Our house is turning into a hospital.  We have medical supplies in almost every room. We've been on a bit of a "recovery roller-coaster" since I was discharged from the hospital a week and a half ago.  I was discharged with a portable Wound Vac for home use (24/7) and I have a home-care nurse who comes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to change the dressing and evaluate the incision.  My portable Wound Vac It's nice to have a carrying case for the Wound Vac! I was also sent home taking the oral antibiotic, Ciprofloxacin. Unfortunately, after a few days, I began to experience very negative side effects from the medication...extreme fatigue, nausea and horrible dizziness.  By Saturday (11/12), the side effects had gotten so bad that I had to call my infectious disease doctor, and he instructed me to stop taking the Cipro for the rest of the weekend to see if I felt better. I felt MUCH better :) So Monday morning he prescribed Levofloxacin, w...

Well... A lot has happened since my post last Friday about the infection in my foot. It continued to get worse and by Saturday I ended up in the emergency room at Edward Hospital because of a hole that had developed in my foot. The ER doctors were concerned that the infection had possibly spread to the hardware in my foot and/or bones. They called my orthopedic surgeon (Dr. Arndt) and I was admitted to the hospital and started IV antibiotics immediately. They scheduled me to have surgery #4 the next morning (Sunday) to try to get rid of the infected tissue and to see if it had spread (the surgery was performed by Dr. Arndt). The surgery went well, and there were no initial signs that the infection had spread to the hardware or my bones - yay! Dr. Arndt successfully removed all of the dead and infected tissues, and took many cultures to determine which infection(s) were present. All but one culture has come back, and so far I've tested positive for E. coli (not the type t...

An update on my right foot... The surgery that I had back in September was a success! My orthopedic surgeon was able to cut and remove the part of the bone that was causing the added stress to the other joints of my foot. He inserted a new plate as well as seven screws to hold everything in place, which will all be permanent. My bones have not yet started to fuse together, but they will as it heals. I was non-weight bearing for about the first four weeks after the surgery (a little longer than expected, but my doctor wants to be sure that this surgery AND recovery are done correctly). By about third week of being off my foot, I was basically pain free! Two weeks ago, my stitches were removed and I was given permission to start walking on my heel with the boot cast on. Of course I was very excited, as a whole new world had been re-opened to me! It's amazing what we take for granted! A couple days after that appointment, I started developing some pain in my foot, w...

Tomorrow morning I'm going in to Edward Hospital at 5:30 am to have surgery on my right foot. None of us are looking forward to it, but we ARE looking forward to being done with foot surgeries! Fingers crossed that the 3rd time's the charm! We've been doing a lot to set up life at home for the next 5 weeks, as I'll be unable to walk without crutches, drive, or carry Ella.  Our night nurse has changed her shift from 10 pm - 6 am to 11 pm - 7 am so that she can get Ella up and dressed in the mornings. Our incredible school (and school district) is allowing Ella, Ava and Henry to ride the bus to and from school every day until I'm able to walk them! This was pretty amazing, since we're "walkers" so they would not normally allow Ava and Henry to join Ella (Ella DOES qualify for the bus because of her SMA, but since we live so close and are walking anyway, we've always had her walk with us). But this will relieve A LOT of stress about having the...

In the past year I have had two surgeries to correct pain I was having as a result of an old gymnastics injury. The injury was at the ball of my right foot, so I was referred to a podiatrist. During the exam, he said he could easily fix that joint by shaving down that part of bone that had grown over when my injury healed years ago. But I was also told that the main bone in my foot, leading to that joint, was too high and needed to be lowered. It involved cutting the bone, lowering it, inserting synthetic bone as a bone graft, and finally placing a small plate with screws to hold it all together. My initial X-ray taken "BEFORE" the first surgery last fall. I was told I would be "good as new" in three to four months. The recovery was a bit tough...I had to miss two weeks of work and I was in a boot cast for quite a while. We had to pay our babysitter to stay with our kids until Michael got home from school, since I was unable to lift Ella for those fir...

Many of you know this already from Facebook or word of mouth, but for those of you who haven't heard, we had to say goodbye to our beloved Sasa on August 24th. We knew she had a heart condition. We knew the end would be coming within 6 to 12 months (or possibly sooner). It was sooner. But luckily it was fast and she didn't suffer for very long. She was fine until she stopped eating. A couple days later she couldn't keep water down and became extremely lethargic. The vet had told us back in June that these were the signs that would indicate that it might be "time." We told the kids that afternoon that if she wasn't better in the morning, I would take her to the vet and we had to prepare ourselves that this might be the end for her. Sasa didn't end up making it through that night. A little after midnight, she lost control of her bowels and had a hard time getting in a comfortable position due to her weakness. And then she started crying. No...

As a teacher I've often heard and said that kids "grow up" so much over the summer.  And they do. Summer provides a open forum for play, which as we all know, is the best way to learn.  It also allows for physical activity which strengthens the body.  Skills that require coordination can be practiced if not mastered over the summer.  Not to mention time for relaxing; those lazy summer days really do serve a purpose--to relax and recharge. Kids also complain.  While there is a plethora of things they complain about there's one complaint that all kids end up engaging in...growing pains.  They often come at night, when the body is seemingly in rest but deep inside it's hard at work. Hard at work growing.  Hard at work taking all the days' activities and sorting through...finding value in one aspect and no value in another.  Muscles regenerate from the stress of play.  They strain and grow leaving their owner in a deep seated, dull, achy p...