We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Blog

*I will resume my Paleo posts tomorrow. But let's just say I didn't exactly follow a Paleo diet during marathon weekend!*

This is Mavis. She is the one responsible for orchestrating my crazy last-second trip to run the Tacoma City Marathon without even a step of training (I haven't run more than 3 miles in 8 months. And the number of times I ran that distance was less than the miles themselves.  Like I said, no training!). Of course in my attempt to blame her for the pain and misery I'm feeling the day after said marathon, she is quick to remind me I'm the one who agreed to do it. Fair enough.

So while Mavis was the mastermind, she's not what this post is about. It's about the kid wearing this pack:

This is Nick. Nick is a 20-yr-old soldier in the army, stationed at Fort Lewis. It was hard to miss a soldier in full uniform toting a massive pack among scantily dressed runners. And while we started together, he left us in his dust from his very first step. That gave us the opportunity to vocalize how cool we thought he was for doing what he was doing, and to speculate as we jogged the first couple of miles about how much his pack weighed, how fast we thought he'd finish, and if he ran these ridiculous races often. When we caught up to him a few miles later, we struck up a conversation and got answers to all of our questions.

His pack was 50lbs, his goal was to finish the marathon in 5 hours, 30 minutes, and although he ran cross-country in high school and track in college, he had never gone more than 12 miles before.

Mavis promptly declared our new goal was to finish with him in 5 hours and 30 minutes. Um, what? I had agreed to walk this crazy race with her only when she assured me we'd be WALKING the entire thing. And not quickly either. Our original goal was to finish in 7 hours. I wasn't doing this marathon for time. I wasn't crazy enough to think my body would tolerate running for 26 miles straight without a lick of training. I suspected that if I was being chased by robbers and feared for my life, the muscle memory from my former running days could probably carry me 13 miles, but never 26. And certainly not at a 12 minute mile pace.

"Um, Mavis. Did you not hear that part about how he ran for a college team? As in, he is such a good runner that they paid him to run for them? And we are totally NOT runners. Have you lost your mind?"

She clearly had, but she had put her mind to it. It was happening and I needed to get on board.

I joked about maybe putting an extra 10 pounds in his pack at each mile marker to slow him down, or lining up cheeseburgers along the route to distract him. I even mentioned the possibility of tripping him so he'd sprain an ankle and then MAYBE I could keep up with him. Clearly I was joking. Clearly the karma Gods don't have a sense of humor.

We fell into a pretty good rhythm. My muscles aren't conditioned to speed walk (if we're being honest, they're not conditioned for much these days), but that's how Mavis preferred to do the race. So I jogged VERY slowly at a consistent pace, while Mavis speed walked & then jogged at a faster pace. Nick chose the slow walk for a bit combined with a full on sprint every few blocks. Oddly enough, as differently as we were proceeding along the course, we always ended up right next to each other time and time again. Our individual paces were consistent until karma came calling.

It was right before mile 10 and the course was winding through a residential neighborhood. On and off sidewalks. Up and down curbs. I took a step wrong coming down off one of those curbs, caught the edge of my shoe, heard a pop and immediately felt pain shoot up my leg. Because I had sprained/broken this particular ankle more times than I have fingers to count on, I was familiar with the pain. I knew it wasn't sprained, but suspected I had just pulled some of the scar tissue that currently holds that ankle together. It was starting to swell a little in my shoe, but not ballooning up like it has in the past. I could put weight on it, but not without feeling like I had nails running through my veins, up my leg.

But I was determined. I was there to finish a marathon and that's what I intended to do. I slowed my pace. So slow in fact that when Mavis finished up her walking leg and started her running leg, I never caught her again. Lucky for me (but unlucky for him) we had befriended that soldier carrying a 50lb pack. And that pack was growing increasingly heavy as the miles dragged on.

