The Good, the Bad, and the Nasty

So I went to the doctor this afternoon and after a 45 minute wait in the room, my husband stuck his head out to make sure we weren't forgotten. They apologized and the doctor was right in. I really thought they may had forgotten about us. Well, she showed up all the MRI pictures and it is much easier to tell what you're looking at when a doctor shows you on a model compared to the pictures. So, the good part...I got the results. The bad part...1. torn ACL, 2. torn MCL, 3. possible minor meniscus tear, and 4. deep bruises in the knee bone. I sure did a number on my knee! My knee still had a lot of fluid in it so I haven't been able to bend it past 90 degrees. She said I need to have full range of motion before any surgeon will do surgery on my knee. So the nasty part...she wanted to remove the fluid from my knee...which required a needle. I don't do needles very well. So after explanation and persuassion from Brian and my doctor, I agreed. Long story short, I laid back, didn't look, felt a little bit of pressure, was reminded to breathe a few times, and made it through. I laid there and had some apple juice and the color came back to my face after a few minutes.

The doctor told me she pulled 35 cc's of fluid out of my knee. (Not quite sure how much that really means). I'm trying to keep from getting too graphic so I hope I'm not disturbing anyone. The doctor was glad to see that I could bend my knee easier after the fact. She also said my knee cap wasn't floating anymore. Next step, I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow. My job is to work out my knee to get movement back so surgery can happen soon. Hopefully we'll get more information from the surgeon tomorrow and schedule the surgery.

I hope I'm not boring (or disgusting) people with always talking about my knee problem but hey, it keeps me blogging about something...More to come.

What a beauty!

And now finally some pictures. I don't like blogging without pictures so even though it's been 3 weeks I finally had a chance to pull these pictures off Brian's computer. This first one is of me on the X-ray machine in the ER. It was kind of an awkward position. And yes, that wheelchair was for me.

Brian was in the room with me for the X-rays but he had to stand behind the wall. So he was lucky enough to see the x-rays as they were taken. They pop up on the computer screen these days. No broken bones!Seeing as it was late when we got home from the ER we didn't think to take any other pictures so these next two pictures are about 24 hours after the accident. The flash in this first one brings out the glow in my legs but you can see that the knee on the right side of the picture is bigger than the other one. Brian took these pictures so even though it's my left knee, the pictures have the swollen knee on the right side.
This one is kind of blurry but it doesn't have the flash so you can see the swelling a lot more here. I know...that's one fat knee!!

Almost 3 weeks later and there is still a little bit of swelling and I have had several bruises come and go. I still have a couple. I can't wait to find out the MRI results tomorrow afternoon at my appointment. I'm hoping to go ahead and schedule surgery while I'm there tomorrow too. I'm at the point where I just want it to be taken care of so I can start working on getting better. More news to come. Hope I didn't disturb anyone too much with the pictures.

Tag!

I was tagged by my sister, Maria, to post the fourth picture in the fourth photo file. I don't have that many pictures on my work computer so this is what you get...my handsome husband!

This picture was taken at a New Year's Eve party in 2006 just before we started dating. What a hunk!
P.S.- I had to reschedule my appointment for the MRI results because the doctor won't be in tomorrow. So Wednesday afternoon I should have the final results...the suspense is torture!

More Doctor Appointments

So, this is my time to vent. I got my MRI yesterday and I have lots of "pictures" that I wish I could understand. So I called my doctors office today to see if I could get the results. They informed me that I had to actually make an appointment and go back in. I already know what they're going to tell me...surgery. I've come to terms with that fact but I don't have time (or the money) to just go to the doctor all the time. I need to save all of that for when I actually have the surgery. I was really hoping that since the MRI was sent to the doctors office already that I would just be able to talk to the doctor on the phone and have her tell me, yes, you need to find a surgeon now.

Ok, on a more positive note, I am really grateful to have health insurance to take care of this problem. I don't know how people survive without it. I'm worried about surviving with it. Co-pays really add up fast plus all the other portions you have to pay. I'm also grateful for a husband who cares about me and takes care of me. With his help I'll make it through this!

