Orthopedic shoes and a scar.

Avery is healing up nicely. She has been to school everyday this week and says she has been participating. She is all set up to take a taxi home from school starting next week once I return to work (has it been 6 weeks already?!?) We are hoping to get her to 1.5 hours at school next week, but she will let us know what she needs.

This week's excitement involved the purchase of some fancy orthopaedic sandals for Avery to wear around the house to help address her pronating knee.

Otherwise, her scar is healing up nicely and the steri strips are slowly but surely coming off.

Look at that cute little waist!

I am pleased to say that that is really all I have to report. Things are progressing well and Avery remains ever positive.

We have reading!

Last night when I went up to bed around 10:30 I noticed Avery's bedroom was still lit up - assuming she had fallen asleep with the lights on, I went in - but no, she was still awake READING! It has  even a month since she has had the focus to read anything, so this is a moment we have been waiting for. Shout out to her teacher for the gift of books as that was what she finally found interesting enough to pick and and keep reading I am sure by now that book is done.

Avery has been complaining of sore legs this week, and my non-medical assessment is that she really needs some better arch support as her knees are pronating  - so for now she is wearing her croc slip on sandals and we will see about something a little better - birkenstocks or mephistos, but we need it to get a little nicer out first I think.

A New Routine

It's been a while since I posted so I thought I'd chime in with a few observations and thoughts.

I've been back at work on a normal schedule for more than two weeks. I get up early, being careful to not wake Jodi up on my way out of the bedroom. 50% success rate so far! I get to work before 7:30am and stick around until 4:15pm or 4:30pm. By the time I get home Jodi has made some fantastic dinner and even done some of the dishes (best. wife. ever.) Throughout the day I get text messages of Pants' progress and I have to tell you, it's always the highlight of my day.

Pants is walking better, and moving around in general much more naturally every day. We're told it is going to be six to twelve weeks before she starts to feel "normal" again so to see visible progress in that direction every day is just great. We're looking into taxi's for her to get home from school until she's comfortable enough to walk from the bus stop to our house which likely won't be until after the snow clears.

Our superstar patient did a full hour at school today! That is such a big step and bodes well for getting her back reading again. Jodi sent me a picture of the part of her back where the Steri Strips finally fell off and the scar looks good. Nice clean cut, not too wide. Every day I find a new reason to be impressed with the care she's received and with her in general.

Sorry, this post is all over the place.

Things I've noticed:

• I'm still walking around with this tension in my upper body. It's not near as bad as the first week after surgery but it's still there. I'm told this could take a while to subside
  
• I am still sleeping like crap most nights. As an insomniac who was sleeping not-too-badly before the surgery, this is frustrating. Some nights are not too bad though and that gives me hope
  
• Pants does at least two things every day that make me so proud
  
• I'm really going to miss having Jodi home all day. If she's even half as productive in her office they're going to love having her back
  
• The Dude is handling everything quite well, but I have noticed he's more cuddly and asking for more hugs; two things I am more than happy to provide in great excess
  
• I never get tired of showing people the before and after x-ray pictures and before and after height picture

The next phase starts when Jodi goes back to work. I think she'll drive the kids into school and then Avery will take a cab home whenever she feels she's had enough, eventually working her way toward a full day, after which I'll tweak my work schedule to pick her up or she'll take the bus so she only has to walk the last couple hundred meters.

~ Dad

The great return

Avery's first day back at school lasted about 30 minutes. I decided I would just wait outside the school in my car so we could make a quick return home. It also became quite apparent that a taxi will be the better option - at least until she gets up to half days,  at which point we will consider revisiting the bus as an option. She stayed in bed for nearly 3 hours when we returned home. We'll see how that plays out again tomorrow. :)

And tonight she came running down the stairs  visibly vibrating and unable to speak - turns out she pulled off a couple of the steri strips and was rather concerned she would split in 2. We reassured her that the strips are in fact supposed to come off and perhaps should be coming off, and she settled down and went back up to bed.

That's all for tonight.

I'm going to school!

hi there. I'm back and I'm here to tell you about all the exciting adventures I've had since we last talked talked. First we try to go to the pedicure place but I got a little bit scared so we ended up not going, then the next day I went to visit my school. It was realy fun getting to see everyone! The teacher even brought donuts! A couple hours after that we went to the pedicure place and got our nails done,but they took a little longer than we thought they would, so we were a little late picking my brother up from school.two days after that I went to visit my moms work for a baby shower and pizza. That was also realy cool. I sat up for about half an hour, but then I had to take a walk. After the walk I realized that I realy needed to lie down, so we left to go home. But what I really wanted to talk about was tomorrow.  Tomorow I get to go to school. I mean actually go to school, not full time but just for a little bit. We're hoping for an hour but we might only get half an hour or so. Still it's realy exciting! Have a nice day!

                       Princess pants👸

3 weeks post surgery and all is well

We have hit the 3 - week post surgery mark, and of course Pants continues to amaze us. While I keep waiting for the moment when she picks up a proper book to read, she has made advancements in her ability to concentrate and reason - through playing Paper Mario on the Wii in the basement or Zelda on the Wii U upstairs. Both require reading and some logic to advance through, so I take it as a win.

