Knee surgery and Halloween

What a wild 16 days our family experienced. Cheers to 7 more crazy weeks! We can get through this together. Before I start on all the surgery stuff let me get the family stuff reviewed and noted!

Five out of 7 members of my family are hooked on Duolingo. I am smashing the Brazilian Portuguese, Amelia is learning Spanish, Phillip studying Italian, Everett is studying several languages trying to find his niche, Evelyn is learning French, and Josie is dabbling in Spanish. It’s fun to hear the “dings” going off throughout the day as we learn different ways to communicate. 

Amelia is getting college acceptance letters left and right…even to universities she “never” applied to. University of Idaho’s acceptance packet even came with a digital screen loaded with fun campus photos and stories. All the swag is fun! She feels like there are so any options, too many options. She finished working at the Farmstead Saturday the 26th. Those last two weekends were crazy busy for her. She was asked if she wanted to work the 30th…naw…she was done. Her last Farmstead employee party is in a couple days. Last year she won a fun mini waffle maker. Amelia is reading the Warrior Cat series, Ambree’s favorite series. She is totally into it! Now Everett is reading the books too. Sometimes I hear them role-playing upstairs some snippet from Warrior Cats. Lastly, Amelia got into All-State choir for the 4th year in a row. She is very excited. 

CHS Marching band wrapped up the season 26 October at BSU’s DIII competition. He enjoyed a challenging first season. He is hooked to the max on marching band. I am so proud to have a geeky marching band kid. I love Phillip’s best friends: Ben, Johvanni, and Bodhe. They are ultra geeky. Other than band we’ve not seen Phillip very much around here. CHS earned 2nd place at the D3 competition. Phillip and Everett got to perform at the last football game together! EVMS was invited to sit with the band and play along. I hear they had an entertaining evening. Phillip decided he wants to take Seminary last trimester instead of Robotics. He cannot make Robotics work because they meet on Thursdays and he loves MCO and Seminary more than Robotics. Good for him!

Everett’s social studies teacher told Everett he could be the judge in class if he brought a gavel with him. I think the teacher was joking, Everett took it literally. He badgered me for a few days to get on Amazon and get him a wig and gavel. He was so excited to take it to class and be the judge! I am not sure what he is judging but he is excited about something at school which is a good thing. He has slept on the floor in his room for about 6+ months now. He has is stuck in his head that he cannot sleep in his bed, which is the top bunk. Justin had him try out all the sleeping pads over the past months finding the broken pads for disposal. He claims the floor is just as comfortable. The boys finally unbunked their bed just a couple days ago. I hope he can find comfort in a bed again. Not sure what is going on with him! He is taking L-theanine supplements to help him relax before sleeping. Everett is a late bloomer, Evelyn has more arm pit hair than he does at this point in time, not that it’s a contest. Seems like maybe he is having some puberty onset symptoms that are a struggle for him. Yesterday he came home from school telling me he won a vocabulary contest at school. The prize? A travel-sized ladies deodorant! That tickled his funny bone. Everett was the MC for the beginner band performance, he is a very good public speaker. The concert band sounded awesome. Everett is unsure he wants to do Marching Band next year, his trombone is too heavy! The CHS Marching Band performed right after the middle school bands. It was fun to hear inside the gym. 

Evelyn is doing very well! She still hates family cleaning time with a passion, but throws her fits then gets down to it. She threw a major tantrum over cleaning her room, the loft, and regular chores quite often last week. After her first fit (over cleaning her room) she went upstairs made a check list and went to work. They actually got about 1/2 of their room cleaned without help. She is struggling with writing at school, loves math, and gets frustrated with her very talkative class. Justin went to her parent-teacher conference. I did not get many details other than she struggles with writing, even though the samples she brought home were amazing. Evelyn is a very caring helper, she will sit with me longer than any other child and bring me treats, water, and snacks without asking. The little girls are going to bed solo for the first time ever. It is a very nice change, I love to see her gain independence. 