I will have the final results on Tuesday morning after my doctors appointment so stay tuned. Also, if you highly recommend an Orthopedic Surgeon please let me know.

By the way, the MRI was an interesting experience. The machine wasn't the typical tube machine you usually see patients slid into. It was more open in the middle. My knee was strapped into something and then they slid me into the machine. Luckily I got to have headphones on to listen to music during it. My head stuck out of the machine so there was no claustrophobia concerns. The MRI took 30 minutes to take all the pictures. The machine was pretty loud so I was grateful to have the headphones to drown out some of the sound. Another first experience for me.

Knee Update

So I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the doctor thinks it is a tear in my ACL. The good news is that she's not 100% sure yet. I went to the doctor on Monday and after she pushed, pulled, twisted, tortured my knee, she brought in a model of a knee. She explained what the different muscles, tendons, and ligaments do and their purpose. She then told me that she thinks there is a tear in my ACL. Only an MRI can confirm that for sure. My knee had been extremely swollen since the incident so the doctor gave me two options. Option #1: go get an MRI to confirm her diagnosis. Option #2: get me out of the immobilizer brace so my knee could move and get the fluid out of my knee so the swelling would go down, then come back in a week for her to test my knee again and see if she finds anything different. Then if it's the same I get an MRI and then most likely surgery. We opted to wait a week while we talked with insurance and figured things out. It has been so nice to have a different brace on my knee where I can actually move my leg and I'm 90% of the time not using crutches. I still use them when going longer distances but around the house and at work I'm getting better at walking. I look funny because it's slow going for me but it's better than crutches. However, I think I was faster on crutches than I am now...ironic.

So, my knee aches at the end of the day when I take my knee brace off and it doesn't straighten or bend much but the doctor gave me some stretches to get my range of motion back up. She wanted me off of my crutches by the next time I saw her so I think it's progress that I'm almost done with 2 days later! I'm hoping for a miracle by Monday that I won't have to get surgery but Brian is worried about me and is already planning on it unfortunately. I still need to upload a picture of the difference between my knee sizes 24 hours after the incident (but I don't have the camera with me right now so it will have to wait). It's unbelievable at how HUGE it was! It's still swollen a little bit now but it's definitely gone down. More info to come next week after the second appointment.

P.S.- My dad came into town on Saturday and is here for 2 weeks to spend time with his parents so he stayed in our house for the weekend. Our first guest in our own home!! I'm just glad we had things unpacked and ready for a guest this quick. It's good to have him here and we look forward to doing family things before he goes home.

Say Goodbye to Basketball!

Well, for those who didn't know, I have been playing intramural co-ed basketball with a bunch of people from work. It has been really fun and we're not too bad of a team either. Well, the first game we lost a player to a knee injury. Brian and I went to the ER with her that night to make sure she was ok. The second game I couldn't make it to but I heard some minor injury happened to another girl. Well, our third game was on Wednesday night and very well could be my last one ever that I play in. The game only had a couple minutes left before it was over and I was on a fast break down the court with no one in front of me and one girl behind me on my side. As I went up for the lay-up the girl tried to come around in front of me and she knocked into me a little so when I was landing I ended up twisting my knee and landing wrong. As soon as it happened I hit the ground hard and started yelling in pain and crying. I have never felt that kind of pain before. It still makes me sick to think about it. It all happened so fast that I don't know how I landed or if I heard anything pop, etc. All the questions people normally ask to figure out what happened. After being on the ground for a few minutes I finally started breathing normal and not yelling but still in pain. Two guys from my team helped/carried me over to a chair on the sideline. They gave me an ice pack right away to put on it and the game went on. My team finished the last couple of minutes and then came back over to stand around and watch me.

While my team was finishing up, I was being asked a bunch of questions that I could barely answer through the tears. Two reports, EMT wrapping my knee, and 3 ice packs later I was wheeled out of the gym in a wheelchair. Now I need to explain that my husband Brian wasn't there during the game. He had a meeting that night so he wasn't able to go with me. As soon as it happened, my teammate Ashley (the first injured teammate) found my phone and called Brian. He told me later that he had heard me yelling in the background so he left the house in Spanish Fork right away to get to me. He got there in record time because he was so worried about me. He also called my little brother, Kyle, in Helaman Halls to come over right away and he was there pretty quick too. He said he ran over.

