March 27: Recovery Continues with a Special In-House PT

This has been quite a week. I am in much better shape than I was a week ago and yet I still feel like I am at the bottom of a large mountain. Each day I can do a little bit more around the house, such as making my coffee and breakfast, getting in and out of the shower independently (with a spotter for safety), folding and putting away laundry, getting down drying racks and hanging wet laundry, and washing a few dishes. I know this is all huge and exciting compared to just shuffling to and from the bathroom. But it is humbling to be able to do so little and have it raise my heart rate as if I was doing hard exercise. When I climb the stairs my heart is pounding at the top, and when I was helping with folding laundry I had to take two breaks to sit and rest. My Fitbit watch keeps track of how often my heart rate goes above my normal at-rest state. Pre-surgery my daily number for moments of an elevated heart-rate was maybe between 9 and 15. Yesterday I ended the day with 70 moments. I keep reminding myself that my body is working hard even when it looks like I’m at rest and even harder when I’m up and about. 

My right thigh is almost back to its normal size, but continues to be achey at times. That makes sense given that even my various bruises from the IV attempts are still healing and those were minor compared to what happened to my leg. But what I don’t understand it why my leg aches so much more intensely at night when I am trying to sleep. Is it from overuse during the day? Or not enough use just prior to sleep? Or is it that I’m just more aware because I don’t have other things to distract me? All I know is that nights have been a struggle. I have tried the bed and the couch, with props of pillows in both locations. It hurts to stay still and it hurst to toss and turn, those actions being quite slow when they happen. My first few nights I woke miserably from dreams about pain. I don’t know if that was processing the past pain during surgery or the actual achiness of that moment. I think the couch is probably best for the moment, in part because then Carl can hopefully get some sleep. 

The PT regimen that I do is a 7 minute program on my phone. Sarah loves watching the little videos and kept asking what the PT was called. I finally said we could call him Brian. Then Sarah started helping me with the moves I can’t do independently. She has named herself PT Goodnight Moon House and she really is a great helper. She also likes to come over to my head when I am on the sofa and give me chin presses from behind my head and kisses on my nose. It is really sweet. 

Just to keep things extra interesting…. Amy got a big splinter in her foot last Sunday and Carl was unable to get It out. Since Amy really couldn’t walk comfortably, on Monday morning Carl took her to Urgent Care. Luckily the doctor got it out and Carl took Amy to school in time for a hike! Her teacher was going to let her sit out for the hike, but Amy felt up to it and insisted on participating. Then on Tuesday morning I got a call from Sarah’s teacher that she was throwing up and had a headache. My mom drove out to get her with me in the passenger seat. Sarah did need extra rest but then seemed quite well. So on Wednesday we sent her to school again. And again got a call that she was unwell and repeated our trip to retrieve her. This was perplexing given how well she seemed at home. Apparently she was feeling motion sick after her bus ride, which is unusual for her. Thursday we kept Sarah home all day and she seemed fine aside from one moment in the afternoon which was difficult to read. Sometimes when Sarah talks about ailments it is difficult to discern what tense we are actually in. Is she reporting on the moment or remembering the past or trying to get out of a future thing? On Friday Sarah went to school and stayed all day, although her teacher did have to help her at one moment to just drink water and breathe for a few minutes rather than spitting up phlegm. I feel like we do have a situation of too much phlegm too often but without Sarah’s usual seasonal allergy symptoms. So I don’t know if we need to change things or if she had a small bug. She sees her pediatrician tomorrow for a well-visit so hopefully the doctor will have some insight or wisdom. 

It was extremely helpful having my mom (aka Mom-Mom) here to help with kids, serving food, chores, and whatever I needed. We also had Anna helping with getting Sarah to piano and getting the kids to swimming on Monday. I felt nervous about my. mom leaving on Thursday because I wasn’t sure we were ready to not have full-time help. So we arranged for Sonia, her partner, and Grandpa to help out. I also realized that at this point I’m much more capable than before so I think I can be mostly independent at home on school days going forward as long as I don’t have to change floors and as long as I just eat standing at the counter. Or with minor help from Carl if he continues working from home. The kids can be my helpers when they are home, whether moving my walker up or downstairs or starting a load of laundry. 

