12 Weeks Out- A Quick Recap

Do you ever get trapped in that 'I can change!  I want to change!  Wait, is that pizza?!' trap? That's so where I'm at right now. Actually, I'm laying in bed trying to talk myself into doing a push-up, or at least attempting one, but, I've had 3 slices of pizza and a push-up seems like a lot of work right now. But I'm pretty sure that I could do a push-up if I wanted to. Anyways, all things push-ups aside today's a big day! It's been 12 official weeks since my hip was sliced and diced!  So, let's recap, and then let's set some goals that don't involve pizza.

Week 1: Blacked out on painkillers. It was a magical week. 

Week 2: Online shopping while high on painkillers. It was an expensive week. 

Week 3: Boredom sets in. I had already watched two complete series of shows and was starting on Bones. 

Week 4: Finally some progress, I was allowed to go to 10% weight bearing! 

Week 5: Major set back. My pain level was back to week 1 levels, and I was taken from 10% weight bearing to 0% weight bearing. 

Week 6: Fuck it all, I hate crutches and gave them up completely. 

Week 7: Woo-hoo! Sweet freedom, I'm driving again! 

Week 8: Officially walking the kids to and from school! One of the things I had missed the most. 

Week 9: Back to the doctor. He wants me to stop progressing and hold tight for a few weeks. 

Week 10: More of the same. 

Week 11: More of the same. 

Week 12: Gurrrrlll, stop eating all things carbs and focus. Let's set some goals. 

Basically, I need to get my crap together. My eating is all over the board, and I'm binging like there is a purge to follow, but it's just binging. So, my first goal is to log all of my food into MFP until Dec. 1st. 

My second goal is to keep my carbs under 100 grams. What does that mean? That I'm going to be HANGRY these next two weeks.   But I've been on a serious carb bender and néed to flush my system. I'm contemplating doing the Whole 30 in January, if anyone wants to do it with me. We can all hate life together those first two weeks. 

Lastly, I think that I am going to join a gym in December. I still won't be cleared to do anything fun, but I can at least hit my arms/shoulders and back a few times a week.  I'm going to she hulk up, and then have toothpick legs.

I can not wait to get to a point of real progress, and be cleared to do everything that I want to! I didn't even realized how much I missed running, and I've got a serious build up of excess energy and no way of working it off. I know that things like squatting are forever off the table and I'm working on being OK with it. I am also super excited for things like lunging, side to side agility, and a few other minor things of that nature to be on my PT list next week, small progress is still progress. That about sums up my last 12 weeks, hopefully the next 12 go way faster! 

Brown Sugar Glazed Pork Chops

I have been on such a pork roll lately.  I love the way that it works so well with so many different flavors!  Plus, it's the other, other white meat.  And, I'm at that place where if I eat one more chicken breast I might drive my car into the guard rail of the freeway.  Anyways, it all started with a craving for my vegetables to be prepared in a new way, and has spiraled into pork prepared 3 different ways over 3 different nights.  I feel like I've been in such a rut when it comes to vegetables.  Balsamic brussel sprouts?  Bam, I got it.  Balsamic cauliflower? Done!  Roasted broccoli? Owned it.  Those are delicious recipes, but man, are they tired.

Anyways, I was perusing Pinterest, and I saw tons upon tons of brown sugar glazed pork chop recipes, and, I had pork chops on hand!  They're all basically the same, but I modified a few things to make it even more amazing.  You know what the best part of this recipe is?  It only uses one pan.  Seriously, make this for dinner tonight, you won't be disappointed!

Ingredients:

4 bone-in pork chops

5 slices of bacon

1 package of shaved brussel sprouts

1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

How to make them:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Combine the brown sugar, cayenne, garlic powder, salt & pepper.  Dredge the pork chops in the mixture.  Make sure they're thickly coated.  There will be some mixture left over, rest assured, we use it later!

3.  Heat the olive oil and brown the pork chops.  Cook them over medium to medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side.  