Nick was in pain. I was in pain. And the next 10 miles were spent talking about everything and anything to distract us from that pain. We talked about his desire to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan instead of his impending deployment to the Philippines. We talked about his little sisters and my daughters and gun control and how to maintain a good marriage. We talked about ducks and alcoholic college freshman and criminal justice careers and roller coasters and everything in between.

And every time I wanted to complain about the pain, I looked over at Nick and his 50lb pack and shut my mouth. Every time I wanted to plop down on the side of the road and refuse to go on, a runner would pass us, pause to shake his hand and thank him for his service, or the spectators lining the streets would start to cheer for him. The inadvertent support fueled me. I never stopped. Not even once.

At mile 20 he stopped to change from one pair of boots to another. Because I was certain my ankle was slowing both of us down, I told him I'd walk at my miserably slow pace up ahead a bit and he should catch me in a few blocks. Well the blocks turned into miles. No sign of him. I was alone with my thoughts and my body began to physically and emotionally fail me.

Every step became progressively harder than the last. The pain in my ankle was getting so severe that I almost hurled my Cliff bar. Without my camo-covered cheerleader, I began to curse every inch of that course. I called my husband and he did his best to pep-talk me from a different state. I hung up resolved to finish, but unsure of how.

Then Nick tapped me on my shoulder. "I finally made it back."

"Bout time," I said. "This race sucks alone." I had never been more happy to see a stranger.

Nick commiserated when I complained, but he didn't really dwell on how much he was hurting. And when I started to, we'd change the subject and the new conversation would almost make me forget how miserable I was. My ankle started giving out when we had 1 mile left and kept buckling under me. So we launched into a one mile tirade about every last food we'd like to devour when we crossed the finish line. Cinnamon rolls. Pasta. Cheeseburgers. Strawberry milkshakes.

And then suddenly, we were crossing that finish line.

I'll probably never see Nick again. After a brief lunch consisting of some of the items on our must-have list from the previous mile, we parted ways. But I'm so grateful to him for what he did for me that day. Not only did he push me to finish that brutal race, he was a reminder that there are great people all around us. Kind people. Courageous people. Exceptional people. I was lucky enough to rub shoulders with one for almost 26.2 miles.

Begin Again

Sometimes your life pauses and another life, an unplanned life, takes over. You live it because you have no choice. Nothing you can do changes your circumstances, so you submit to a temporary life not of your choosing.

And then, you are granted the opportunity to return to your life and begin again. Funny though, that life is not as you left it. Your perspective has shifted and nothing looks the same. Your priorities are different, better. You vow to keep them that way, live a slower more meaningful life.

And all that is fine and good. You've got your mental and emotional state under control. What is not under control is your physical state, because you blinked and your health went to hell. It's a beast like that when unattended to.

This is what I ate for lunch. Guacamole-lined lettuce wraps and an orange. It was delicious and reminded me how much I love real food. So back to the daily grind: Paleo and exercise. Because both make me happy.

But it's hard to reset and undo months worth of damage a sedentary lifestyle full of sugar and crap and sugary crap causes. So I'm making an accountability promise. Not so much for you (although you're welcome to be a fly on my kitchen wall), but for me. I'm going to post a picture of one Paleo meal a day on this here bloggity blog for the next 30 days. That's 30 tasty Paleo meals in all their Kodak glory. Yum.

Here's the disclaimer: I'm no Ansel Adams. Pics will be snapped with my iPhone and unedited and ugly. But they'll be posted nonetheless. I'm also not a Paleo Nazi. I eat bacon, the occasional hard cheese and a legume or two. It works for me and so I roll with it.

30 days. Bring it.

Mirror Image

I was helping Claire try on clothes in a dressing room the other day. She had just taken off her shirt after trying on a pair of shorts she adored that refused to button no matter how much we wrestled with them, when she turned to face herself in the mirror, critically eyeing her reflection. She pointed to her stomach and very matter-of-factly said, "My tummy is really fat."

I froze.

