Moving Forward...life before, during and after a meniscus transplant

Hi!  Remember me?  I’m still here, still moving forward, but sometimes life just keeps coming at you and sitting down to write cannot be part of the daily grind. Things are good. But boy it feels like this was a marathon of a week! So speaking of running...I know, I wasn’t really speaking about running, but I might as well go there.  If there ever was a week where I wanted to be out running, this was it.  1) we had 2 days here that were 70+ degrees, and SO many people were out running through town 2) this is the week where people found out if they got into The Broad Street Run (BSR). So, as much as I appreciate social media, my Facebook feed was inundated with people’s posts discussing their joy in being selected for the lottery or their sadness for not being selected.   Why do I care???  Well, BSR is a huge race in Philly.  Like monstrously huge.  And as much as it is too crowded and too big, and full of people who are fine with walking the whole...

The sun is shining.  Thank goodness for that.  Any day in February that is cloudy and gloomy is just a cruel test of one’s mental health endurance. And I feel like I’ve got zero of that kind of endurance right now! My last post was about my son, who’s been sick. Consequently, I’ve been consumed  busy trying to figure out what is going on with him, and/or silently a bundle of internal nerves. I wait for him to feel terrible again on days he feels ok, and I am ready to respond in a heartbeat to whatever he has going on.  *The negatives: I’m mentally tired. I’m grouchy. I’m not doing my knee rehab the way I should.  *The positives:  I’m distracted from thinking about my knee and how long it is until I can do more activity.  So about my knee: I’m a couple of days away from 15 weeks post-op. That’s almost 4 months!  This sounds like forever, and it kind of feels like forever also. The past few weeks have sucked with my knee. I mean, it’s fine, but I re...

Oh Aaron.  My sweet second born.  You are a mystery of a kid.  My baby boy is sick.  Again, or still, I’m not sure.  I won’t go into the gory details (because a lot of it entails poop in various forms...you’re welcome) but he’s been sick, seemingly, forever. It sounds dramatic and I don’t mean to sound that way and I know in the grand scheme of things I’m lucky as hell to have 2 ‘healthy’ children, but this poor kid seems to just keep getting pummeled health-wise in one way or another.  It took us five years to figure out his first mystery, when he was finally diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos thanks to the amazing knowledge of his current pediatrician Dr. O. That was a hard 5 years and I felt like I paid my dues sufficiently to whatever mom-stress quota there was. Or not! This most recent episode of “WTF is going on with Aaron” started way back in early October. Before my knee surgery. He had a “cold” with a cough. Cold went away, cough lingered. The week of my...

I started this week (Monday) feeling like: And here I am at the end of the week like: There was less scheduling/I don’t have enough time for life this week, compared to last. Everything that hit me this week was in the mental department. Sad, angry, frustrated, WTF, anxious...all feelings that seemed to just keep piling up in my mental space.  Just so we are clear, I’ll take the “I don’t have time” stuff ANY day. The mental stuff isn’t tangible or measureable or predictable and I can’t seem to ever tell if I’m being a rational-but-overwhelmed human, or an overly-emotional-can’t-deal-with-life human.  So what are some of the things that have me all twisted and emotional? Well, since you asked... Wait, you did ask didn’t you?  Charlie’s Bar Mitzvah This is something that’s coming up. And coming up sooner than later (less than a year). I started thinking about it because Aaron’s birthday party needs to be planned (like yesterday) and while I was ...

I went to PT this morning and got sent home after 6 minutes on the bike. It sounds like I’m being reprimanded for being bad or something!  No, I was having too much pain. And my knee is swollen even though it was first thing in the morning. So I got sent home.  I’m not even sure what I did to it. It being my knee.   PT lady said it could be the weather which has been fluctuating between high 50’s and winter cold with snow showers seemingly every other day. Regardless, I woke up today feeling sore in my knee and thigh, and my first step down the stairs hurt like hell. So I am icing it, and resting (as much as a mom rests), and pouting, and will try PT again Thursday. This is a really weird space to be in, physically and mentally. Still in the upside down I guess. I’m really trying to focus on the progress I’m making, but the progress is frustratingly slow and microscopic...which is what I was told this would be like. But being told how something is going to ...

I’m not sure about all of you, but this week has kicked my ass.  The bright side:  I guess I’m totally dealing with it. Rolling with the punches. Handling whatever happens without losing my mind. But, as a mom, is there any option other than  “just roll with it?” If there is, please tell me now!   The down side:  I hate feeling like I can’t get more than just my head above water, and I feel like I’m one annoying phone call away from flipping out. Haven’t flipped out yet, but came close! Deep breath! Nothing major, catastrophic, or life altering has happened. But man if there aren’t (seemingly) hundreds of little things piling up and making me feel like I’m just barely getting by.  I mean little things like our garage door opener breaking. And it broke at a time when I was rushing to get my sick kid from school to take him to the doctor earlier this week. The car was trapped in the garage!  Dramatic sounding right?!  So I climbed up a ladder and lo...

11 weeks.  Who cares, right?! Yes I’m still counting the weeks.  And I still care.  I kind of feel like one of those moms who has a one year old but refers to the kid’s age as 52 weeks.  Or a mom of a 4 year old who refers to the kid’s age as 48 months.  I’m not sure when I’ll stop referring to my surgery in post-op time. Not sure if/when I’ll stop counting. This has been a big deal for me, this whole process from June (diagnosis) until now. The more I can do physically, the more “normal” I feel, and the more I realize how this impacted me in ways I wasn’t really aware of.  I’m walking well. So well that people forget that I’m still having to focus on each step. No thanks, I take the elevator everywhere, no stairs please. Nope, not taking the scenic walk, let’s find the shortest distance possible and walk that way. Still kind of stuck in a place where I look normal but still feel far from it.  Swelling is minimal. Pain is minimal most of the time. It’s...