4.  Remove the pork chops from the pan and cook your bacon.  Remove bacon, let cool and cut into small pieces.

5.  Toss the brussel sprouts in the pan with the bacon grease & pork chop drippings, and sprinkle with the remaining spice mixture.  Let this cook down for a few minutes.

6.  Add the bacon & pork chops back to the pan.  Put the pork chops right on top of the brussel sprouts, so that all of their amazing juices drip right onto the sprouts, making them extra yummy!

7.  Bake for 10 or so minutes, until the meat is as done as you would like.  I like mine done medium, so I only did mine for 7 minutes.

The Homework "Gray Zone"

Oh my gosh you guys, I think I've committed a mortal sin.  That might be a tad dramatic, but just stay with me on this one.  If your family is anything like mine then you've also been doing the sports hustle.  The one where one parent is shuffling one kid off to Sport A, while the other parent is shuffling another kid off to Sport C, and eventually you guys will meet in the middle at Sport B, and hopefully one of you has remembered the third kid.  Shits getting crazy around here.  

Amidst the shuffle of sports, the state is pretty adamant that we still educate our children.  God knows why, Common Core is basically mind fucking them anyways.  But, with education comes homework.  I have such a love/hate relationship with homework.  On the one hand, I feel like it really ties me into what they're working on in class and keeps everything connected.  On the other hand, I really hate wasting time doing homework.  My feelings aside, homework has to get done, and wine has to get consumed.  It's a hand in hand process, my friends.

So, back to our story at hand.  Reese is in 3rd grade now.  It's a grade that really teeters on 'fun kid school!' and 'holy shit, you're a big kid now' school.  So, sometime in September she got assigned a book report.  We were so on top of that ball it hurt.  We had our book read way before the assigned 'finish reading your book by' date (because it was like 3 weeks out from the date we were handed this assignment), our rough draft was turned in and corrected way early, and then we even managed to type up the final draft!  And then the madness happened.  We had A MONTH from the date that the rough draft was handed back to Reese to the final due date, so, we did what every busy family would do and set it aside.  

The night before the project is due rolls around, and I reread the instructions, and not only is her (now neatly typed) book report due the following day, so is a visual aid and a presentation.  Justkillmenow. So, we get home from cheer at 6:30 and Reese starts making a poster.  Which is literally taking for-freaking-ever.  I mean, how does one even color so slowly?!  It baffles me.  We take a break from our poster, eat dinner, clean up dinner, and start back in on the poster.  At 8:30 we are still working on this damned poster, and suddenly I have a light bulb moment!

"Reese, why don't you say your presentation to Mommy while you color, and I'll write it down for you!"

It was genius, guys.  Nothing could go wrong.  We might even get to bed by 9:30!  Until this sentence happened.

"But I don't know what to say, Mommy."

A large amount of expletives were said in my head, but it's ok, because I'm a problem solver and I had this on lock.  So, here's how her presentation was written (I should probably just be calling this our presentation):

Me: "What was the title of the book that you read, and who was the author?"

Reese:  "Matilda by Roald Dahl."

Me: "How did this story start?"  

"What was the middle?"  

"How did it end?"  

"Who are these characters?"  

"What was the best part?"  

"Would you recommend this book to your friends?"

She answered and I kind of summed things up here and there, and wrote them down for her presentation.  Seriously, it was some gray zone shit.  I don't know that I necessarily wrote her presentation for her, but there was no way it would have sounded the way it did had I not coached every single word out of her mouth.  I don't even know where to go from here.  Do I tell the teacher?  Hell to the no, we don't have time to redo that project.  Do I talk to Reese about it?  Maybe just mention that I helped her so much because this was her first time, and next time she'll be more independent?  Or, do we just forget that this project happened, and try harder the next time?

I should add, we didn't get to bed until 10:30 that night, even with my help.  It's fine though, all of the good parents teach their 8 year olds the magic art of procrastination, and how it leads to better papers in college.  

"Why do you always make me such gross food?!"

Before I had kids I had this vision of what dinner would be like, it was very Cleaver-esque, obviously. We would all sit around the dinner table, laughing, sharing sweet anecdotes from our day, and truly basking in each other's company. Of course, all of this would happen while enjoying a delicious, nutritionally balanced meal made from scratch by my loving hands.  Oh, the magical evenings we were going to have.