Claire is 6. Claire still likes Dora even though her older sister tells her daily how uncool she is. Claire loves cooking eggs by herself, trying to stick the landing on her recently learned trampoline front flip and painting pictures of colorful flowers for everyone she knows. She is a happy child. She has always marched to the beat of her own drum. She has never cared one smidge about the opinions of others. I wanted to bottle her confidence and pass it around to every insecure person I knew. 

And man have I been grateful for that confidence, because Claire is bigger than almost everyone in her 1st grade class. She's in the 98th percentile for height and the 100th percentile for weight. And while she is proportionate enough to keep her doctor unconcerned, I knew the day would come when she looked around and realized she was different from her itty bitty classmates. I had just hoped it wouldn't be so soon. I had silently begged the world not to poke holes in her belief that she was simply awesome exactly as she was.

My mind was spinning. Was she making a simple observation? Was she regurgitating what a classmate had said to her? Was it a simple remark that should be left alone? Would talking about it unearth something best left unsaid until she was older? Would I say all the wrong things and make her suddenly aware she was different when she had yet to truly realize that?

She repeated herself.

I positioned myself behind her in the mirror and pointed to her eyes. "You see those eyes? Those are the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen. Mommy & Daddy love those eyes."

I pinched her cherub cheeks. "See these rosy cheeks. They are the most beautiful cheeks I've ever seen. Mommy and Daddy love those cheeks."

I repeated this over and over. Her golden hair. Her perfectly shaped ears. Her stubby little toes. Again and again and again until I had covered every inch of her body. She was giggling but I couldn't gulp my tears back. I was so afraid that my spunky little tow-headed child might not believe my words.

I turned her around to face me and got down on her level. I cupped her chubby face in my palms and said something along the lines of, "When you were in my tummy, Daddy and I used to guess what you would look like. We wondered if you'd be tall or if you'd look like Cora. We wondered if you'd have long fingers like Mommy or dark hair like Daddy or dimples or crazy eyebrows. But the first time I got to hold you after you were born I knew that you were more perfect than we ever could have imagined. Every little part of you make up the Clairebear that we love. And sometimes you might look in the mirror and wish your belly looked different or your arms were different, but always remember that you are strong and you are smart and you are healthy and we think every last bit of you is awesome."

Claire looked at me like I had lost my mind, giggled again and threw a shirt over that controversial belly. I exhaled, grabbed my purse and, holding Claire's hand, walked out of the store, out into the world. The very world that may someday beat down my child. Crush her self esteem. The very world that may one day make her question every last word spoken in the security of that dressing room filled with Mom praise. Kids can say harsh things. The world can be so cruel.

Were my words enough? Will she remember them when their meaning holds so much more importance? Or will they not matter as she beats herself up for her imperfections?

This is when parenting is the hardest. The unknowns. I don't know how this turns out. All I can do is keep repeating myself so she will know this: that her mom loves every inch of her. Cause I won't stop saying it. Even after she realizes Dora is an annoying, half-pint, I'll say it. And when she starts to long for boy cooties instead of shun them, I'll say it. And when she stops fighting the daily hair-brushing ritual and spends hours locked in the bathroom with a curling iron and some Maybelline, I'll say it. And when she gets her heart broken, I'll say it. And when she doesn't, I'll say it. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. And then, I'll say it again.

And maybe then it will be enough. Maybe then she'll believe that a fat/thin/round/slim belly doesn't define her. And that every last bit of her is awesome.

Have You Ever Seen a Llama, Eating Their Pajamas?

While the picture is fuzzy so it makes it hard to see the actual break in the bones, check out the reduction in swelling in only 3 weeks!! I'd say that's some pretty fab progress!

Pre-accident, we had a nightly routine that was so important to our children, we could get them to obey simply by threatening to take away "tuck-in privileges." It included the norms: pj's on, teeth brushed, books read. And then all four of us would pile onto Cora's bed. We'd rotate story-telling duties, discuss our favorite part of our day and then all sing a bed-time song before a volley of hugs and kisses. I realize it sounds cheesy enough to wind up smack in the middle of the next Lifetime movie, but I know I share my entire family's sentiment when I say it was often the very best part of our day.