One highlight I forgot to mention from last week… Sarah was sitting next to me while I talked to a friend on the phone. Sarah knew she was supposed to be quiet. And she mostly was. Until she whispered, “Mom, are you wearing underpants?”

Sarah also likes listening to people’s heads by putting her ear to their forehead. She did this with Carl, and when he asked what she heart inside his head she replied, “BOING!”

There was a month-long supply chain delay in getting the Girl Scout cookies for Amy to distribute to all who had purchased them from her. Sarah and Amy were an efficient team making piles and labeling them in our front room. Then last Sunday they went out with Carl to deliver the cookies around the neighborhood. Sarah pulled the wagon full of cookies. Amy knocked on each door and took care of taking payments. Then Sarah carried the cookies to the door. 

Yesterday Carl took the kids to brunch while I had brunch with a friend at home. Carl and the kids went to the library so Sarah could watch buses and play in the elevator, as she has been asking to do for quite some time. Then they all went to Sarah’s Anat Baniel lesson, which is a thing that only happens a few times a year. Sarah loves these lessons in part because she gets a great view of buses during her lesson. When they all came home the girls had a great time pretending to be going up and down in an elevator while jumping up and down in our kitchen.

There has been an abundance of love, generosity, food, and flowers coming this way. I so appreciate every bit of it. Our cat has mixed feelings. She really really wants to eat all of the flowers so on the one paw she loves that we have received them and on the other paw she is upset that she is foiled at every turn with the flowers being put out of her reach or behind glass cabinet doors. With one bunch of flowers, Carl thought we could keep them down low for a minute so I could enjoy them from the sofa. Our cat promptly walked over, licked her lips, hopped on the table and began to nibble. 

In other news, it is snowing steadily and even sticking because it has been so cold lately! Sarah's and Amy’s schools have both moved to optional masking, as has the massage school where I will hopefully (hip-willing) resume teaching in late April, and Carl’s work. We still all keep masks with us all the time just in case. Sarah also always needs one on the bus. Still, this all feels new and my face feels naked at the thought of teaching maskless.

I hope you are all well.

March 20: Hip Surgery and Recovery

I am home and recovering from my hip surgery. In a nutshell it went well, but out of the nutshell there were lots of details that made the experience harder than it needed to be.

Carl and I left for the hospital at 4:45am Wednesday morning, and Sonia came to our house to take care of getting the kids to school. I insisted on walking from the car to the surgical check-in even though it felt like a long and awkward trek. I knew it would be the last time I did such perambulation so relatively easily for a while. I was quickly taken on my own to a freezing-cold changing room with a small shared bathroom attached. The bathroom was the most awkwardly and oddly shaped room, with locks for each door that were not at all clear or intuitive about how to successfully lock them. I think they were different for each door. The support bar to hold if you needed it encroached on your sitting space. The toilet paper was up above and behind my head, because that is totally what makes sense for a bathroom being used by someone about to undergo surgery for who knows what physical limitations. I managed, but wondered how others would if they were shorter or had more limited movement than I did. 

The nurse and her trainee came in to get me prepped for surgery. Noting how I was wrapped in a sheet on top of my gown she kept saying she would bring me a nice warm blanket. That did eventually happen, but I think it took 45 minutes. She also gave me deluxe mesh panties and a pad because - timing!- my period had just started. At least that meant they didn’t need to do a pregnancy test. But it did mean navigating that awkward bathroom again. A new person came to do some bloodwork and he was excellent. I didn’t feel any pain with the needle-stick. Then the original nurse tried to insert my IV port in my hand, noting that my veins were small but they needed a certain needle size to make the IV work. Her first attempt hurt but failed. She said she usually got it on the first try so if she didn’t then she wanted someone else to do the second attempt. I waited. The second person came in and tried a different vein, painfully but successfully. Still promises of a warm blanket to come but no actual blanket. 

Next were injections in between my psoas and quadratus lumborum (deep core muscles) to help me not feel anything in my upper thigh for a couple of days. Think of it like novocaine shots prior to dental work, except the target is much deeper. Those injections were not pleasant, but at least when they were done Carl was able to join me and I finally got the warm blanket. Then the surgeon came by to sign his initials on my right hip. The last thing prior to my being taken away was deciding what to do with my glasses. Carl was keeping most of my stuff, but my bag of clothing was going to a locker and it was suggested that my glasses stay with my clothing, as if maybe I could get them sooner that way. I really can’t see without my glasses. Not that I needed to, but having everything be blurry added to the surreal out-of-control feeling. 