Ha. And now here we are, three kids later, surviving dinner like we are making it out of Wal Mart with a big screen TV on Black Friday. The pain is real. Each of my kids is so unique in their eating habits, that it is literally impossible to make all of them happy. Reese will eat 80% of what you put in front of her with minimal bitching and moaning. Camden complains about every.single.thing on his plate, short of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. And Everett loves all forms of food, so long as Camden isnt in the room, or is eating it. If Cam isn't eating it then neither is Everett.  The only meal that all three of them agree on is teriyaki chicken over steamed rice.  I should probably just give up and cook that every night.   But then again, if I made my nights so simple how could I justify my wine? Mom problems, yo.

Anyways, tonight started like any other dinner. I made something super complex, ramen noodles, chicken and mixed veggies. I even put soy sauce on everything. Noodles were the main part of this dinner, for crying out loud. Tonight was Reese's turn to complain, and it went something like this.

Reese: "I want to eat outside with my friends!"
Me: "Sorry babe, we are all eating inside tonight."

At this point the boys and Mark make their way inside for dinner. Camden starts complaining about what's for dinner before he even reaches the kitchen. Back to Reese.

Reese: "My chicken is too spicey!"
Me: "I didn't even put anything on it. I just cooked it in a pan."
Reese: "I can see the pepper on it!"
(Please note that I didn't put any pepper on it)
Me: "There is no pepper on the chicken."
Reese: "Continues pouting."

Dinner continues on, Camden eats his allotted food, and Everett eats everything on his plate, so we offer him more noodles.

Reese: "I want more noodles!"
Me: "After you eat the rest of the food on your plate you can have more noodles."
Reese: "THATS NOT FAIR!"

Everyone finishes dinner, except for Reese, who is now actively pouting and Mark is threatening to send her to bed. It's basically like trying to reason with the eight year old version of Caillou. Oh wait, now she has to use the bathroom. The dinner saga has now been going on for 45 minutes.

Reese: "Can I have a hug?"
Me: (in my head)" For the love of cheese, eat your freaking dinner or I will never show you affection again!"
Me: (out loud) "After you finish your dinner I will give you a hug."

The pouting continues for 15 more minutes before Mark gives up and sends her to bed. What the hell, man, why is it such a fight? and the thing is, if it wasn't her tonight it would have been Everett, refusing to keep his penis off the table, or Camden, refusing to keep his body in his seat, and his feet off of Everett.

All I wanted was one night, happy like the Cleavers, but I've recalibrated my expectations. Pass me the wine, I'll just enjoy dinner through wine googles. They're kind of like beer goggles, but takes the edge off of ugly dinner and bedtime episodes instead of all of those 6's at the bar. 😉

6 Week Recap: I vacuumed today.

I've basically abandoned blogging, I'm sorry, I suck. This recovery has taken so much out of me, both mentally and physically, and I've been really, really angry about it. But that's not why I haven't been blogging. I haven't been blogging because I haven't been able to sit at a 90 degree angle, which means  that I haven't been able to sit in a computer chair.  So what have I been doing with my time? Watching TV.  So far, I've watched:

Scandal- 3 seasons
House of Cards- 2 seasons
Bones- 9 seasons
Friday Night Lights- 4.5 seasons

Which means that I have officially watched 300 hours of TV since this surgery, or, roughly 12 days and nights. I'm officially going stir crazy. But, and I hate to type this because it's like tempting the earth, but things are finally, FINALLY, moving forward. I'm officially allowed to walk. Kind of. Very small increments at a time, as much as my body can handle. I suck at listening to my body, so this is definitely (another) challenge for me. But I will never go through this surgery again, so it'll be a cold day in hell when I don't listen to my body and stop when I need to stop.

