Free...kinda

So I went to the doctor today and I can officially be out of the boot cast for good. I'm not starting physical therapy yet, at least for a few more weeks. The doc says he wants to give it some more time, at least another month. The downside to that is that in a little over a month I start grad school and will not be her in Idaho Monday through Wednesday. Also on the upside I am cleared to run on the ambulance again starting August 1st and I am super excited about that although he did say that he doesn't want me to play basketball for a few more months. I was very dissapointed about that since I was hoping to be able to go play today. :( Oh well I guess that's life, we take what we can get.

Ethan is the big 5

So I just wanted to give a little shout out to my nephew Ethan who turned 5 today. He is one of the coolest kids I know. He is super smart and always wants to learn. He is an awesome big brother to his two little sisters and is really good about letting Abby play with him. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN, You are a stud!!!!

Surgery Update

It's been a while since I posted so I will play catch up here for a minute. Quick update on the surgery. I spent two weeks in a hard cast that kept my foot turned at a bit of an angle to make sure that the tendons healed together the way they were supposed to. I spent 5 weeks on crutches totally non weight bearing....okay for those of you who know me well you all know I started cheating after about 4 weeks. :) It's okay though cause when I went into the doctor he asked if I cheated and when I told him I had he just laughed and said that he kind of expected I would. Anyway 2 1/2 weeks ago I got the go ahead to ditch the crutches and just walk in the boot cast that I got after I got the cast off. I struggled for a couple of days learning to walk and not fall on my face, which I only did once by the way. So in another 10 days I should be getting the boot cast off and then I get to start physical therapy. I'm excited to get back to normal, but I'm not so sure how I feel about starting the physical therapy. Here are some sweet pics from my surgery. This one is the cast I wore for two weeks.

And this is the scar on my ankle. It was way cooler than I thought it was going to be. :) I did have a little necrosis at the top, where the skin died but it healed together nicely anyway.

My awesome Family

So I have to say that my family is totally the best family ever! They are totally awesome and have been so willing to help me out with things since my surgery. My parents totally took care of me for the first week and were very cool about letting me take as much time off work as I needed. They have also been patient with me since I am not yet back to my full hours, but hopefully will be as soon as I can get this boot off my foot. My mom also gave up an entire Saturday to come and help me week my backyard. It hasn't been weeded in like the whole two years that I have lived here because I hate weeding. Anyway we also had to trim the bushes and pull and dig out these weeds that were like two feet tall. She figured it wouldn't take very long but it took like 7 hours. That was with me, my mom, my dad, and these three random college students who took pity on us and came to help. My dad came for a while and then brought back his trailer which we filled almost completely full with all the weeds, branches, and crap that we took out of my backyard which is really small. My brothers Andy and Mark also came over for a little while during this endevour and trimmed the bushes cause I had no clue what I was doing. My little brother Paul and his wife Mandy were awesome about picking me up and taking me places right after my surgery and I was on drugs so driving would have been dangerous. They took me grocery shopping for food and took me to the movies to help entertain me. I'm really glad that they are always around and willing to let me hang out with them. My sister in law Raygon came over one night to help me avert a crisis with my garbage disposal that wouldn't work. I didn't have a key so she brought the one from their house and helped me get my garbage disposal working and then she mowed my lawn cause it had been like almost a month since it had been mowed. And this was at like 8:00 at night when she had been on her way to work cleaning our Partial Care building. She is totally amazing. Here is a picture of her mowing my lawn in the dark, it's kinda hard to see but you get the idea. Look at how long my grass was, it was sad.

Raygon is not the only one to have mowed my lawn since my surgery, Maegan also came over. She was finally able to convince me to accept some help at cleaning my house. I have a hard time letting other people clean my house and so it didn't get cleaned for over a month. Megs was awesome to do it and I totally owe her big time. Here's a picture of Maegan mowing my lawn.

Ethan, Abby, and Whitney came to hang out with me while Maegan cleaned my house. On a side note she wouldn't let me help her clean much, everytime I tried she would have me hold Whitney or play with Ethan and Abby. So here are Ethan and Abby riding scooters on the road by my house, since I live on a dead end street they could play in the road without worrying too much about cars.

After Maegan mowed the lawn we let Ethan and Abby run around in the sprinklers since they were so good.

And since we didn't have swim suits they ran in the sprinklers in their clothes so we had to throw all their clothes in the dryer so I got some of my shorts for the kids to wear until their clothes were dry. I think they were a little too big.

Whitney was such a babe through this whole thing.

So yea my family is awesome and I am totally thankful to them, cause I would not have made it through the past couple of months without them.

Grown up Life!