I normally think that whatever life throws my way I could overcome with sheer force of will if I needed to. Surgery is always a humbling reminder that such a belief is a lie. I have no memory of the ride to the operating room. I vaguely remember the huge light fixtures. That’s it. The next thing I knew I was in the recovery room being told to stop moving my legs. Evidently my trying to move my legs so much was a sign that I was in a lot of pain. 

Meanwhile, Carl was waiting in the surgical waiting area with the pager they had given him so he could be reached when I was out of surgery. Evidently they tried paging him three times and then called his cell phone so the doctor could talk to him. The pager had died. I don’t understand why they didn’t just use their voice to call his name, but perhaps that is an old-fashioned mode of communicating. Anyway, the surgeon told Carl that the surgery was a bit more involved than usual because of the angle of my femur neck (more vertical than usual) and that I had lost a lot of blood. They had a way of collecting what blood I lost and putting it back into me so I didn’t need a transfusion. However, note to self for if I have to have the left hip done in the future, I will donate my own blood for my own use if needed. I’m O negative which means I’m the universal donor, but it means I can only receive other O negative blood. 

I was in the large, blurry recovery room for maybe 4 hours without Carl. I was in and out of sleep. I still had no glasses. They were waiting for a bed to open up of me to go to a hospital room to continue my recovery. They brought me some food, which was so bad I wondered how hard they worked to make it that bad. Clearly I have been spoiled by all of our trips to the Children’s Hospital which has food so good I would consider getting it as take-out. Bad food was still food though, so that was appreciated. The PT came to help me switch to a hospital bed. Since I felt lightheaded standing momentarily it was determined that I should stay the night at the hospital. That was disappointing even if it really was the right answer. Carl was eventually brought to me in the large recovery room, but had not been given my clothing and glasses as we had expected. Since it was finally time to move to a room we decided to wait for him to go find my stuff. 

From my hospital room, Carl went to ask about my bag of clothing and glasses. While he was doing that, someone arrived with the bag. I felt stressed about how Carl would be fruitlessly searching and I had no way to reach him because he had my phone. Luckily all was sorted out and he returned in short order. And I could finally see! Just in time for the nurse on duty to check my incisions, which were glued from the inside and thus not covered, aside from a drainage port. As soon as I saw the incisions I burst into tears. If this was minimally invasive I hate to imagine what maximally invasive scars would look like. The nurse commented, “Oh, you’re crying… like a baby.” As Carl noted, that was when Jenny Bear emerged. I vouched for myself loud and clear that crying was a good thing and that I had just been through surgery. I mean!!! Her tone hadn’t been unkind, and she regrouped and brought me tissues and took good care of me overall, but it was not the greatest way to begin our nurse-patient relationship. 

When I asked the nurse how it would work when I had to pee, she said I would just get up and do so. Ummm.. ??? I felt like I  couldn’t move at all. Eventually this was put to the test and the nurse brought a commode next to my bed. An aide was brought in to assist me. A young male aide. Oh good. I know it shouldn’t matter, but that felt like an added challenge to any shreds of my modesty that might have remained. After helping me move he did leave the room, but the regular nurse was still there and then the surgeon’s nurse came in and was talking to me while I was peeing! While I was feeling increasingly lightheaded and nauseous as if I was going to pass out. I have no idea what she said. Why couldn’t she have waited five minutes?! She left. I was helped back into bed, each step of which was excruciatingly painful and impossible. Then the surgeon came in and talked to me while I was nearly falling asleep. Luckily Carl was there to actually listen because I have no idea what was said. 

We made arrangements for Sonia to take over childcare from Anna, who had covered the afternoon and early evening. Carl brought dinner from Five Guys for us and then went home to be with the kids, who were quite disappointed that I wasn’t coming home as expected. He came back to the hospital as soon as the kids were on their way to school on Thursday. Wednesday night I was mostly miserable and so glad to be in the hospital. Every time I had to pee was excruciating and so hard. Imagine those dreams where you are trying to move and your body doesn’t respond to your commands. The aide or nurse would always step out to give me privacy. While, yes, I had wanted that from the surgeon’s nurse, in this case it was frustrating. They would tell me to press the button to summon them when I was done. I only needed a minute! Then I ended up waiting bare-butted and freezing while it seemed an eternity until they returned. I gradually learned that my shivering was due to muscle exertion more than cold, but that didn’t make it less shiverful.