Josie finally lost her tooth…eating a chicken strip. She had one tooth hanging by a literal thread for weeks. She looked down at her chicken and said, “huh! My chicken has a tooth!” Then her eyes went wide and wonder of all wonders the tooth was actually hers. She is enthralled with the Spiderwick Chronicles right now, Mrs Harp is reading Book 2 during library right now. Saturday night she determined to read to me out loud, like Mrs Harp the first Spiderwick book. I am LOVING the experience of Josie reading ME a book. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. Sure, a kid will read to me a short book but never a chapter book. She is starting to whine about violin, her new teacher is much more demanding than the last one. I couldn’t attend her last lesson so Amelia with her, that was hard because most of the practice points are not clearly written down. Her teacher uses a lot of video Amelia took to explain the lesson. Tuesday her teacher said she was bragging about Josie’s vast improvement over two months of lessons. She is playing faster, in tune, fixing her hold adjusting her fingers, and loving fiddle songs. Emma looked Josie right in the eye and told Josie how amazing she is, that hard things take time and effort to accomplish., made Josie and I tear up! 

Justin and I headed to the Orthopedic Plaza early Thursday, October 24th, for my knee surgery. We quickly checked in and I was guided to a room alone. The nurse asked me strip down but leave my undies on. Silly me left me undies on, the nurse was taken aback to see my version of undies and bra still on. Just went for the full nudie bird, no undies for me. Justin sat with me for a bit until I was wheeled in. The anesthesia kick back was quite memorable this time around. When it finally started to hit me Justin said I was holding my phone upside down staring at it in confusion, he turned it right side up and I said, “well, that’s better.” I was going on about how much I hated apps except Pinterest, well except for those pesky “life-hacks” like how to keep your feet warm by putting on socks. Duh! I sort of remember the nurse asking me if I was ready. I excitedly responded “I’m Ready!” Throwing out the rock on sign…until I noticed the pattern on a wall that looked like spider webs, my rock on morphed into pew-pews. Justin said I was “awake” when Dr Walker went over the surgery results. I do not have any recollection of that. The rest of the day was a blur of getting into the truck, sitting on the couch, and crashing in deep sleep. Amelia said I was talking in my sleep for a good 20 minutes, my filter was nonexistent. I watched the rest of Rings of Power, my mouth was providing constant commentary, it was very entertaining. My leg was swollen and throbbing but the pain was not too bad. Justin was a very good pharmacist handling all my post-op drugs, he even got up at midnight and then 4 am to administer drugs. Amelia took the older kids to MCO. Evelyn and Josie wanted to attend the Reagan Fall Walkathon, Trunk-or-treat, and a Halloween festival. Ms Gingerich and Heidi kept an eye out for them and helped them get ready. I hear the MCO attire check went well. I did not hear of any major hiccups. 

I don’t remember much of the next few days except for constant ice, pain meds, naps, and watching some Mirror, Mirror. Sara set up several meals to come over the next 6 days. That was super awesome. I slept on the couch for over a week because it was easier to elevate my leg. I was happy to work on my Van Gogh Lego. The kids had Friday off, we did not do much over the weekend. Phillip was gone all Saturday at DIII band, Mia at work Friday and Saturday, and Everett had his first Robotics competition on Friday. Justin and my mom figured out that mixing the Percocet and anti-nausea made me a bit silly in the head. I had another sleep-talking episode with most of the family present laughing their heads off at my answers to questions and silly things I was saying. I’ll include a list of the highlights. 

The kids had Wednesday and Thursday off of school for parent-teacher conferences and Halloween. I bet it was super awesome to avoid Halloween and school this year. Justin looked a bit frayed around the edges after working, making dinner, trying to be civil to the whining kids, and running all the errands. He went to conferences with Evelyn and Josie. Evelyn’s teacher held student-led conferences, she only met with parents if there was an issue. I don’t think Justin made it to any other school conferences, it was too much. I had a fun 2-hour PD training on microbits, a fun set of microchips students can code with block code, java, or python. I and reading a coding book for another class as well. December has an Hour of Code week, so when I get back to work I want to start a coding unit. I now have the cubelets, spheros, microbits, and three other code-able robots. 

Took me the rest of the week to data enter MCO attire results and edit the rest of Fall Family photo sessions. I was grateful to have stuff to get done during the day while letting me knee heal. I am grateful there is not much pain right now. I did have some very painful spasms during the nights which left me sweating from the pain. I stopped taking Percocet by Tuesday morning. Getting around is quite a bummer. It’s hard to hobble around on one leg and not put any weight on my extended right leg without lifting it off the ground. I get to keep my rigid brace on for 20 hours per day, especially at night.   

