I have to say my favorite part of getting home was seeing Mady again for the first time in two months. That poor dog. When I first went into the hospital (which I don't even remember), Jon didn't really know what was going on or happening or going to happen. We didn't make any plans for Madison. He just threw me in the car and sped to the ER. It wasn't until sometime Sunday afternoon when someone (I think my sister) went to my apartment and picked her up to take her to my Aunt Mary's where she'd eventually stay for the next few months until I got out of the hospital.
While my parents drove me home from the hospital, Jon went over to pick up Mady and bring her home. I got set up on the couch with a hundred pillows covering my legs and abdomen to prevent her from jumping on me and hurting all my wounds. They opened the door and she ran to me. She jumped up ever so gently and kissed my face about a zillion times. Mama and baby. I missed her sooo much while I was in the hospital and will be forever grateful to my Aunt Mary, Uncle Bob, cousins Alexa, Megan, Rob, and Sam for taking her in and treating her as if she were their own, without question or even being asked. What a blessing.
The next few weeks went by as best they could. I was in constant debilitating pain, but I was on some pretty strong meds. A nurse came to the house twice a week to check my wounds and get me what I needed in terms of supplies. My favorite physical therapist ever (Kim) came 3 times a week for therapy. Mom was there all day, taking me to appointment after appointment, helping me secure short term disability (I had been off work unpaid for 60 days then), trying to get me to eat, running errands to keep me comfortable. She was an absolute angel. Getting short term disability was no easy feat. In fact, it was hell. I can't tell you the number of hours she sat on the phone and the number of people she called to make sure I had that set up. They sure don't make that process easy. At some point, I got fed up and wanted to take a picture of my cut up body to show them what exactly they were going to be paying for. Geez.
When Jon got off work, he'd come over and my mom would be off duty. Jon would handle feeding me dinner (I never, ever wanted to eat ANYTHING) and I lost a ton of weight. I completely lost my appetite and it wasn't until a few months later that I felt like eating again. He'd help me at night until I fell asleep and then go back to his parents in Joliet. My poor husband (fiancé at the time) literally worked 12 hour days, spent a few hours with me, then had an hour drive home only to do it all over again the next day. I'm a lucky girl.
A few weeks after I got home, the nightmares started. Remember this post? Sleeping became next to impossible. I constantly had this dream that I was right about to die....and I knew I was in a dream, so I'd try to wake up...but I couldn't. And then I'd think I was awake only to realize I was still in the dream and closer to death and couldn't wake up. Dr. M asked me about my dreams a few weeks after I was discharged and I told him about this nightmare. He says it's common for people who almost die or go into cardiac arrest and are revived to have that dream. He believes it's a flashback and not necessarily a nightmare. Pretty crazy.
My knee was a major problem then (and still is one of my biggest obstacles to recovery now). When I first went into surgery, the ortho surgeon had scoped my knee several times to see if the infection had spread to it. At one point, she told us it hadn't, but at another time, she told us it had. I read my medical records and it looks like they did aspirate infected fluid from the knee, so apparently it HAD spread to my knee. Anyways, shortly before I left the hospital, when I really started hardcore physical therapy, my knee and leg swelled up pretty bad. At first they were concerned I had a DVT (deep vein thrombosis or blood clot) so I had a doppler scan of the leg, and it was found that I didn't have a clot...thank God. They couldn't figure out why it was so swollen. They decided it was likely that the lymphatic system had been damaged with all the surgeries to the leg, and that I'd probably always have a problem with swelling in the leg. GREAT. Just want I wanted to freakin hear.
I could only bend my knee about 30 degrees (with assistance) when I first started therapy at home. God blessed us with an amazing therapist. Just another example of God being in charge of this whole BIG. My therapist also happened to be a licensed lymphedema massage therapist. When she saw my leg and knee, she was smart enough to realize right away that it was lymphedema and begin a massage regimen for the leg that helped HUGE. To this day, I still have swelling, especially when I work my leg too hard or have a rough day of PT, but it is so much better than it was initially. She really saved that leg.
It was about that time that I went to see the ortho surgeon that had initially operated on the leg/knee was the doctor I told you about here. Dr. G and Dr. M wanted me to see an ortho about the knee just to make sure everything was okay. They were concerned that she had damaged the knee when she was scoping for the infection. My PT thought the same thing. The ortho doctor was the doctor who told me I should forget ever running again, because it aint gonna happen. Oh really? I guess she didn't know I ran (okay, limp/ran) a 5K two weeks ago. I have now mastered my limp into a sort of run that I call limp/run. When I walk for short distances and if I'm holding onto something like a walker or the treadmill, I don't have a limp...usually. But if I walk fast, for a longer distance that about 10-15 minutes, or try to run, I limp. I'm hoping that eventually the limp/run will turn into a real run. But that's far ahead in the story....we'll get to that eventually.
Soon, too soon, it became time for my mom to go back to Virginia. I was at the point then that I drive very short distances and I had my grandma and grandpa five minutes away who were begging to help more and would've driven me anywhere I needed to go. My mom had been away from work at the point for 3 months. Praise God for her work for letting her do that. To Reston Montessori School, if you're reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was so necessary for my mom to be there with me during that time, and because of you, that was able to happen.
The day my mom left was the scariest day of recovery yet. And there were even scarier days to come. the next post is going to be extremely hard for me to write. And it took me a long time to decide if I should write it or not. But I'm going to. I owe it to you to tell you just how bad it got. This Mary Oliver quote inspired me to tell these most raw & painful parts of my story. Because it's my truth. And if we aren't truth-tellers, what are we?
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