At one point I was in so much pain I couldn’t sleep but I was scared to ask for oxycodine. I had the nurse come in. This was my nighttime nurse and was different from the first one. She didn’t bat an eye about my crying and just helped me by reassuring me that it was ok to take pain medication so soon after surgery. I slept a bit more, until it was time to check my vitals and my IV beeped. It was 4:30. My nurse said that at 5:30 she would be transferring me to a chair, so I opted to just stay awake. Luckily, after that first time when I thought I would pass out, the other times were slightly better each time. So moving to the chair was ok. Then a super-confident-radiating-mansplaining- energy cardiologist came in to tell me that I was prone to vasovagal responses. That means that when I get scared or upset to enough of a degree I can nearly or fully pass out. Yes. I don’t need a fancy name to tell me that. Nor do I need a label to make it seem more dire or serious than I think it is. For goodness sake! It was just after surgery!! Meeting that person did reaffirm how little I have to deal with that kind of toxic overconfidence in my usual life. 

The surgeon and his nurse came to check on me at 6:30, probably before he went into surgery with other people. I’m glad they checked on me, but wish the timing could have been later so Carl would have been back.

I know this probably sounds like a lot of negative details. It was hard. Super hard. But overall everyone was kind and helpful, and I am safely at home now. Sonia, my mom, and Carl have been taking care of things around the house while helping me move to and from the bathroom with a walker. I can now even get in and out of bed or the sofa by myself. I have to have help to do PT three times a day because there are some moves that my muscles just can’t do, even though they strain and burn at the attempt. My leg is slowly going back to it’s normal size. The kids help bring my walker or other requested items, and Sarah once tried to help push my walker along. 

Yesterday Sarah witnessed my PT attempts and tears at how hard all of this feels sometimes. She then got quite upset and sad for a couple of hours. I will try to shield the kids more from my upsets with this because I think it is hard enough to have me so unavailable to help them like normal and so helpless on my own. Later in the day Sarah did my PT with me and both of us were in better emotional shape.  She likes to give me chin presses and kisses while I am on the sofa, which is very sweet. 

Each day I get a bit more capable. Yesterday I even managed a shower. But everything is hard and a trip to the bathroom or up or down the stairs is exhausting. Nighttimes are harder than daytimes, perhaps because I’m expecting myself to sleep peacefully but am more aware of aches and pains. So while I know each day is monumentally better than the previous one, this still feels daunting and like I have a long road ahead of me.

I’m no longer needing the oxycodine and will dispose of it responsibly once I’m really sure I’m done with it. I’m still taking Tylenol and baby aspirin and using an ice pack. 

I hear my heartbeat in my right ear often, but usually after some effort. I hope that sensation will go away.

Friday was my shared birthday with Amy. She had a great day. I did not. But Carl collected wonderful input from people about their memories of me or reasons why they love me. That was a really wonderful present that he gave me the night I was in the hospital. I kept not being able to see the words as they blurred with my tears of feeling so seen and appreciated. So a huge thank you to any of you who contributed. 

Last night we watched Turning Red, which is a wonderful Disney cartoon movie about becoming a teenager and how parents and teens have their relationships change. We all loved it. Sarah likes to pretend she is turning into a giant red panda. Amy likes to pretend she turns into a fluffy black kitten. 

Thank you all for your well-wishes, prayers, and support during this time. It all means a lot and really does help.

March 13: In-Person Parties and Missing Shoes

This weekend Amy had her first in-person birthday party since 2019 (her actual bday is yet to come). Two years ago we had to cancel her party because everything was just shutting down for Covid. We kept the party small with just 7 kids, two of whom were our own. Sarah didn’t actually participate in much of it. She helped Carl get the pizza and joined everyone for the food. Then she and I went up to my room to snuggle and nap, which was fine by me. Amy and her friends had a riotously good time and were extremely loud and energetic. They played hide and seek, played a cat murder mystery game, and made cat puppets. This was all inside (masked) because it was cold and snowy outside. Amy had been looking forward to this party intensely for weeks so was understandably a little sad when it was over. We have assured her that this is just the start of more indoor playdates, and that she can even have the same people all together again. (Although we wouldn’t mind if it was warm enough to be outside!)