This week will mark 12 weeks since Mark's accident.  It will also mark 12 weeks since we've shared a family tuck in. In between hospital stays, when Mark was confined to a chair in the living room, I encouraged our girls to move the nightly ritual to him. They weren't having it. Sure they would shower him with hugs before they retired to their rooms to pretend to sleep, but family tuck in did not take place in the living room. Period. Enough about their lives had been changed, that was something they would not budge on.

Each night I would gather the girls in Cora's bed & try to play the roll of both parents. It was an act I had been perfecting over the last 3 months, but despising a little more each day. Mark cooks the bacon, not me. Mark rolls the trash out to the end of the driveway, not me. Mark tickles the girls while wrestling with them on the floor, not me. I'm capable of doing all of those things, but that has never been my role in our family or in our marriage. I'm not cut out to play the part of two.

So last night, when Mark slowly crutched his way into Cora's room to join us, I felt whole for the first time in weeks. The girls fought over who would tell the story. They fought over who would sit where. Then they fought over who got to pick the song. I didn't care. I snuggled up next to them, closed my eyes and felt normal.

Normal. We're getting there. The skin from his skin graft is healing and starting to pink up and look normal. Despite a 30 pound weight loss, Mark's appetite is returning to normal. The inflammatory indicators (used to measure the active infection in his body) are near normal. We are finally on a normal healing track.

But he has a long way to go. A really long way.

It's hard to remember that and keep that perspective until I see how much is still not normal. He is sick. Really sick. Some days are better than others, but for the most part his body is rejecting all of the drugs and he feels almost constant nausea. It's frustrating because the very thing helping him is also hurting him. He was on Zofran and they've switched him to Phenergan. That is providing some relief.

He still has tentacles (aka. a PICC line) and will have it for an extra week because his blood work is not yet normal (we've seen HUGE improvements though!!). Once he's completed his IV antibiotics they will switch him to oral antibiotics for 2-3 months. It is only after he's completed that round of drugs that we'll actually learn if they killed the infection, or just suppressed it. If the infection comes roaring back after he stops the antibiotics, they will perform surgery #5 and remove all of the metal from his leg. His surgeon will not release him to return to light-duty until after this process, so he has another 2-3 months at home.

While he has become much more mobile (although the punk is defying doctor's orders by leaving his wheelchair as much as he does!), he is still supposed to be wheelchair bound. He was fitted for a foot boot/brace that holds his foot flat since he currently can't and provides some great support, although it causes some additional swelling in the upper leg so he can't keep it on for extended periods of time. We will get new X-rays taken in one week and depending on how the bone is healing, he might be able to start physical therapy after the 1st of the year. The X-rays from 3 weeks ago did not show any significant bone healing, but did show some INCREDIBLE reduction in swelling (that's the image from above). The infection brought the bone healing to a virtual stand-still. His surgeon said it's basically like he just broke his leg last week in terms of healing! But now that they've got the infection under control, the hope is these next X-rays show some great improvement.

With the infection no longer top priority, there are two main areas of concern. The first is the bone graft. When synthetic material is grafted in place of bone, bone typically grows around the graft and forms solid, new bone. The infection stopped that from happening, so he still has the synthetic material acting as bone in the area right below his knee. Because of this, he still can't put pressure on his leg because it would crush the graft and we'd be back to square one. Again, the hope is the new X-rays will show huge improvements in this area.

The second, and most vital concern at this point is the nerve damage. Mark has little to no feeling from right below his knee all the way down to the top of the toes. He still is unable to lift his foot or even move his toes in an upward motion. When the Perineal nerve was crushed in the accident and then subsequently from the compartment syndrome, it's possible it caused irreversible damage. While we are very hopeful and Mark is bound and determined to defeat the odds, at his last appointment the surgeon said the chance of him regaining full function was only 20%. He also said Mark was looking at an additional year before we would even know the full extent of the damage. A full year before we would even know what the new normal looks like.

