Getting Back on Track

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Hello, my friends!  First of all, let me say sincerely how much all of your thoughts and prayers have meant to us these last couple of weeks.  You are all amazing!

Those prayers are helping, trust me.  Today is two weeks since surgery, and while I still tire more easily than I like, I am starting to feel more like myself.  

Part of my "rehabilitation" has been to keep Captain company in Calf Country.  We just sold a group of feeders out of the big yard, moved the next group into the big yard, then moved the weanlings out of the shed into a smaller yard and then weaned the group out of the calf barn and into the bigger pen in the shed.

Before we brought a new group into the calf barn, Captain spent a day cleaning out the old bedding and spreading fresh bedding in the pens so the new babies have nice clean beds.  He brought them home last night, and the other residents of the calf barn, i.e. kittens and chicken, weren't quite what to make of these interlopers!  By this morning, however, they had all worked out the pecking order and were cohabitating peacefully.  

The kittens are now 2-1/2 months old and at that cute stage where they roll and pounce on each other with their little bottle brush tails straight up in the air.  We were surprised this morning when one of the kittens came into the calf barn dragging a dead baby mole!  Let me just say "eeeuuuwww" about that!!  

Feather Flocklear has returned to her original nest to lay her daily egg, so that's been kind of exciting each day.  No so exciting that I want to rush out and buy more hens--gathering in that one egg gives me enough of a thrill, thank you very much!

Amos and Andy are getting along like...how did Forrest Gump say it...oh yeah:  like peas and carrots.  Andy is a snuggle bug who loves his daily scratches and rubs.  Amos tries to be so much more dignified, but I can tell he'd really like to get in on all that attention.  He comes a step closer every day, so it won't be long until he can join in.  

I am at that stage of recovery where it ticks me off that I think I have a lot of energy, but after I do something mild or light-weight, I have to sit down and rest.  I'm tired of being on my butt most of the day.  Plus I have to get in condition for the dragon boat festival in August, right?!

I have never, ever been one to do hard core work outs.  Me, I like to walk (FYI...I typed "talk" the first time--some kind of Freudian typo!) for exercise.  I haven't done any significant walking since even before my surgery, so I need to ease back into it.

It always strikes me as stupid for me to drive to Douglas or Pine Island to get on the Douglas Trail when I have a perfectly good gravel road in front of my house, not to mention a sizeable yard and driveway.  I figured I could start there.  

I fired up my pedometer app on my phone and hoofed it around the yard enough to wrack up 4/10 of a mile.  I know how I can bump that up to an even half a mile just for easy figuring.  I figure if I do that a few times a day for a few days, I can slowly increase it to a mile each time out, right?  That's not unrealistic, is it??  I hope not. 

Anyway, I just want to give a shout out to all of our friends and family for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.  It is VERY much appreciated!

Blessings, my friends!

Deja Vu All Over Again

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I don't know if any of you remember that little episode in Brogan World about 9 years ago when I had this little cancer thing and Captain had the hip deal.

And during his recovery he copped an attitude and I had a mental breakdown.

No?  That's okay, it was just a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things, right?  The cancer was gone, I had new big, beautiful boobs, Captain had a shiny new hip that didn't have a monkey wrench in the gear sprocket, i.e. massive bone spurs.  It was all good.

Done and dusted, right?

Well, sort of.  Before anyone hits the panic button, the cancer is NOT back, ease your minds there.  However, the universe decided I had apparently been entirely too vain about the bodacious ta-tas that I...in my own words...finally "earned" after lamenting about baby boobs my entire adult life.  

Don't even question if karma will come around and kick your butt, because she will.  

Last fall, I developed cellulitis in the right breast and ended up in the hospital for two days getting IV antibiotics just in case it was seeded in the implant.  Thankfully, it was not, and I was dismissed home on oral antibiotics to continue my life per usual.  

