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Encouraging Heroes. You can be one too.

So.

Remember when I fell down skiing and hurt my knee?   I actually did quite a bit of damage:  tore 3 ligaments and the meniscus, contused the bones, and developed a blood clot in my leg.  Impressive, eh?

I aim to please.

After walking with crutches and wearing a brace for several weeks, I have been moving along toward independence with the help of physical therapy three times a week.   Yesterday Hubby and I went to see the surgeon, fully expecting to be scheduled for surgery in a few weeks.  Recovery over the summer….lots of therapy and hard work….bada boom, bada bing all would be well.

Except the surgeon isn’t happy with my progress.  I apparently have developed a great deal of scar tissue that is keeping the knee from bending.  Doc says that I have to have full mobility before he’ll operate, and he’s not even sure if I need surgery.  The good news is the possible avoidance of surgery, and he took me out of the brace.  Yay me.

The bad news is that he increased therapy to 5 times per week.  At as much as two hours per appointment, that’s a huge undertaking.  And he told the therapist in no uncertain terms to push me.  Hard.  If in two weeks there’s not enough improvement, then he’s going to put me under anesthesia and do something called a “closed manipulation”.  Translation: he bends my knee like crazy while I’m asleep.

If I do progress enough over the next two weeks then I get to continue therapy for 6 additional weeks and go back to see the Doc in July.

So.  Not really great news, and especially not great at this particular time in life.  All 4 boys are playing soccer, we’re still in school, and now I’ve got to be in therapy 5 days per week.  That’s a lot of disruption, and a lot of time.

Needless to say, I spent some time freaking out.

Aaaaaand now we’re working on how to survive all this.  I’ll let you know what we come up with.

*The whole “monkeys throwing wrenches” thing is a twist some brilliant women I know came up with on the phrase “a monkey wrench thrown into the works”.  Whenever there’s a day where lots of things go wrong, we say “monkeys are throwing wrenches at me”.  I explain because when I said that to my mother she didn’t understand what the heck I was talking about.  You’re now in on the joke.

You’re welcome.

Image courtesy of via Creative Commons license, some rights reserved.

Earnest Parenting: help for parents who have to deal with monkey wrenches.