So for now I'll take the little bits of normal as they come and be grateful for an off-key version of "Down by the Bay" belted out during family tuck-in from the comfort of Cora's bed.

"You Is Kind"

Nurse Amber receives her supplies. 

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” - Henry James

Years ago, my older sister and I were discussing parenting. She had one son and I had two daughters and we had zero idea as to whether we were permanently damaging our kids as we waded through the tricky and uncharted waters of parenthood. It was during that discussion she said something so profound that it not only stuck with me to this day, but also prompted me to share it with my mommy friends.

"If I teach my son nothing else but to be kind to others, I've done enough. That is my one hope for him: that he is kind," she said.

Crazy sister, I thought. She obviously doesn't know what she's talking about because she only has one child and I, on the other hand, have two and therefore am an old pro and know how absurd that statement is. Kindness? Really? That's it. You don't want to teach him confidence or how to ride a bike? You don't want him to be wicked smart or strikingly handsome? You just hope he's kind? Silly sister.

No. Silly me.

If you teach your child to be kind and to treat others with kindness, they will in turn earn respect of teachers and peers alike. They will make quality friends, make good choices when placed in difficult situations and make you proud. They will be enjoyable to be around and most likely be very happy and content with their lives. Something as simple as kindness packs a powerful punch.

Never has that been more apparent in my life than over the last 5ish weeks. I want to track down all of the mothers and fathers of every single person that has shown us incredible kindness lately and personally thank them. Job well done, I want to say. You taught your children to be kind, and because of them and only because of them, we are surviving an extremely dark time in our lives.

Because if I'm being honest (and when am I not), life sucks right now (sorry mom for saying "sucks"). This silly little accident has morphed and grown and attacked our normal life on every level. And every time we think the storm has past, we are knocked right back down again. And each time it gets harder to get up.

While I admit to adopting a glass-half-empty mentality from time to time, pre-accident I would have considered myself a fairly positive person. But with every procedure, the surgeon would give us a best-case and a worst-case scenario. It has been worst-case. Every. Single. Time.

So before Mark was released from the hospital Saturday, I stepped out of his room to talk to his surgeon. Best-case scenario, which had been 2 weeks on home IV antibiotics, had already been shot to hell when we learned the infection he has was caused by a super bug and 2 weeks became 6 weeks which became 8 weeks. But then he spewed out one final crushing blow: worst-case scenario is that the super bug does not respond to the antibiotics over the next few weeks and they have to go back in & remove all of the plates, rods and screws. They would re-attach an external fixator and we would be back to square one.

It would be as if the last 5 weeks of pure hell Mark has had to endure would have all been for nothing.

He was crushed but trying to remain optimistic. But he knew and I knew that if history repeats itself, worst-case wins.

And so yesterday, after a particularly dark weekend, kindness came in droves and stomped all over those dark storm clouds. In a completely random and uncoordinated effort, we were shown kindness from a dozen different people in a dozen different ways. And the thing about kindness is that the act itself is often simple, but the impact it has on the recipient is immeasurable.

Moral of the story? My sister was right (don't let that go to your head, dear sister). It really is as simple as being kind.

Fourth Time's a Charm?

In the midst of a few of Mark's daily meds schedule, Cora reminds us to take a "daily dose of happines(s)!" I think I'll keep her.

Because this is not our first rodeo, I thought I knew what to expect. When 5 minutes into a routine appointment, we were told to head straight to pre-op in a "do not pass go, do not collect $200" fashion, I wasn't even phased. Sure it took a minute to handle the logistics and make sure our kidlets would have some form of supervision and a warm meal, but the fourth time around I was just going through the motions. Check in here. This form of ID needed here. Wait in pre-op. Wait in waiting room. Wait in recovery.

I knew the drill. And up until this surgery I also knew Mark's reaction:

They wheel him in a bit groggy. He moans in pain until they adjust his pain meds. Then he spends the next 8-10 hours in a state of semi-consciousness while I check facebook and dine on candy machine cuisine.

