Progress, not a lot, but progress..

Well, last week had several days of pain and discomfort, but I feel like I've made it over a major hurdle and am slowly getting better and even into a bit of a comfortable routine with my new limitations. I had lots of visitors and so many meals delivered that Danielle and I actually hosted a family get-together on Friday night and had a buffet style meal of leftovers with all the amazing food that people brought. Mom, Dad, Becky, Jesko, Rachel, Allison and our friend Taffy came over and we had a great time together. I can't thank everyone enough for the care and comfort that have been given to us and we wanted to share it.


Visits and food continued to pour in over the weekend and was topped off with the Young Adult Fellowship Group viewing of The Asphalt Gospel taking place in my living room. Danielle said if she knew how much food and love we would get from me being hurt she would have taken a baseball bat to my knee years ago!


Monday was a really big day - Danielle went back to work this week (she only worked one 5 hour shift the first two weeks that I've been home), starting with a full day on Monday, so she was out of the house by 8:45. Mom and Dad came to get me at 10 and I spent the morning in their living room for a little change of scenery. Becky and Allison came over and we got a chance to catch up with what's going on with the youth group and Youth Sunday planning. Allison is also quite entertaining. She'll be four this week.


I had a follow up appointment with Dr. Ove in the afternoon and expected to simply get my staples out and be sent home, but the visit turned out to be quite a bit more than that. We didn't have to wait quite as long and the pain wasn't nearly as bad as last week, but it was still a big outing. A nurse got me and had all the staples out in 2 or 3 minutes. The contraption that she used to do it with was pretty cool. It worked like a pair of scissors, but instead of two parallel blades there were three prongs. Two low and one high. She slid the bottom two under the staple and when she squeezed the handle the top one pushed down on the middle of the staple and the bottom two pulled up. It bent the staple into an "m" shape and didn't hurt at all. Which is good since there were about 35 staples to take out. The doctor came in looked at the incision and was pleased, but thought my knee was too swollen still and recommended I take a lot more Ibuprofen and back off of the pain pills. Now that the staples are out I'm cleared to take a bath or get in a pool. He sent me for more x-rays to see how the bones are mending and like the waiting room it was still uncomfortable, but no where near as bad as last week. He was pleased with the x-rays too and then came the big surprise of the day. He asks me "How far can you bend your knee?"

I looked at him square in the eyes and said "I have no idea. Its been locked straight in this brace for over 2 weeks and frankly I'm terrified of what bending it is going to feel like."

His response, "Well let's find out"

So he gets the nurse to cut the zip ties that had been put in to keep me from accidentally moving the brace from the locked straight position and has me lying on the table. He puts his hands under my knee and says that he is going to lift up and for me to just relax and let my knee bend as much as it will. I again told him that I was really afraid to bend it, but I trusted him since he knows more about the inner workings of my knee than I'll ever know. He lifted gently and after I reminded myself to relax and let it happen my knee bent ever so slightly without any pain. When it started to resist he said that it had gotten to about 20 degrees. So he set the brace for 30 degrees and told me to work on getting some movement each day. Once I can bend it 90 degrees then sitting at a table or in a car become much easier and life moves closer to normal. So little by little I'm making progress.