Mark's Knee-The updated version

We went to the surgeon today and met with his P.A. Everything is fine and Mark can start the rehab phase now. Here are pictures of Mark's knees today after having the sutures removed. I really wished I had taken pictures after the injury but before surgery...his knee was gnarly!

New Car

So a few weeks back Mark was offered a full-time job, which meant we could no longer share and borrow occasionally from his folks. So we mutually agreed the time had come for us to purchase a second vehicle. Mark wanted to wait until this weekend, but I have to work the next three weekends. I convinced Mark to go looking last weekend, when I was off of work. We started at a used car sale at Cal Expo. There were a lot of nice cars, not in our price range and with far too many miles. We were not there more than 15-20 minutes, then we headed towards Fulton Ave. I used to live on Fulton Ave. and there are a lot of used car lots. We did not see anything that really grabbed us and as we approached the freeway Mark or his mom(who we brought along to distract car salesmen so we could shop hassle-free) suggested looking at Mel Rapton which was just on the other side of the freeway. We parked the car and set out in search of the used cars, I had barely started my looking when a salesmen caught me and asked me what I was looking for. I explained that we were looking for a much older Honda, with low miles, and I explained our budget. He said he had one to show me and led me off to a location across the lot. It was just what Mark had said we were looking for 5 minutes before arriving at the dealership-late 90's early 2000's, with 89,000 miles, for around $8,000. The car he showed me was a 1996 Honda Civic Lx with $89,000 miles. The color was adorable, it shines, only a few dings in the body, no scratches. The interior is spotless, the orignal floormats barely look used. There was one previous owner who very reguarly serviced the vehicle at Mel Rapton. We have an entire history of the car from purchase in 1997 on, every oil change, brake pad replacement etc. The car has extra perks that we were not even looking for. Mark took it for a test drive, but I was sold as soon as I saw it.

We went inside after the test drive and they learned all about us financially. A few hours later we emerged with a new car, knowledge of our credit scores, and we were below our budget.

If you are going to buy the number one most stolen vehicle in America then it is wise to invest in its safety. They very easily talked us into buying a very expensive alarm system.

The only flaw we have found so far is the stereo does not follow directions. You turn the dial to the left because you want it to be quieter but it gets louder, and when you turn it the opposite way and it gets even louder. The only option is usually to turn it off and try again.

Filopino Spaghetti

I work in a very culturally diverse establishment and have been privileged to try many a splendid cuisine. Over the years on my unit I have developed favorite foods and disliked one's too. I did not think I talked about it much, but apparently someone remembered that I liked Filipino Spaghetti and brought me a pyrex dish of it tonight. I am not sure if they prepared it especially for me, or if they made it for dinner and thought enough of me to bring in the leftovers for me. How did they know I was working tonight? Either way I was touched that someone thought of me!

I was so touched that I went home after work and forgot to take it with me. So an hour or so after getting home I crawled back to work to retrieve the yummy dinner dessert. I came home and devoured half the dish.

Thank You A and R!

It's "THE" desk, not "mine" or "your" desk

So today was day two back to work after my two week homework/take care of Mark vacation. And the first thing I noticed when I arrived at my desk was a photo of an infant. Now my desk is not exclusively mine, I share it with two other secretary's and occasionally nurses but in my four years in that capacity no one has ever tried to "personalize" OUR communal work space, and to be honest it bothered me. My quickest reaction was to put a post-it note over the place where the child's face appeared. When I went on my lunch break someone jotted down notes on the post-it note, but did not move it from where it sat. And when I left "the" desk that we share for the night the post-it note remained.

I understand why my co-worker placed the photo there, because she misses her baby when she is away from him. But take the photo with you, put it in your mailbox and put it back out when you work again. People that work in offices or cubbicles have pictures of their families or Dilbert comics out for people to see. But in my line of employment there just is not enough space for such a thing. When we have important pictures to show off we share them in the break room in photo albums or tape the pictures to the inside of our lockers.

I know my reasons are purely selfish, but I am at work to WORK and not be distracted by this baby staring up at me.

Sleep

Well for awhile I was not sleeping well, maybe two months ago and it bothered me. And then I broke the funk and started sleeping ALOT(10-14hours/day), and became hard to wake, and found it very difficult to stay awake! But now in the past three weeks I have noticed that my sleep pattern sucks! For a week or so it was due to Mark's pain and needs. And then it was due to my insane homework load, but this week...well I have no excuse except for...going back to work? Another thing is once again I am not sleeping soundly and very un-Meg like have been waking up at 8am the last few mornings (weird).

My alarm has already been set for 9am tomorrow, but here I sit at 2am....and I am totally not prepared for bed.....grrr!

I hope my sleep routine normalizes soon!

Normalcy

At first when I saw this I thought "that's not bad at all" but then I remembered that they transplanted someone else's tissue into him to form an Anterior Cruciate Ligament. And pain comes from the inside being tampered with.

My patient resting after surgery...