Then two weeks ago when I was sitting in the KTTC parking lot after my taped interview for Midwest Access, I noticed some swelling and warmth on that right breast again.  When I got home, I took out my black Sharpie and drew a dotted line around the circumference of what I perceived as redness.  

I sent Captain a text telling him to come home for lunch sooner than later, and I returned to work.  When Captain arrived for lunch I flashed him, and he told me to get on the phone and get an appointment becuase that redness wasn't just my imagination and it was now outside the line I had drawn.  

Joy and rapture. 

I was able to secure an appointment that afternoon where the doctor confirmed a cellulititis, and hey...this time there was stuff oozing out of the incision line that needed to be cultured, and I needed a stat ultrasound the next morning to assess for an abcess.  In the meantime, I was to start two different oral antibiotics to start treating the cellulitis.

Oh goody.

I went to the ultrasound the next morning which, thank God, did not show any sort of abcess that needed incision and drainage.  Recommendations were to continue the oral antibiotics and to watch out for increased redness, tenderness, warmth, drainage or fever. 

By suppertime that night, I was running a fever, so we packed ourselves off to the emergency room.  They registered me, took blood, put in an IV, and we sat in the waiting room for H-O-U-R-S!  When we finally got called back to an exam room and talked to all the people and got poked and prodded some more, it was determined that because the cellulitis had recurred within six months in the same breast/implant, the best rcommendation was to have the implant removed.

I sort of figured that was coming and was in 100% agreement.  I told myself and Captain that I could totally rock the uniboob lifestyle.  So for the second time in my life I got an ambulance ride from St. Mary's to Methodist Hospital to be admitted for IV antibiotics as well as surgery.  

I was holding up, honest I was.  I was my usually chirpy, goofball self.  God had my back, I had the best surgical care in the world, and there were a lot of people WAY worse off than I was.  It was all good.  

Until. 

Why is there always an "until" when all of our best laid plans getted knocked to hell and back?

Until the surgeon said that for a whole bunch of reasons, I would need to have both implants removed during the surgery and have what they call a flat closure.  That means no boobs.  None.  

I have never in my life even approached being a girly girl or being all that vain about my looks.  I never wear make up, I don't dress stylishly unless I get hand me downs from Gammy, and I insist on a low maintenance hairstyle because I just don't care that much.  

Given that history, I shocked myself by having a great big sobfest after the surgeon left because once the surgery was over, I wuldn't look "right" anymore.  Then that little self-pitying worm worked it's way into my brain, "this is what you get for being so vain about your implants.  They were becoming too important, so you need to have them taken away."   

I knew it was stupid, and even if I hadn't realized that, my sister by heart told me in no uncertain terms that it was the stupidiest thing she'd heard me say.  

But there it was.  So all I could do was pray over and over and over and over, "Please God, don't let me  be a whiner.  Don't let me be a whiner."  

And He hasn't.  Much.  I've been bucking Him on that a little bit.  

Anyway, the surgery went very well, and I am recovering as expected.  I am off through the middle of July to let it all heal up.  

In the meantime, Captain had an MRI of his right knee which has been bothering him since we got that last big snowfall this spring.  Turns out he has a torn meniscus, a partial fracture of the kneecap, an effusion, and a Baker cyst.  This will all require surgery.  

Here's the deja vu part.  The last time I was postoperative from major surgery and Captain was recovering from major surgery, it did not go well.  I was mean to him without realizing it, and I wasn't very nice to myself either, to be honest.  But at the time, I didn't realize that a major depressive episode, i.e. nervous breakdown, was fairly common after major surgery so I didn't recognize any of the signs.  

My hope and prayer is, and please join me in those prayers, is that this time around there will be enough time between my surgery and Captain's surgery as well as enough self-awareness going on that should we start sliding toward that scenario again, we can head it off and avoid the worst of it.  

Please God, don't let me be a whiner and don't let me be mean to my husband.

Blessings, my friends!!