It's possible that I forgot to mention that I'm hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow despite Andy's surgery! I've been a good girl and have fought the urge to do it all myself; I'm doing only the turkeys, gravy, stuffing, and roasted root veggies. My guests will bring squash, green beans, pumpkin bread, cranberry applesauce, cranberry jello mold, cookies, brownies, pie, and fruit. I've already made 6 pans of stuffing, 1 turkey, and 1 batch of veggies. I'll make the other turkey and the rest of the veggies tomorrow. We will have 23 people—including Jo, in from London for the first time on Thanksgiving!
Despite the work involved, I'm glad to be hosting because I'm not sure Andy would have been able to go to anyone's house. This way he can socialize as much as he wants to or feels able to, then go up to bed to rest if necessary.
Andy has had a tough week. The pain is just unrelenting. The physical therapist works him pretty hard, but he's in terrible pain even when he does his exercises himself. The leg itself looks like a special effect from a horror movie. I can't describe how swollen, bruised, and just plain gruesome it is, including all those staples.
Yesterday a nurse called from the hospital for a one-week check-in to see how he was doing. We described the pain and the appearance of the knee, and she said she was going to email a report to the surgeon. We were surprised this morning when the surgeon called to speak to Andy! And even more surprised when he said, "I'd like to see your knee before I leave for the long weekend, so I'll come to your house in about an hour." Yes, really! Have you ever heard of such a thing? We were flabbergasted.
And come to our house he did. What a relief for him to look at the knee and say, "Yes, this is what I'd expect to see after what you've been through, including all your other complicating factors." We had no way of knowing if what we were seeing was normal, so it was extremely reassuring to hear him confirm that it was. He said that Andy's recovery is going to be slower and harder than most people's after a knee replacement, because the structure of his knee is just plain different thanks to all the slicing and dicing that had gone on before, and thus the way they had to install the new joint.
Live long enough and you'll see everything—even an orthopedic surgeon who makes house calls.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by: Sharon Hofmann | November 23, 2011 at 09:11 PM
Wow. That is truly awesome that the surgeon came to your house! (Methinks that would likely never happen in these parts...) Hopefully he prescribed some decent pain pills?!
Posted by: Tonya Watkins | November 23, 2011 at 09:39 PM
When I had breast cancer, I had the most amazing surgeon. When he retired, he gave me his home phone number in case I was ever worried and needed to talk. Your story is even more amazing! I hope you and your family enjoyed Thanksgiving.
Posted by: kate | November 25, 2011 at 09:24 AM