And her appetite is back - though she needs to eat smaller meals at several points through the day - but I have read that is better for the body anyway.

Oh, and she is off the heavy pain meds altogether - we have kept a small supply, but I think they will be disposed of before long. She can take tylenol or advil as she needs, which she asked for today - though not for her back, but rather her legs - she thinks she might be having a growth spurt!

She can shower mostly standing, but likes to have the bench available, if just to enjoy the warm water running over her back. I was helping to dry her hair and noted that the top 2 steri-strips have curled up at both sides, so I went to remove them and she panicked and screamed not to take them off - seems she is a little concerned she will rip right open without them. So I left them and reassured her that that is not at all the case.

We are off for a pedicure - fingers crossed this isn't too much for her, then after a rest and some dinner she is going to stop by to say hi to Yoga Mike and the class she practiced with. I am so very thankful she and Andrew attended this class together - the number of times people remarked at her leg strength while in the hospital was always responded to with a mention of squats and yoga practice - and every single person who heard this paused for a moment to think about it then nodded as if to acknowledge it made sense. A few even asked her a little more about it. Hopefully in a few months she can start back again.

Today we researched bus routes and schedules as an option to get her home from school - though I will also check with a local taxi company to see what we can do - I don't foresee her walking the 2 km home from school again this school year, but who knows - maybe once the snow clears she will enjoy a 2 k walk with her brother. The bus runs every 30 minutes from right outside her school and in under 15 minutes has her 200 meters from home - we may take a test run this week to see how it goes as I don't think she has ever rode a city bus in her life,  and definitely not alone.

We almost made it our for a pedicure, but then she started to cry. Maybe it was too much. She said she wanted to go, she showered and got dressed - we even had her shoes on. Another day. She just needed a rest. I think she is so terribly freaked out about not being able to control how she is feeling or the fear that she will start hurting and not be able to do anything about it - she honestly was looking like she was when we were last at Dr. Missuna's and she desperately needed to lie down. So she is lying down. Hopefully the trip to the yoga studio will be a success tonight.

And just as I was leaving to pick up the Dude from school, Avery's teacher called to see how she was doing - I heard 'awesome' then had to leave. Since I am driving anyway, I normally drive home one of Avery's friends - and today she asked if she could come for a visit. I think this day has come together just fine.

Here is Pants looking ready for yoga :)

17 days post-op

So here we are at the end of week 3 - seriously?  3 weeks? Well no, 17 days  but the end of 3 weeks that I have not been at work and the bulk of this adventure began. Avery's aunt was by yesterday and couldn't get over the difference from her hospital visit 2 weeks ago and now. And how tall Avery is! This 12 year old towers over her aunt, and that made Avery smile.

Since Avery  cleary does not need constant attention, I have been taking advantage of the time and exercising a little in the basement, well today Avery came down to hang out. Since I was at the balance game portion of my wii fit activities, Avery thought she might like to try as well. So she managed to do 6 minutes of activities, including deep breathing, basic step (which was funny to watch as she isn't so coordinated) and the soccer ball headbutt one. But then she needed to rest. I still think 6 minutes is better than no minutes, and she was very pleased with herself for having accomplished even that.

In other news, she is almost fully off the meds - she took one at bedtime last night, but hasn't had anything since. We'll see if she feels she needs the nighttime one tonight, but I think she could manage on Tylenol - how crazy is that?!? This kid's ability to heal astounds me.

One common theme we have noticed is that if she over exerts herself, she gets an upset tummy later in the day - but she is also quicker at excusing herself to lie down as needed.

So now that the mind fogging meds are leaving her system, I will continue to watch for those signs of readiness to start heading back to school - my avid reader has not picked up a book in weeks - mind you she also just started watching Grey's Anatomy on Netflix, so I may have lost her for a few more weeks (she did wonder if these people all just signed consent forms so they could film them in the hospital and I explained they were all actors -then she mentioned how good those surgeons seem - had to explain that they are also actors...). She tries to sit up a little each day, but still prefers to be mostly, if not fully, reclined; but I think that will come along soon too.

Hi! Nice to talk to all you guys again. I'm healing up quite nicely and I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, I've been a bit distracted with everything else but I'm gonna post about all that right now.

The first thing I remember after coming out of surgery is my parents saying it was 9 o'clock. The next thing I remember is getting a popsicle because I burped which I felt stupid but apparently is actually really important . The next thing after that that I remember is standing up and walking to the washroom. That also seemed to be quite special to everyone else and I understand because that one was also a big deal to me. Right then I could feel how difficult it was going to be to do everything else and I had to do, like walk upstairs, sit upright for a long periods of time and get out of bed without handles to help. It was right than that I really realized how drastic what they had done to me was. For goodness sake, I had 27 screws and two metal rods in my body and they expected me to be able to touch my toes, put on socks and shoes, and live like a normal person. I was terrified, but at the same time I was amazed at how much I could already do.  I could already get up. I could walk a little bit and I could go to the washroom. That all may seem really small and insignificant to you guys but it all seems so big at the moment. It all seems so important.

I hope you can learn from my words, and I hope that you never have to do what I had to do.

Thanks for reading,
               Princess pants👸