So I remember being so excited to move out of my parents house and into my first home. I kept thinking "Man this is great, my own place!" Then the bills that I somehow did not realize would be coming started to come. Still, no big deal I could handle it. Then the decisions what do I make for dinner, how fast of an internet connection do I want, what kind of cable should I get, should I get cable, and on and on. Still, I was excited to be on my own and deal with things like an adult. Lately the decisions seem to just get bigger. I have so many decisions and now so many financial things coming up at once. I have to pay for my surgery, for grad school, continue to pay the mortgage, the car payment, and the bills. Things just seem to get more and more complicated. Sometimes I just wish I had stayed at home, although I am sure that my parents would have kicked me out by now, but that security of living at home and knowing that you did not have to make any of the big decisions or deal with any of the problems was so nice. I've decided that some days it just SUCKS to be a grown up and have to deal with everything that happens.

Surgery

So I had surgery yesterday on my right leg. I went in to have my meniscus in my knee fixed and to tighten up the ligaments in my ankle, all damage from a car accident I was in 6 months ago. It turns out that my meniscus wasn't torn, but I had some bone spurs type things under my knee cap that were aggrivating the cartilage and causing fluid to build up in my knee. So fortunately after about two weeks I will get the stitches out of my knee and it will be much better. My ankle on the other hand did still have to be fixed and I now have a cast on my ankle for a while. I go in to see the doctor in a week and a half and will then find out what is happening there. But let me tell you about my surgery.
I was told to be there at 930 for my 1000 surgery, so I arrive on time and was taken to my room where I had to put on the fun gown. Any of you who have ever had to put one of these on know what I am talking about, the worst part is that the person who was occupying the other bed in my room was gone to surgery, but her husband was in there. He left for a while, but came back cause he didn't have anywhere else to be. So those who know me know how awkward it was for me to be sitting there with this little thin gown on and nothing else while he was in there room. Anyway so this guy was gone for about an hour and a half and comes back in to tell us that we may be waiting a while, we had already be waiting an hour from when the surgery was supposed to have started. He tells us his wife's surgery was supposed to start at 730 but she didn't go in until almost 930 and it was only supposed to be 45 minutes and she had been in there and hour and half already. So we waited and waited and waited and at about 1:00 they finally came and got me. I got my meds right before I left the room so I actually remember everything from this surgery. I remember going into the operating room moving to the table, joking around with the nurses, and then talking to the anesthesiologist about how annoying verizon wireless customer service was because he was talking to them when he came in. Then I got the meds and was out. I woke up about 3 hours later in recovery and was struggling a bit to wake up, but the lady in the bed next to me made me realize that I needed to get out of there quick cause she was whinning and moaning and just being annoying. I realize that she had just had surgery, but so had I and I was being quiet. Anyway so after about 30 minutes in recovery they took me back to my room where I slept on and off for about 2 hours and then they decided that I needed to eat something so I could take some pain meds although I told them I didn't need any. By this time it was about 630 pm and I was just ready to go home. So I gave in and they brought me some toast. I took about 3 bites of toast and felt like I was going to throw up. I was hot and dizzy and nauseous and couldn't figure out why. Well the nurse said I had to get better before they would release me to go home. So I slept and tried to feel better, but the headache and everything just got worse. They told me this was all probably due to the anesthesia, but I had never had a problem with it before. I finally convinced them all that I felt better and got ready to leave and when I could see I saw that the thermostat was set at 76. Now I hate the heat and tend to get migraines when it gets too hot. My house is set at 60-65 in the Summer and 68 in the Winter so 76 was way too hot for me and apparently that is why I was so sick. Well Mom decided that since I got so sick she didn't want me to stay at my house by myself so she took me to her house, which was a good thing cause I did need a lot of help last night cause moving around on crutches when you are dizzy is not a safe thing. I felt kinda bad cause I couldn't do anything myself so I had to keep asking mom and dad to help. I couldn't even get off the couch without help cause their foot rest things that come up don't go back down and stay put without a lot of force which I just couldn't muster with just one leg, so everytime I needed to go to the bathroom I had to have one of them come in and hold the foot rest down while I got up. I kept them up until almost midnight just getting me settled and getting all of their stuff that they usually do done cause they had to put it all of to help me. So this morning mom dropped me off at my house on her way to work and I am doing pretty well. My headache is finally almost gone and my leg had stopped aching, thank you Hydrocodone. So anyway this is my surgery experience. I am currently heavily medicated so if some of this does not make sense then I am sorry.

Grad School

Look at me go, two posts in one week. You guys should feel special. I just wanted to post that I got accepted to the Utah State University Master's in Social Work program. Apparently that awesome score I got on my MAT test worked out for me. YEA!!!!! And it will only take me two years of living in Utah half of the week and then living in Idaho half of the week. I will be in Utah Monday morning through Wednesday night going to class and then I will spend Thursday, Friday, and possibly Saturday doing my 15 hours of practicum and trying to make some money working with kids. I will also be working a few shifts at the fire station when I am in town, hopefully, cause those who know me well know that I can not go long without my Fire Station fix.