So, what else has been going on? Everett is in daycare two days a week. It is tough, really tough. He hates it. He comes home from school, and when you ask him how baby school was he says "It was bad, weally weally bad." Little man is breaking my heart. I know its temporary, and a short term solution, but I miss my baby. The other kids aren't doing so hot, either. Cam is turning into quite the jerk, and I know that it's because his whole world has been flipped upside down, and I've always been there to help him, and now he kinda has to take care of himself, so I'm hoping that as I become more mobile, and life rights itself so will his behavior.

Reese, oh Reese.   She is such a sweet girl, and I swear, I've never met someone with as pure a heart as she has. She has definitely been the boys rock during this transitional period, and I couldn't be more proud of how strong she's been as her entire world has shifted. Also, we are now in 3rd grade, and dealing with Common Core. First, I want to start by saying fuck common core. They are taking everything they learned last year, and completely disregarding it. The new math is super logical, and I know that it will be beneficial in the long run, but Reese is 8, and 8 year olds aren't logical creatures. I just don't know that she is mature enough to handle math with this much logic.

Also, what the hell is this. The past three weeks they've been working on mental math, and breaking things down and subtracting them by rounding, all in their heads. Two and three digit numbers, really pressing these kids. This weeks lesson? The exact same math problems, but now we get to use manipulatives to solve the problem. Seriously, could this be more backwards?  Ugh, I hate Common Core.

Onto the future. My next hurdle? Driving. I know that I won't get cleared this week, my hip still locks up when I move it side to side, so in an emergency I might not be able to get to the brake because my hip locked up.  I'm working on forcing myself out of the house, and back into socializing with people.  When you watch 300 hours of TV you kind of turn into a hermit.  Also, I vacuumed today! Seriously, huge. It took me a few breaks, with some sitting, but it's done, and it's one less thing on Mark's plate! I really miss being my happy, social, outgoing self, so I need to kick this funk off like its yesterday's business.

Recovery: Day 4

Oh my gosh you guys, the funniest thing ever just happened. I got onto the iPad, went to the internet and guess what page popped up?

Ice cream truck tracker

Yup, you read that right, my 8 and 5 year old figured out how to use the almighty power of Google to find the ice cream man. Summer has got to be the best season ever.

I'm four days into recovery, and they've been a tough four days. I've cried a lot, been in a lot of pain, taken a lot of pain killers, and slept even more. This recovery has been so, so much harder then I ever could have anticipated.  Originally Mark was scheduled to go back to work tomorrow, but seeing as I still need help lifting my legs onto the couch I think it's safe to say that he's going to need to stay home a few more days.

I think that one of the toughest things for me about this is just how weak my leg is. I don't know if it's the severity of the torn labrum, or the released tendon, but I have almost no strength in that leg. Which is making me genuinely dependent on other people for everything.

Oh Mark, bless his soul, has become like the cleanliness police. So the other day he decides that it's mandatory that I take a shower. At that point my list of priorities looked like this: Valium, Norco, sleep. So this shower business was crazy. First, he has to get me undressed, which resulted in me almost falling no less than 3 times, because my right leg is currently 100% non weight bearing and I'm reliant on my crutches to keep me upright. So, I'm now de-clothed, and standing outside of the shower staring at it, trying to figure out just how in the hell I'm going to get in. And then Mark decides to just pick me up and put me in. I just want to point out that my husband is a bald man, and my hair goes halfway down my back, so washing hair isn't exactly his forte.  His attempt at washing this mop was like gently stroking a tiger, afraid that at any moment something might jump out and bite him, so to be as gentle possible. I'm not even sure the shampoo made it to my scalp.  At this point I completely ran out of energy and we had to reverse the getting in the shower process, this time with putting clean clothes on. After this entire experience, which may have taken a grand total of 7 whole minutes, I had no choice but to take a two hour nap. Tomorrow he says that I have to take another shower.