Justin went to Walmart Tuesday night with intent to buy some necessaries and pumpkins to carve. Evelyn came home crying, “Dad won’t get us pumpkins to carve, we’re never going to carve pumpkins, life is over…” yada, yada. He just didn’t want to pay the prices per pound there. She was about to hyperventilate over pumpkin carving. Oh my. I bargained with her that if she could get part of her room cleaned up I finally got a shower, went upstairs for the first time. Josie and Evelyn told me I was very stinky. Yep, it was time to clean up. Nothing fancy about showering with crutches. Mia would take the kids to get pumpkins at Winco. Hooray! They wanted to carve on Wednesday night but it was too crazy with my coding class and then an MCO leadership meeting plus the older kids absent for activities. 

Halloween was a really fun day. The kids carved their pumpkins most of the morning. Amelia carved a cute Tom Nook from Animal Crossing. Phillip’s started out looking really awesome…then he added/stabbed all the carving tools into his pumpkin. Everett carved a Bill Cypher. Evelyn made a house for Boberita. Josie made a cute owl. Justin popped in a couple times to help out. The kids use the Dremel tools a lot this year, makes it quite fun. I worked on sending MCO corrections to attire letters, like over 300 emails and responding to emails. Not my favorite job in the world! Danielle Young kept texting me    photos of attire entries throughout the day. She told me that the box of attire stuff was outside for a while when a gust of wind and rain popped out of nowhere. Turns out a couple forms went riding away in the wind, must’ve because I had like 20 parents frantically emailing me that their singer was in attire and passed. Gracious. We had spooky music playing to enhance the Halloween mood. Amelia found out it was 50 cent corn dog day at Sonic, Justin was totally down for that idea. Everett wanted 4 corn dogs, Justin said he had to buy his own extra two corn dogs…Everett did eat all 4! Amelia took me to my first PT lesson with Kenny G. Ha ha ha. Basically, he just talked about care and gave me a couple exercises to keep my calf and quad muscles moving. Amelia got a super cute haircut, short with bangs! She picked me up with her cute new hair! It was time to start getting ready for Halloween evening. Phillip wore his inflatable dinosaur costume for the 3rd year, he kept his promise to wear it for 2-3 years because it cost more than a usual costume. This year he accessorized it with a sword, very novel. Everett wore his Judge wig with a Harry Potter robe, had to make a sign so people would stop asking him if he was part of the Wizarding World. Evelyn’s last two stickers came just in time to slap on the kid’s motorcycle helmet, a Top Gun sticker, Talk to me Goose, and a FIfinella sticker. She looked like a legit fighter jet pilot. Josie needed the most help, she misplaced her costume in her room. I helped her braid her hair and do a little bit of face paint. She was excited to wear some of my bracelets to complete the look. Amelia looked adorable as Rarity from My Little Pony. She joined Ambree’s friend group, which was very fun for her. Justin helped me get situated n a chair under the heat lamp for 3 hours handing out candy. Maisie kept me warm for a bit. Several cups of hot cocoa also helped me stay warm. Amelia was frozen after walking around our block. Justin took Josie around a couple streets. Evelyn and Oliver disappeared for an hour doing whatever they were doing. Sara and Dusty hosted their super fun hot dog, chili, hot cider and hot cocoa driveway party. With my foot on a stool I had kids smell my foot before handing over candy. Ha ha. Phillip and his buds disappeared, roaming around the streets like teens do…hopefully using good judgment. Everett and Karan went vamoose right away, they did some trick or treating then stayed at Kyran’s house for games and food. Amelia drove the little girls over to Mrs Sene’s house scoring her last few full-sized candy bars. I was so cold it took me three hours to warm up, Amelia was very chilled as well, couldn’t ruin her costume with a hoodie! 

Friday morning Amelia drove me to see Dr Walker for a 7-day post operation visit. He explained the series of fun scope photos I went home with. He said my meniscus looked quite healthy it was just slipping off my tibia. He drilled a hole through the front of the tibia to the back top, closed the gap by pulling the meniscus back into place and stitching it with medical cord. The cord goes through my bone and out the front where it is held in place with a metal plate. Just trimming the meniscus is a 5-6 week recovery, a repair like mine is 8-10 weeks. The nurse removed my stitches and showed me how to adjust my exoskeleton leg brace. Amelia was a good slave driving me places and buying gas and treats with my debit card. I had another medical appointment for a mammogram at 1 pm, we burned through an hour browsing Hobby Lobby. I liked getting pushed about in a wheelchair. I noticed lots of different merchandise from a lower vantage point! Ha ha. Hunger drove us to Chic-fil-a for some lunch. I was happy to use my points for a free meal. Amelia dropped me off at the mammogram bus. I had it under control until I backed up to the stairs, my brain was thinking “stop when your calf feels the stair.” Well, my calf had no feeling so I did not stop until I was plopped down on the steps. Amelia looked terrified, I was laughing my head off. Gracious. 