Not this time.

He was an angry elf from the second he appeared in the doorway. And he didn't care who knew it. The expletives started flying. Eff this hospital. This is a bunch of s@#$. Why the hell am I in so much pain? Who the eff is in charge around here? Why am I back in this GD place?

Wash your mouth out, rinse and repeat.

My first inclination after hearing my husband spew more curse words in 5 minutes than he had in the entire 13 years I've known him, was to scold him. "Pull yourself together." "Stop it with the negative attitude." "They're here to help you so stop being so mean." "We'll get through this just like we always have, so suck it up."

And when I was done freaking out over his reaction (which I'm told is common after sedation), I realized that I was absolutely in the wrong. Up to this point he had never gotten angry, although he had every right to be. Unlike me, he had never even thrown a pity party, although one would absolutely be justified. No, even as the infection set in and caused more pain than I could fathom, he spent his time apologizing for being a burden and making sure I knew how grateful he was for me. He tried to keep his moaning to a minimum at night when the pain was so severe he could hardly breath because he was worried I wasn't getting enough sleep.

He deserved an all out breakdown. He could have cussed out the Pope and been forgiven. So I stood back and bit my tongue, as he did just the opposite.

Now pre-accident I considered myself to have pretty thick skin. I'm an emotional creature, but I also have a lot of control over those emotions. I can keep them in check, and have been doing just that for the last 4 weeks. I did not want my husband or my children to see me crack. I needed them to know with unwavering certainty that everything was going to be okay. If they saw a basket case they would not believe that to be true. So I never let them see me cry.

But as the days turned into weeks, and our new reality became the norm, I began to crumble. And just as his infection spread and his pain increased over the last few days, so did my emotional instability. If you looked at me wrong, my lip would start to quiver and I'd have to excuse myself or turn away to hide the tears. I was an emotional wreck, and I couldn't do a thing about it.

So as I stood over his hospital bed watching him unleash what I assumed was weeks of pent up anger, there was something so therapeutic about it. I realized then how angry I was too, and that suppressed anger had started manifesting itself in the form of non-stop tears. And while crying is a much more universally accepted form of expression, I leaned over his hospital bed and told him to drop a few F-bombs for me.

For some reason I feel so much better now. And why wouldn't I? I'm not the one who will wake up with a sudsy sensation in my mouth.

(And now for all you crazies who have requested updated grotesque pictures, here are a few from our appt. on Monday when they changed his bandages.)

A great view of the skin graft site. You can also see the difference in the incisions. The one by his knee should look like the little one on his shin. But the one by his knee was the source of the infection and therefore not healing. That infection spread and attached itself to the metal in his leg, forcing this 4th surgery and subsequent hospital stay.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

The New Normal

Following a couple of really rocky days, Mark rebounded. We suspect the blood transfusion he received yesterday morning came from some super hyper cheerleader, because it put some serious pep in his step (not that he's stepping, but I digress). He had an awesome day yesterday, followed by an even better night last night, capped off by a stellar day today. That earned him a golden ticket home late this evening. We waved what we hope will be a permanent goodbye to the hospital and made our way home to begin the next phase of Mark's recovery.

We've been asked a lot of similar questions the last few days, so I'm using some more fun pictures to answer them:

The swelling has gone down a TON! The bandages surrounding his foot make it a bit hard to tell, but the foot's still a huge source of swelling. His foot is currently larger than his thigh. No joke. And when he's not in a tremendous amount of pain, I mock him for it endlessly.

They made a total of 5 new incisions during surgery, so his leg looks a bit like a bloody jigsaw puzzle. Luckily, a couple of the incisions were very small like the one you see to the left above that only required 4 staples to close it.

The hideous faciotomy will not ever be closed up. The skin graft will heal and eventually be a tad less likely to make small children cry. They did remove the staples from that incision during his surgery on Monday.