For Amy’s weekend homework, it has worked well the past two weekends to have her do her work near me. We set a timer and both of us do something that isn’t our favorite thing to do. I usually clean something or put away laundry. Then we set a timer for doing something fun together. Yesterday I didn’t have the timer going and I was reading a book for fun, but it still felt nice to be together and I could nudge her along with the math in between our times of talking. 

Sarah’s newest love is pretending to be the bear who sings “One Shoe Blues” in Sandra Boynton’s Blue Moo book. She most enjoys wearing one sneaker while looking at the page in the book while the song plays in the background. One evening after dinner, both kids had a ball pretending to be the bear.  Sarah had one sneaker and kept brandishing her one shod limb in front of me. Amy put on headphones and then asked us where her headphones were. Then she put on one leg of her snow pants, one flipflop, a mask on one ear, and pushed a walking duck toy while holding an empty pizza box, asking us where all of the items were. You see, in the song, the bear is lamenting his inability to find one of his shoes, and then at the end realizes that he was wearing it all along.

Amy drew a clock while looking at a school-timer clock but not looking at her paper. She doesn’t think much of her achievement because to her it doesn’t look like a very accurate depiction of a clock. Meanwhile, many grownups feel a deep resonance between her work and their experience of time. 

This is the last update prior to my hip replacement on Wednesday. I’m less scared than I have been at some moments, but it also continues to feel surreal. Any good thoughts and prayers are most welcome. I have no idea how soon I will feel up to doing anything beyond the bare minimum. Possibly right away or possibly it will be a while. This is all to say, if I don’t send out an update next Sunday, don’t worry. But I hope I’m feeling good enough to do so. Also, if you live nearby and want to receive the link to the Mealtrain that Sonia created for me, just let me know.

March 6: Corrections and Mouse Poop

I must issue a correction for one item in my last update. Sarah didn’t cut the carrots by herself. Carl did that part. However, this week Sarah did cut zucchini with Carl supervising. 

Speaking of corrections, we needed to correct the radon situation of our mountain house. Ideal radon levels are below 4. When we tested our levels in late autumn they were over 200! Yikes. So we had a company come test again and then do some things to fix the situation. Now we monitor the levels continuously and things are mostly good, but not quite steady. We came to the mountain house this weekend for the first time since Thanksgiving. Aside from mouse poop and shredded linens deemed mouse-nest material, all is well and it is wonderful to be here again. I did, however, throw away a pillowcase, two dishrags, a dish towel, and some cloth napkins that had been shredded beyond acceptability. I also found mouse poop and seed hulls in the pocket of my bathrobe! We don’t keep any food where a mouse could get to it, but they bring in seeds that they find outside. So far we have only used live traps when we are here, but I admit that this latest poop-a-palooza has me wondering if we need stronger measures.

When we arrived at the mountain house I reminded the kids that the water might splurk and sploosh out of the faucets at first since it had been turned off for so long. They did an energetic interpretive dance of the water splashing and splurting.

Carl and Amy had a wonderful time skiing yesterday, while Sarah and I stayed snuggly at the house. Sarah’s new favorite song is “Love Shack” by the B-52s so we listened to that many times. Good thing I love the song too. We also drew some musical notes and Sarah drew a staff with notes above her rendition of a penguin. She recently rediscovered a love of Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton, complete with musical notes scattered over the cover. Sarah’s penguin is a large smiley face with stick legs and earnest round feet. 

Sarah continues to enjoy talking about the hitch in my get-along and how I have run out of padding in my get-along. I continue to limp around physically and swing all around emotionally. When I walk almost normally and don’t hurt, then I think I have been making it all up and I don’t really need surgery. Other times I am hurting a lot and or incapable of walking normally and then I know I need the surgery, but I’m scared and sad about it. Realizing that I am like a car with a flat tire and that even if I am not in pain I just need a new tire to be structurally sound has helped me accept the need for intervention without feeling guilty or like I have failed in someway. 

Love and earnest penguins to you.