The Straight Talk Express?

Judge for yourself....

On a happier note...

My mother got a nice birthday present from the oncologist today. Her CT scan looked good and her CA125 was down a few points. YAY!

On a related note my family will be participating in our 4th Relay for Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society on June 6th. There will be about 40 teams gathered on the track and the in-field of South River High School from 6PM Friday night until 6AM Saturday morning. Each team has commited to keeping at least one team member on the track and walking through out the entire night because cancer never sleeps. There will be food, music, games, a silent and live auction and lots of other fun. The event is open to the public and one that I highly recommend.

If you'd like to make a donnation to my team click here. Thanks!!

Things that I miss....

(or at the very least wish I could do to help out)
(and in no particular order)

• getting around without crutches or a chair
• driving
• going to work
• taking the dogs for a walk
• sleeping in bed
• pacing
• painting
• kneeling
• sitting in the front seat of a car
• going up stairs 2 at a time and coming down 3 or 4 at a time
• making the rounds on the church campus
• sitting at a desk to use the computer
• climbing scaffolding
• Saturday mornings with the sweat equity crew
• walking downtown to Starbucks for coffee with Dan
• getting food or a drink for myself without having to plan it out
• taking a shower in a standing position
• wearing something other than t-shirts and gym shorts
• rough housing with the dogs
• wearing shoes that lace up
• dancing
• the satisfying smell of saw dust in the air and having paint on my hands and clothes
• having strangers look at me without pity in their eyes
• yard work (that one really surprises me)

Its now been eight weeks since my accident. I know this is temporary and that I will be able to do all of these things again, but I'm a bit frustrated. I have only a limited amount of responsibility right now and my "to do" list is shorter than it has been in a long while, but I'm having difficulty finding the motivation to do the things on it. The old adage that my dad always told me is so true - "if you want something done, assign it to the busiest person around." I have a much easier time getting things done when I am busy.

Truth be told, I've been a bit depressed this past week. I don't have the pain and fear or the wonderful distraction of many visitors that were so present the first few weeks. I'm in this weird in between stage where I'm not in need of the same level of care but I'm still limited in what I can do. Everything takes way too much planning and energy for my liking. I feel like I can't just "do" something. I have to figure out how I'm going to get there and back, whether I will be able to sit comfortably when I get there, what the accessibility features are and if what I want to do is enough of a draw to offset all of the annoying and unknown factors that there are. And time...everything takes so much longer. I just can't move fast enough and have to factor extra time into everything.

I'm not losing hope though. I'm just frustrated with my current status. This too shall pass.

A little bit more

I didn't quite get the 60 degrees that was our goal, but Jessica did get me pretty close - 58 degrees. As of today, she has added the sonogram into the routine too. Several people who have gone through PT told me about this, but today was my first experience with it. The technology is pretty much the same as the other kind of sonogram, but there is no video feed, just sound waves pulsed into the joint to create heat and loosen up the tissues in a locked joint. It didn't really feel like anything was happening, but I was able to bend about 6 degrees more than before she did it, so I think I'm a fan. Of course it still took a good bit of force from Jessica to get it there, so don't get the impression that this is a painless miracle fix. However if you know of one of those, by all means let me know because I'm in the market for one.

Hey knee, bend....pretty please.

After last Tuesday's backslide and losing 20 degrees in the range of motion in my knee, my therapist Jessica greeted me on Thursday with determination and a plan to get back to (and past) where I had previously been measured.