So we are just hours short of the One-week-a-versary of Mark's Surgery. We/I have been anxiously awaiting this milestone. On Saturday, December 13, 2008 I was just about to get off of work when Mark called. It was really odd because I was almost off, he knew I would be home soon. When I answered I said "what's up?" (very suspiciously) He replied that he was coming(to the hospital) to visit and started chuckling. I thought he was kidding at first because I was just about to get off work and that would just be silly. But then it occurred to me that he had a soccer game that night and I immediately barked "What did you do?" And he explained that he got hurt and was on his way to the hospital. So I explained to my charge nurse that I needed to leave and headed to find a wheelchair and meet him outside ED. I got outside just as his parents were driving up with him. I loaded him up, I think/hope I thanked his parents for bringing him and headed into the ED with him. They took us right in, the doctor manipulated his right leg (which is what was hurting) and didn't believe there to be a fracture. The hospital sent us home with a brace and crutches. He stayed in bed and on the couch for a few days, but by Wednesday the 18th his knee looked and evidently felt horrible (he could not bend his knee and was in horrible pain, he leg was purple all the way down into the ankle). We called the doctor that was listed on his medical card (whom he had never seen before) only to find out that the doctor had closed his office. The answering machine referred us to another doctor and an urgent care center; whom I called. Well as luck would have it the other doctor did not take our insurance. So I walked and Mark gimped to the car and we went to urgent care. There we finally got an x-ray and a decent diagnosis. The x-ray was negative but the doctor said she thought Mark had torn his ACL or his MCL, she said Mark would need an MRI to know for sure. So I thought great, give me the number and I'll make an appointment. But it was not that simple, Dr. Kimette Marta(name drop, she was so awesome) could not order an MRI, insurance would not cover it because the order has to come from a primary care physician she told us. Dr. Marta could not get us an MRI but she was able to get us an x-ray, an anti-inflammatory medication, vicodin and an additional leg brace. I was so afraid that it would take ages to find a doctor, but I thought about my doctor. I immediately called my doctor (right there in front of Dr. Marta) but she could not get Mark in that week, but (thank goodness for but's) the other doctor in the office could see Mark the next day. I booked the appointment and the next day Mark was seen, she agreed that she thought it was the ACL and I was expecting her to say "I am going to write for an MRI but it didn't come and I asked "should we get an MRI?" Dr. Frei told us that insurance wouldn't cover if it came from her, but if we went to an orthopedic doctor that insurance would not even question it. I was totally frustrated!!! We were totally getting the run around, until now I thought I had really good insurance! So thanks to Dr. Frei we now had a consult to go to an Ortho doc. and a order to start physical therapy.

Mark immediately started physical therapy twice a week and on December 23, 2008 we finally saw the Ortho doc. who ordered for an MRI, and gave us an additional leg brace. We had started a leg brace collection, and if you're keeping track we now had three braces. But insurance is slow to pay but quick to question expenses. It was not more than a week after going to urgent care that we receivedd a letter that brace number two was deemed not medically necessary and was not going to be covered under our insurance plan. Well it was right around Christmas so I prepared a plate of cookies and drove over to urgent care in hopes that they would take back the brace they had given us. The thing was the ortho doctor did not like brace number 2, so he gave us brace number three, so Mark wore and continues to wear the newest one. Fortuanately they agreed to take back the brace and I saved myself $80. On a side note if anyone needs a leg brace or crutches...I'm you're gal. On January 2, 2009 at 7am Mark had an MRI of his right knee and 6 days later on January 8, 2009 we went back to the ortho doc to hear the results. Mark had in fact obliterated his ACL, it did not even show up on the MRI. The MCL was hard to see, but when they went in surgically they would be able to assess it better. By this time though weeks had passed and Mark was beginning to walk without crutches despite all that had taken place in his knee. Mark opted for surgery to repair/replace the ACL. This was to be an elective procedure because one can live without the ACL, but you can't play basketball, soccer, run effectively, or pivot quickly. At twenty two years of age an ACL is worth replacing in my opinion. The thing about ACL reconstructions is there are two options; you can opt for the doctor to harvest the tissue from your quads(they would splice a section off of a ligament in your thigh) or you can opt for donated tissue from a cadaver. The down side is there is a greater risk of infection because it is someone else's tissue, but the upside is that you have a quicker recovery time due to less incisions on your own body. Mark opted for a quicker recovery and went with the cadaver tissue. Following surgery they gave me a card with some information on how we could go about writing a letter of thanks to the donor's family.

Surgery was scheduled for February 6, so we called Mark's mom and she put it on her calendar. Then the office called back to say that due to insurance reasons it was being changed to February 27, we called Mark's mom again and she modified her calendar. Well then it changed again, this time it was to be March 4, and that is where it remained, but we did wait a while before calling Mom.

Surgery went well but as I sat in the surgery waiting area many of my co-workers came by to make fun of me because I just gotten married and already my husband was falling apart. I talked with other surgery patients daughters and wives, strangely I was the only twenty-two year old wife there with a husband in surgery. Eventually the surgeon came out and talked to me, the ACL Repair could not have gone better he said and the MCL did not need surgical repair, it was taking care of it self. This was the biggest news because the pre-op appointment warning had been that if the MCL needed to be tampered with it would have required that Mark kept his knee straight for six weeks. Within another hour or so I got to accompany Mark to the recovery room where he proceeded to wake up and attempt to eat food. Mark had a major headache (which the nurse thought might be due to the 5 doses of fentanyl they gave him in OR. He was feeling pretty nauseous following juice and crackers so they gave him Zofran for nausea and kept him even longer. After ten hours at the hospital I finally got to take Mark home to his parents house. One of the really cool things that they did for Mark was give him a femoral nerve block. This completely wiped out the pain/nerve receptors on the top of his knee for almost 24 hours. It kept his pain a minimum for the first day, which is what the doctor said is usually the most painful part. I am so very thankful that Mark made it through surgery with no complications and seems to be healing quickly. He has started to walk around the apartment very cautiously sans crutches. On a few occasions he has helped me practice for kids by waking me up at 4am to feed him/massage his back so he can take drugs and go back to sleep.

So I started out writing this blog post because I was so excited that surgery was over and I am hoping now that Mark and I can act our age and do "NORMAL" twenty-two year old, newlywed things, Like: go for a walk together, ride bikes, go on a vacation, run around and be goofy, go for hikes and other such activities. All the things we took for granted before his injury. I know what you're thinking, only one of us was injured...what was stopping me from doing those things? It is just not the same without your spouse! TO THAT MARK SAYS: That's a lame excuse!