This has definitely been one of those 'it takes a village' situations. My parents took my kids from Wednesday-Sunday, and we're 100% willing to keep them longer, but I couldn't bear to be away from them for one more day. Especially Everett. He is just too young to understand what is going on, so while the big kids were sad and missed me, they were excited to shave special and fun time with their grandparents. Everett had no clue what was going on, just that he was away from his mom, dad & house, and he had a really tough time with that. My parents brought him back on Sunday afternoon, and he had fallen asleep on the way home, so after his nap Mark goes up and gets him, and Everett wouldn't even look at me. He was so mad at me for leaving him, and my heart broke into 1,000 pieces. It took him 45ish minutes to warm back up to me, and I spent the entire time fighting back tears. Eventually he remembered that I am in fact the best person in the entire world, and he loves me again.

So, where do we go from here? Thursday morning I have my post op appointment, and hopefully we are able to make a physical therapy plan, and get me back to mobility. My overall goal is to run the Shamrock'n half marathon in February, and I realize it's a lofty goal, but hey, if I shoot for the moon and miss I will still land in the stars. I know, it's cliche, but hey, if you don't have at least one good cliche what do you have?

Surgery.

The day of surgery I was scheduled to check into the hospital at 10am, for a surgery time of 12pm.   So, I started the day as usual, got up, got the kids ready for school, walked Reese to school and came home to a voicemail from the hospital asking me to come in sooner, because the doctor wants to start earlier. I panic, call all of my neighbors until one answers to come and stay with my boys until my mom could get there. And then we headed for the hospital.

When we get there the check in process went super smoothly, we check in and I'm almost immediately called back into the prep room.  We go through all of the standard get ready process and then my surgeon comes in to talk to us. At this point I knew I was either going in for open or closed FAI surgery, we just weren't sure which. Well, then my doctor dropped another bomb. Actually, it could be the FAI that we've been gearing up for, OR it could simple be a tendon that is too tight and needs to be released, OR, it could be some scary third thing that's a major, major surgery. His hope is that it's just the tendon, but he is ready to repair the labrum if it's torn worse than it looks, and should it be the third thing we pull out and find someone who specializes in such a delicate surgery. So, I go back into the OR not knowing what kind of surgery I'm going to have.

Waking up from anesthesia was ROUGH. I remember waking up and feeling like one of my kids was in danger, and that I had to get to them right away.  People were pushing me down, trying to get me to calm down, and when I figured out where I was I remember shaking from head to toe, shivering. I guess in order to keep the light field open in arthroscopic surgery they need to irrigate the area the entire time, and I had been in surgery for four hours, so I had literally been chilled to the bone. The next thing that hit me was the pain. I was warming up, but I was still shaking from pain. My doctor had ordered a nerve block before I woke up, but that didn't happen. So, they finally get me calmed down, get the anesthesiologist, and the ultrasound machine ready to locate the nerve to block when the anesthesiologist gets called away on an emergency. At this point I am laying in a hospital bed, sobbing in pain and waiting for an anesthesiologist. When he finally makes it back to my room the anesthesiologist decides that this would be the perfect opportunity to teach someone how to do a nerve block. You know, while I've already waited am extra 15 minutes for a missing anesthesiologist and am laying on a bed shaking and sobbing in pain sounds like a perfect teaching opportunity.

So I now have a nerve block, that can take up to 45 minutes to kick in, and a still in so much pain. The pain management team is talking about giving me more dilauded when my post op nurse tries to talk them out of it, saying 'I was just scoped.' and shouldn't need more pain meds.  I think it's fair to say that I was a hot mess post-op, especially at this point because I was still in so much pain, and i still had NO IDEA WHAT SURGERY I HAD JUST HAD.  I thought that maybe it was just me the post op nurse didn't like until I heard her tell the guy in the room next to me (who had just had spinal fusion surgery) that 'he came in with a pain level of 8, and he was at an 8 now, so that should be a tolerable level of pain for him.' And that's when I decided that she was an evil bitch who should probably be a prison warden, and not a nurse.

Mark and my dad are finally allowed back into the room with me, and that's when I learn what surgery I had. I had a deteriorated labrum that had to be completely reattached, and the over overage in my hip joint was shaved down, and I also had one of my tendons released because it was too tight. Overall the surgery took 4.5 hours, mad I spent 3.5 hours in recovery mad was able to go home that night. So, now I'm home, drugged to the high heavens and ready to get on the road to recovery.