Previously I have started out each appointment sitting on a table with both legs straight out and heat on my knee. It's my "warm up" before I start stretching and doing exercises. So much for the relaxing first 10 minutes of my appointment. Thursday and again today I got to start my appointment in a new and interesting way. I still got heat for the first 10-15 minutes, but instead of being relaxed with my legs on the table, I was asked to sit on the end of the table with my legs hanging over the end. Well, my left leg was hanging nicely with a 90 degree bend while my right leg was just sticking out into the room at a slight downward angle. Jessica applied the heat, grabbed some surgical tubing and tied my right ankle to the table leg with tension. So the net effect was that my knee was being bent as heat was being applied. Needless to say, this was not very relaxing. Actually relaxing was the hardest part of this. It didn't really hurt, but my natural instinct was to tense up and resist the pull at my ankle and the weight of the heat wrap on my leg. But as usual, Jessica knew what she was doing, because the more I relaxed the more I could feel my knee loosen and bend.
But she wasn't finished yet. Once the heat came off and she removed the strap between my ankle and the table she then began massaging the muscles around my knee with one hand while gently pushing on my ankle with the other. She was able to get me to 48 degrees on Thursday. Then after 20 reps of my knee bending exercises she measured the bend at 50 degrees.

Today we got it to 55 degrees although it took a bit more force than it did last time. I've been instructed to do my knee bending exercise three times a day now and she has assured me that on Thursday we will get to 6o degrees.

This whole routine reminds me of what my good friend Doug used to say when we were working together and ran into something that was a little difficult. When we were building something and it appeared a piece of lumber might be just a bit long and might not fit, or when we were doing demo and ran into something stubborn he often said "It's all in how you ask it." Doug has hammers that he has named Please, Pretty Please, and Pretty Please with Sugar on Top. If you haven't guessed, each of these hammers is bigger than the next. Actually Pretty Please with Sugar on Top is a sledge hammer.

So last Thursday Jessica said "please", today was definitely a "pretty please" and I am really hoping that my range of motion continues to improve without her having to do a "pretty please with sugar on top."

Baby Steps

I haven't written about my leg in a while and there have been some developments so it is time for an update. Physical Therapy has been going well. I've been doing all my exercises regularly (9 different ones twice a day) and Danielle and I have continued to take our evening wheelchair "walks" around the neighborhood.
Yesterday I had a follow up with the surgeon for the first time in several weeks. Friday will be 6 weeks since surgery and even though the x-ray showed that the major fracture and crushed section are not totally healed he gave me the green light to start putting weight on it. I am supposed to continue to use the crutches, while gradually putting more and more weight on my right leg. Last week Jessica, my physical therapist, briefed me on what to expect in anticipation of Dr. Ove allowing this. She told me that the first two weeks would be pretty uncomfortable, that my leg would swell again and that in many ways I might feel like I was going backwards. She said that it would be a shock to the tissues and that they would react, but just like when I started PT, that the more the muscles got used the more my leg would act as its own pump to deal with the swelling and to help in the healing process.
So I did a little walking and standing yesterday and sure enough it was swollen and aching last night. I am extremely slow and it is hard not to just pick my foot up and use the crutches as "normal", but I know that it will get easier the more I do it so I'm trying to do it as much as I can tolerate it.
This morning's physical therapy appointment was pretty interesting. Jessica was pleased to find out that she could add a few more exercises to my routine so I now have 11 to do twice a day.
The bad news came when I was doing my knee bending exercise and she measured my range. I was only getting 30 degrees, when a week and a half ago I was getting 50. Neither of us was happy. So she determined where the tightness was and gave me a deep massage where my quad connects to my knee and taught me how to do it. So now that is also added to my exercise routine. When the sweat equity folks told me that PT was my job now, they weren't kidding. It takes a lot of time to go through all those exercises twice a day and do heat 10 minutes before and ice 10 minutes after each time.
Not that I'm complaining. I want to walk and drive and climb ladders again soon and this is how I'm going to get there.

I just finished reading Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak and in it he recounts the story of his time at Outward Bound. The Outward Bound motto that he learns totally fits where I am - "If you can't get out of it, you'd better get into it!"

Anne Lamott on The Colbert Report

One of my absolute favorite writers was a guest on The Colbert Report last night. Seeing Anne Lamott discuss theology with Steven's right wing Christian persona is definitely worth a watch if you missed it. (Her dreads are pretty awesome too).