How many surgeons does it take to redress a leg? Well, 2 surgeons and a PA apparently. Because of the rareness of Mark's case, it's attracted a bit of attention at the hospital. We've had visits from  random doctors checking in on Mark to see how his healing is going.

Because they have essentially built an internal cast of rods, braces, and screws and because of the skin graft and faciotomy, they will not be putting a hard cast on his leg. This high-tech brace will remain on his leg for a few weeks/months, and then will eventually be replaced by a tall boot. The boot is not a walking cast, as he is not allowed to put any pressure whatsoever on his leg for about 3 months (he'll become fast friends with his wheelchair), but rather will act as a brace for his foot.

Because of nerve damage to the paroneal nerve associated with the break, he does not currently have the ability to hold his foot up or lift his toes back towards his face. That is obviously an essential part of walking, so if he never regains that nerve function (only time will tell if the damage is permanent), he will have to walk with a permanent brace.

Our hope is that with some extensive physical therapy (which he won't even start for another 3 months), he will make a complete recovery and only have some freaky Frankenstein scars to show for it!
We're currently trying to come up with a cooler story for how he received his scars. Shark attack is high on our list. Got any better ideas?

If I Ruled the World

 

Move over Romney & Obama, I'm ready to take charge. Health Care reform? Nah. Hospital Room reform? You betcha. (Yep, referencing 3 political figures and it's not even 10am. It's gonna be a wild Wednesday.)

Not sure if you've heard, but we're kinda hospital royalty around here. I walk the halls a few times a day, giving high-fives to the RNs, the OTs, the CNAs and the PTs. Hey Tom, how'd Mrs. Smith's hip replacement go? Was the magician the perfect touch for the twins' birthday party, Sally? Did that blind date like the restaurant we suggested, Adam?  While we've become fast friends with some of the nursing staff and permanent pen-pals with a few of the housekeepers, there are a few changes I'd make ASAP if I was in a position of power.

1. The decor: Pretty sure the hospital designer was color blind (or they neglected to hire a hospital designer. Note to President self: pass a fluff bill in order to add hospital designers as a pork-barrel spending item). Every room is gray with a side of beige, or tan with a sprinkling of cream. And while I get the "calming effect" of neutral colors, there's something to be said about the "happy effect" bright yellows and fuchsia have on people.

2. The beds: I'm not asking for Tempurpedic Clouds in every room, but those memory foam knock-offs from Costco are reasonably priced. They'd do wonders for the crick in my neck and the sharp pain in my back after suffering through a few nights on the cement-like cots.

3. The hospital gowns: If they are going to force men to wear booty-exposing dresses, at least man them up a bit. Throw a John Deer tractor on there or a few monster trucks. And for the ladies, perhaps something a bit more form fitting and less, well, hideous. Have they not heard of color blocking?

4. The food: Since we are paying cruise ship prices to stay at the Hotel St. Luke's, is it too much to demand cruise ship cuisine? I don't think a midnight Mexican buffet is out of the question. And a 24-hr ice cream bar should be a given.

5. The toilet paper: It's called Charmin people. This toilet paper snob would forfeit all other requests if they'd just get on board with the little white 3-ply, squares of heaven.

ps. Our patient has had it rough since his surgery. Lots of pain. Little rest. Throw in some numbness and extreme swelling, and the poor boy is wildly uncomfortable. But they are hoping a blood transfusion this morning will turn things around. And despite these depressingly drab walls, we're feeling optimistic.

The Road to Recovery Is Paved with Good Intentions

We checked into the hospital at 2pm. Here I sit typing this at 11pm and Mark is still in surgery. Remember what I mentioned a few posts back about patience (and how I don't have any). Well I'm getting a nice big helping of patience practice.

But slow is the pace of our lives now. Our schedules are clear. Our days vastly different than they were 3 weeks ago. Our calendar involves very little unless it relates to Mark's recovery. And it is only now, with 9 vacant hours to reflect, that I realize how insane my life has been these last few years. 