I was wheeled out to Brian's car and Kyle followed us in my car to the Emergency Room at the hospital. I kept telling Brian that I didn't want to go but to no avail. We went... It didn't take long to be seen which I was grateful for. I got x-rays taken of my knee and then the doctor finished his evaluation. He concluded that no bones were broken according to the x-rays but he said there was possible internal damage to a ligament or tenden. They gave me a referal to an Orthopedic surgeon to get it checked out and get an MRI. I called the next day and scheduled an apointment for Monday. The hospital sent me away with a knee immobilizer and crutches. It has been interesting trying to figure out just how to work the crutches. I've never used them before or even played with them so it's been an interesting experience. Stairs are the worst and for those who have looked at the pictures of our new house...there are stairs!

I got home from the ER about 12:15 am, took some medicine, ate a snack and didn't get to bed until after 1 am. I didn't sleep too well because I would keep waking up if I moved wrong. Brian told me I woke him up once or twice when I called out in pain. I warned him though before I fell asleep that I probably would. Thursday I stayed home from work to relax. Everything I do takes a lot more effort than normal so I get tired (and winded) really easily.

I've been able to work today with my leg propped up on a step stool and a pillow. The hardest part for me is to sit still. My leg falls asleep frequently while being propped up so it makes me want to get up and move around. But then I start walking with my crutches and then I'm tired again and need to sit down. So it's been a long day but I've made it! I will keep you posted on what I find out on Monday at my appointment. I'm hoping that whatever it is it doesn't require surgery! Also, I'll put up pictures later of me in the x-ray room and of my way swollen knee!

P.S.- Sorry it's such a long post but I had to get all the details in.

Long Awaited Pictures!

Ok, so I know everyone has been waiting to see what our new home looks like. I finally have a few minutes to put up some pictures. Just remember there are no pictures yet of the finished product (decorated, etc) because it's still a work in progress. I would say we're about half way done unpacking which isn't too bad for only being one week! Warning: may contain more pictures than you may be interested in...

Let's start with moving day:

This is a picture of our previous front room filled with boxes. Luckily we had been planning on moving since the middle of August so we had started boxing things up way in advance. It made it way less stressful even though there were still a lot of last minute things to pack the night before.

This is our old office with things pretty much ready to grab and go. We had a lot of fragile things that couldn't really be boxed up so first thing on Saturday we loaded up both cars with pictures, computers, etc.

We rented a 17' UHaul truck to lug all of our stuff to Spanish Fork. I think Brian did a really good job at making the majority of everything in one trip. We had 3 1/2 cars full of clothes and fragile things too. I think we have accumulated way too much but that was after getting rid of a lot when we packed up! Here you can see our UHaul and 2 of the cars parked at our new place.

These pictures are of our townhouse before anything was put in it. This is the front of our house.

This picture is taken from the front door. It is the living room, dining room, and you can see the pass through into the kitchen. There is also the coat closet and the start of the banister for the stairs.

Here is our kitchen looking out to the living room. It is really nice to have that pass through because it makes it more open. You can see what's going on even when you're in the kitchen.

These are pictures of our backyard. We are so excited to have a backyard even if it's really tiny. We can't wait until spring to plant a garden and just enjoy being able to sit outside. The first picture is from our kitchen looking out the window. The others are different views in the backyard.

The upstairs rooms were not documented prior to things being moved in so pardon the clutter.
The office

The spare bedroom

Closet in the Master bedroom (my favorite feature by the way)

So on Saturday we had to clean our new house because the previous owners didn't do any. We had to make it at least clean enough for us to sleep there and be able to shower Sunday morning before church. We cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, and master bedroom. We did it fairly quick but we were exhausted by the end of the night. Here I am at the kitchen table surrounded by boxes.

The kitchen luckily got unpacked pretty quick too so we only had to go out to eat once!

The front room with more boxes

So far we love having a place of our own! Eventually we will get the rest of our stuff unpacked but until then...we hope you enjoyed the virtual tour of our new home!!