Post-Op Update

Warning: Long, but I had to get all my thoughts down

I'm sure many of you have been wondering how surgery went. I guess that's kind of presumptuous, but here's an update, nonetheless. Friday morning, April 30 I arrived at the hospital and...

- checked in
- peed in a cup
- got an IV
- got 2 shots of Versed in the IV (the first one wasn't making me loopy enough)
- got an anesthesia block injected in my leg
- got strapped down to a surgical table/bed thingy
- slept for two hours
- was rudely awakened from a great nap by a guy in scrubs
- the guy in scrubs was my doctor telling me "blah, blah, blah" (so not coherent yet)
- fell back asleep
- was rudely awakened again by the woman across the room having a bad reaction to waking up from anesthesia which sounded like someone screaming in a horror film
- fell back asleep
- woke up back in my cubby room glad to see Mark again
- fell back asleep
- cried
- fell back asleep
- cried some more (I don't remember any of this. It's all from Mark)
- finally started to understand what "blah, blah, blah" meant
- probably cried some more, this time tears of happiness
- took 2 hours from start to finish in the attempt to leave; I would get nauseous every time I tried to get up.

The "blah, blah, blah" from my doctor was actually "Marcia, your ACL was perfectly in tact and healthy. There was a tear on your patellar tendon and we think you dislocated your patella, which knocked into your tibia and caused the bruise and stress fracture."

I still get teary-eyed when I think of how completely this situation turned around. It took Mark about 10 times of telling me this story for it to finally sink in. He would tell me every time I woke up but I would fall back asleep in the middle of it. I'm not sure what the future holds since my post-op appointment isn't until next week, but I can tell you that I've been walking on my own since Monday afternoon and I feel so blessed to have had a different outcome than what I thought. I was devastated knowing that I had months of pain and rehab ahead of me. But I woke up to hearing that all that changed.

And through all this I've had such an outpouring of kindness and love from everyone I know. Meghan took my kids for the entire day of surgery, Lisa had dinner brought in just minutes of coming home from the hospital, family had left messages letting us know they were thinking of me, my girls brought me my meals in bed, Mark took days off of work to be Mr. Mom, my sweet nieces came to watch the younger two girls so Mark could watch Téa's soccer game, my neighbor (who went through ACL surgery) came to check on me the next day, Leslie dropped by with a basket full of things to keep me from dying of boredom and restlessness, Carrie brought me chocolate covered strawberries, texts from the Relief Society president, more meals and goodies brought in, emails, Facebook messages. The list is endless.

Thank you.


My nightstand the day after surgery. Includes all the necessities, except for the walkie-talkie which was on the bed next to me.


Woke up Saturday morning with a very swollen left foot. Guess I didn't keep my "toes above my nose" very well. And I seriously need a pedicure.



If you are squeemish at all, don't look at this photo. Mark took this just after unwrapping my leg for the first time three days after surgery. I have never loved a shower more than that day.