tougher than what I envisioned. I had surgery at 7 a.m. last Wednesday, and the procedure lasted about 30 minutes longer than expected because of how bad the knee was. After the initial anesthesia from surgery (including a spinal tap) the pain in my leg in the afternoon was pretty much unbearable. I'd like to consider myself a person with pretty high pain tolerance, but my entire right leg was throbbing and aching and felt like it was on fire. I'm pretty sure the nursing and nursing tech crew thought I was just a big baby, but it was awful. They thankfully decided to give me some pretty good "stuff" and morphine, and I could at least stop crying and moaning for a few hours. The wall hit again in the middle of the night (when I wasn't getting any sleep anyway. Plus, I was retaining fluid and couldn't urinate - if you have ever considered catheters fun, they aren't. So then it was another round of the good stuff, morphine, and what appeared to be an IV-sized bag of urine removed from my bladder.
So after that night I figured there was no way I was going to get to go home on Thursday, but I was cleared after I could demonstrate that I could pee again, use the walker well enough, get up and down a couple of stairs, and complete initial in-patient physical therapy. Amber and I picked up the meds at Walgreens, grabbed lunch at McDonalds and were home around 1 p.m. Unfortunately, we don't have handrails for the steps into our house, so I basically went backwards and slid my butt to a couple of chairs just to get into the house.
Since getting home Thursday afternoon, I've figured out I have to take the pain meds about every five hours. And I slept that night in the power recliner that Amber had gotten for me. The only time I've been out of the house was Friday morning when I went to the first scheduled physical therapy appointment. My friend picked me up and helped me get in and out of the truck but lifting my right leg up for me as I don't have any strength yet in my leg to lift the foot higher than just off the ground. I must have looked really bad coming out of the ORA physical therapy clinic because all the "old people" where offering words of encouragement and telling me the worst was over - I pretty much just wanted to punch everyone in the face as I tried to figure out how in the hell I got to this point in my life when just yesterday I was a senior at Rockridge High.
So now as I type this, it's 11:14 on Easter Sunday - Happy Easter! I was able to get to our home office room and spend some time in front of the computer, but staying in any one position with the leg for any length of time just gets uncomfortable as hell. I think I will be able to get some screen time throughout the day, but it will have to be in short doses. If what my surgeon and the PT people and the "old people" at ORA are right, I should start to feel better in a couple days, and according to my PT I should be able to drive in a couple of weeks. I've been told not to rush things but to also work hard at PT and work to gain strength and range of motion - to make recovery like a part-time job.
My many thanks to all of you working through duties and tasks that would normally be mine. I hope you all have a good day today.
JBiz
Things for School
- absent days for staff entered into SDS by the 15th of each month
OTHER THINGS
- order a hood light switch for the Ford
- order Safelite to come fix the window on the Ford
- April 21 - 9:20 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
- April 23 - 10:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
- 1:30 Silvis Post Op Appointment (Avenue of Cities)
- April 24 - 9:00 a.m. Admin Meeting - Board Room
- April 25 - 9:20 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
- April 28 - 9:20 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
- April 20 - 9:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
- April 30 - 10 a.m. - Milan Optical
- May 2 - 9:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
- July 13-18 - Summer Camping Trip to Mackinac Island
- April 16 - knee replacement surgery - Illini Hospital
- July 13-18 - Summer Camping Trip to Mackinac Island
- July 29 - bus refresher course 5 p.m.
OFFICIATING/UMPIRING UPCOMING
Schedule of Knee Appointments
Jan. 14 - consultation with Hussein and cortisone shot - scheduled Apr. 16 surgery
March 24 - went to Illini Hospital - ekg, blood drawn, chest x-ray, urine sample, instructions
April 8 - 8:30 a.m. Pre-op with Hussein at Clinic
April 15 - appointment with Wang to clear me for April 16
April 16 - knee replacement surgery - Illini Hospital
April 18 - 9:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
April 21 - 9:20 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
April 23 - 10:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
1:30 Silvis Post Op Appointment (Avenue of Cities)
April 25 - 9:20 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
April 28 - 9:20 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
April 30 - 9:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk
May 2 - 9:00 a.m. Moline ORA Blackhawk