I thrived on packing every hour of every day. I could work, workout, volunteer, meet friends for lunch, attend a PTO meeting, drive the kids to cheer, make dinner, help kids with homework, work some more, clean the house (or not) and then head on out to date night all in one day. If I found a spare second, I would plug some other activity in it. It hurts my brain just remembering that life. That life was organized chaos (with less emphasis on the organized and more on the chaos). And it's a life that seems so foreign to me now.

And so 9+ hours of waiting doesn't much phase me anymore. Does it tie my stomach in knots? Sure. Have me pacing the floor with worry? Absolutely. But there's such a strange calm in our lives now (seems ironic to use that word given everything Mark's faced these last few weeks) that glitches during surgery don't freak me out like they once might have. His surgery tonight turned into a "marathon" surgery that involved a blood transfusion. Not exactly the smooth surgery we were hoping for, but the bones are getting fixed nonetheless! Here's a glimpse of their work in progress:

A good bit of hardware that every airport metal detector will love! It's hard to see, but on the bottom left hand image, they put a bone graft starting at the 3rd screw and coming up above the plate (you can see a grayish area on the right where it stops). All bones are reset and plated. All breaks screwed back together. All demolished bones rebuilt. All in all a very successful, albeit long, surgery.

And now the healing begins.

The Good, the Bad and the Extremely Ugly!

The Good:

-Amazing friends, family and friends that are like family. I have 48 people on my Thank You card list so far. 48 people! If you are one of those notes recipients, please forgive me if the handwriting is illegible after awhile and it looks like a 1st grader wrote them. (Note to self: have 1st grader write them)

-Said amazing people delivering amazing meals every single night since the accident (sometimes two meals show up on one night!), cleaning my house from top to bottom (and still speaking to me after scrubbing my toilets) and washing, drying and folding my laundry (yes, even my unmentionables).

-Make-shift ramps that allow us to take wheelchair walks, ahem, parades through the neighborhood and bask in the delicious sunshine. Give Mark a few more days & I'm sure he's going to be popping wheelchair wheelies.

-Fresh baked apple pie that is so pretty you don't want to eat it.

-Who am I kidding? Eating fresh baked apple pie. Twice.

-Good surgeons. Mark's surgeon is a master at skin grafts and an expert in Compartment Syndrome, but his specialty is hands. So he handed Mark's case over to another surgeon in his office that specializes in traumatic leg injuries. His new surgeon's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas when he saw Mark's X-rays. He briefed us on his surgical plan and really took the time to explain each step. He also explained in great detail the risks of rushing Mark's surgery that was supposed to be on Thursday.

And that brings us to...

The Bad:

-Compartment Syndrome. That's it. It's seriously the only thing on my list. But it's a beast. And it's seriously jacking everything up. Because of the C.S., the much anticipated Thursday surgery is now scheduled for Monday. There is still too much swelling to correct the actual break. Because the soft tissue and the muscles have been so traumatized, the surgeons are not only afraid they will not hold the hardware they will be installing as they build him a new leg, but also that we'll see Compartment Syndrome Round 2 if they proceed to soon. 

The Ugly:

I knew his injury was bad. Really bad. But I was shocked to see his X-rays next to the X-rays of a healthy male's leg bones. He is missing 2 inches of knee bone! And there are so many different breaks I stopped counting. I was blown away. Kinda like you're going to be when you see these cool/disgusting pictures of his leg (really depends on how morbid you are). Please stop reading now if you easily loose your lunch or are the slightest bit squeamish. Trust me.

The faciotomy incision. You can see how the skin graft-covered muscle is still bulging out of the side.

Another view of the faciotomy. I included this one because for some reason it looks like Mark has a strange frog-like tattoo on his upper thigh and that just makes me giggle. (For the record, he does not)

A view of the skin-graft transfer site. Gag. Gross. Icky.

One normal Mark leg and one ugly giant leg. We need the right leg to look a little more like the left leg.

Did it make you hurl?