Josie and Evelyn wanted to color with me too. We used my newer set of watercolor pencils just for fun. I finally moved upstairs to sleep. Saturday night was really rough. Sleeping with exoskeleton leg is not at all comfortable. Add on pregnancy level heartburn for a long and restless night. Josie is listening to Mrs Harp read the Spiderwick Chronicles in library. Josie decided all on her own that she wants to be a librarian and read me the first book out loud. She is determined and is reading to me every night. I love how she shows me the pictures, makes me wait until the page is read before showing it. She even tried to read with different voice inflections. Her little face all light up with a reading lamp looked quite angelic to me. I’ve never had a child read me a book. We FINALLY broke down and joined Walmart Plus. I did the grocery shopping from home, Justin went to pick it up after dinner on Saturday. It was nice. I finished assembling my Starry Night Lego! That was a relaxing Sunday afternoon activity. Cleaning the loft was not so nice. Evelyn makes it so hard to get anything done. Her tantrums are so annoying. She complains that everyone attacks her, but fails to see that she was asked politely several times before the yelling starts. Then everyone else ramps up and it is a nasty family fight to get something cleaned up. I sat on the couch and let everyone else fight it out. Don’t worry they all came down at different times to complain about it to me. 

I decided to take another two days to recuperate at home, had Dr Walker sign my FMLA paperwork to reflect that. The extra day was nice to finish photo editing the last galleries of this year. I am not taking on any more jobs until January at the earliest. I started watching the Good Doctor after finishing the Rings of Power. It’s pretty cute and clean for modern TV. I uploaded the last photos a few minutes before the kids got home from school. Cooking dinner is very tricky. Crutches are not very stable and….and….oh my gosh. I forgot to mention Justin got me a Super Handy mobility cart. Literally, it is titled “Super Handy. ” Her name is Rita, from Bluey. It rides like two hoverboards connected with a seat and steering. The kids want to keep Rita forever. She runs on battery packs like Justin’s power tools use! Yee haw. Maneuvering Rita in the kitchen is really awkward. So just do my best like usual. The kids have an assigned sous chef day to help me out for the next 6 weeks. Evelyn came home from school and told me a funny story. Mrs Pannell asked her if we wanted a meal. Evelyn said, “gosh no! Our fridge is full of leftovers no one will finish eating.” Can I help any other way? Evelyn, “Well, we always like cookies!” Jill left a bag of 6-7 packages for cookies in my computer lab. So funny. 

Tuesday Justin drove me to PT with Kenny G, got lots of exercises to stretch my muscles and regain strength. Right after PT we headed to the church to cast our votes for the Presidential Election. How our candidates spend billions of dollars just to run is sickening…all that money could go for better causes. Rita made the hour long wait much more bearable. It was very tempting to open up the throttle and test the speed once we finally got to the gym. We voted. I was sorely tempted to vote for Robert Kennedy, probably wouldn’t have made a drop of difference with the number of Idaho Electoral votes (4). Went for Trump. Spent the rest of the day mentally preparing myself to return to work. Maisie helped out by escaping from the yard. The wind blew the fence open while we were gone. Came home to find no doggies in our yard. Fergus bounced up 5 minutes after we discovered the dogs were AWOL. Justin had to jump on a work meeting, Sara was working as a poll worker all day. It was up to me to find Maisie. Justin popped Rita outside and off I went cruising around the neighborhood at a leisurely 2 miles per hour. I passed the side entrance to the playground and heard the noise from recess. Hedging a guess I texted the front office asking if a black Scotty was found that we lost ours.  Jessica immediately texted back: you mean the one we have right now in the front office? Yep! I hurried up, turtle speed on Rita to the school. I got to try out the route to get to and from school. Drove Rita through the front doors and zoomed about the lobby a bit, it will all work out. Maisie was scared out of her doggy mind, the 2nd graders all wanted to love her at the same time out on the playground. She was shaking like a leaf when I picked her up. We moseyed home enjoying the fine fall weather. Rita made the trip there and back with no issues. Time to get back to the new normal. I’ll say there were lots of tears and feelings of inadequacy as I struggle to accomplish the simplest tasks like throwing away trash, laundry, showering, cleaning, anything other than sitting on the couch.