Interesting* Stuff About ACL Surgery

Jamie started his physical therapy last night and we learned two fascinating things about ACL surgery. He had what they call an autograft where the tissue to repair the ACL is taken from his own body (the other option would be tissue from a cadaver). But the physical therapist told us the tissue they take is not ligament but tendon. So right after the surgery, the new ligament is actually stronger than the original from-the-factory ACL because it's not a ligament at all. Then the tendon has to learn how to function as a ligament and it actually loses strength. Over the next few weeks as Jamie heals, he'll be losing a little bit of stability in that knee until his grafted tendon learns its new job.

The second interesting fact involves the quad muscle. Jamie had noticed that his leg felt weak and looked a whole lot smaller than his other thigh. I didn't really understand this because he really hasn't rested the leg much. It's not like he was in a cast for 8 weeks. The PT said the atrophy of the muscle has to do with the sack of fluid that surrounds the knee joint. According to the PT, when the surgeons work on that joint, they first pump it full of saline to expand it and give them more room to work. This swelling trips out all the receptors in the lining of the fluid sack which then tell the brain not to use that quad muscle. And that's what makes it shrivel up and what causes that leg to be so weak following surgery. Jamie asked about going on the 60 mile Orlando to the Coast Thanksgiving bike ride again this year. The PT said his knee would be absolutely fine and handle the bike ride no problem. But there's a good chance his quad will get tired out and he'll have to stop. Of course, he's Jamie and if he said he is riding, he's riding. Guess I'll be driving the chase car.

*Please note the word "interesting" in the title means only interesting to me, not necessarily to anyone else on this planet. But it's my blog, so deal with it. I meant that in a nice way.

In honor of the Phillies win last week, I'd like to share a few small victories of my own:

Game 1: Tara vs. Heater
It started to get cold here a couple weeks ago (not to worry, it's back up to the mid-70's this week). Night temperatures were down in the 30's outside and in the 50's in our house. It was nearly impossible to get out of bed in the morning. We had the timer on our thermostat all set so that the heat would keep the house comfortable for us, but no matter how low the temperature went it wasn't cutting on. Clearly something was wrong. I mentioned it to my coworker Matt who happens to live in the same neighborhood as me in a house built by the same builder with all the same builder-supplied appliances. He said they had had the same problem and told me what he did. Jamie and I went home for lunch that afternoon and I went out to the garage to fiddle with it. And lo and behold! I made it work! I was giddy with excitment the rest of the afternoon. There's something about being female and fixing something around the house that's so empowering (to be fair, there may be something about being male and fixing something around the house that's so empowering, too. But I've never been male and so I can't comment on that).
Tara - 1 Heater - 0

Game 2: Tara vs. Jamie's Hair
As long as I've known him, Jamie has refused to get his hair cut at an actual salon because he's too cheap to pay for it. His mom has cut it his whole life. Unfortunately, he now lives several hundred miles away from his mom and his hair needs to be cut more than once every few months. And I refuse to do it. I have my reasons. So the cycle has gone like this: hair looks great and is at the perfect length, hair gets too long, hair gets RIDICULOUSLY too long, I beg him to go get it cut, he insists he can do it himself, I beg some more, he shaves it all off. Which makes me sad because I prefer him unbald. But this weekend, I prevailed! Our house was a little messy before Jamie's surgery. After his surgery he was not contributing at all to the housekeeping (slacker) and I was so caught up in providing him with excellent care that I didn't have time to clean. Or I was just using his surgery as an excuse not to clean. It's all in how you look at it. Anyway, our house was gross and needed to be cleaned thoroughly. Every room. So the plan we devised was after church on Sunday he would straighten every room and I would follow along behind doing the actual cleaning - dusting, vacuuming, etc. Well his hair was well beyond the ridiculously long stage. So when we got home he started straightening and I said, "You don't have to clean at all anymore if you'll do one thing for me: go get your hair cut." Now Jamie is really good about helping me around the house. But he HATES it. He hates to clean. So I thought this was a pretty good offer. But he was ready with a counter offer: He said he'd go for it if he could also play Age of Empires for a couple hours when he got back (I hate that game. With a passion. But that's another story for another time). Ok, deal.

As I cleaned the entire house by myself that afternoon (it took me over 4 hours) while a sharply groomed Jamie played video games and watched TV, I couldn't decide whether I'd won or lost. I guess at the end of the day, his hair was cut and the house was cleaner than it's been in a long while. So...Go team!
Tara and Jamie - 1 Dirty House and Too Long Hair - 0

Overall score: Tara and Jamie - 3, The Forces That Are Against Us (namely the heater, the messy house and Jamie's out of control hair) - 0

I guess we're ahead in the series so far. Unfortunately, I have no idea how many games we have to win before the trophy's ours.

Hiccups from Hades

Jamie went back to his doctor today for a post-op appointment. His knee was very swollen and hot, so the doctor used a syringe to remove some excess fluid. He was really sore afterward from having his knee handled so much, but it relieved the throbbing a little. Dr. Seidman said the fluid was normal and everything looked good and gave him a referral to start physical therapy next week. The nurse practicioner told me his loss of appetite is most likely his body's reaction to the trauma of the surgery. But after his appointment, he ate a big dinner at Zaxby's so I feel better.

While Jamie is sore and getting around on the crutches has been a pain, the biggest annoyance for him has been a case a hiccups that will not quit. They started when he was in the recovery room sleeping off the anesthesia. If there's anything worse than that post-surgery anesthesia-induced wooziness, drowsiness, pain and nausea, it's post-surgery anesthesia-induced wooziness drowsiness, pain and nausea AND a horrible case of hiccups. The nurse at the hospital Tuesday afternoon said she has heard anesthesia can cause hiccups. Unfortunately, the nausea and lightheadedness have gone away as the anesthesia worked itself out of Jamie's systems. The hiccups have not. So for the past few days as Jamie has tried to rest and recover, he's been plagued by the worst case of hiccups known to man. We have tried every remedy I've ever heard of, but have had no success.

Any suggestions anyone?

Update on Jamie

Well we spent a nice looooong day at the Duluth Outpatient Surgery Center, but Jamie's ACL is now all repaired. His doctor said the surgery went very well and that his ACL was actually completely torn and not just partially torn or stretched as he previously thought. The anesthesia did a number on him and he was pretty nauseous afterwards so we stayed in the hospital recovery room for quite a while. But we got home and got him settled in and now he's doing well. He ate and took his medicine and is feeling just fine, all things considered. Hopefully the medicines' drowsiness side effect will kick in and he'll sleep well tonight and have a good, restful day tomorrow.

I'll keep everyone updated!

Jamie's Surgery

For those of you who haven't heard, Jamie injured his ACL playing soccer about a month ago. After several doctor's visits and an MRI, it was finally determined that it's not torn, but badly stretched which means it's not really doing what it's there to do. It's like when the elastic waistband goes in an old pair of underwear. It might still be there but it's not keeping those bad boys up if someone tries to pants you. The doctor said because Jamie is young, he feels the surgery is necessary. If he continued to try to run and play sports on the badly stretched ACL, it would eventually tear and could do other damage to his knee.

So next Tuesday Jamie will be getting surgery. I haven't gone to any of his doctor's appointments so I don't have too many details on what the surgery entails. His homework for next Monday when he has his pre-op appointment is to bring me as much paperwork as he can rustle up. But I do know that it's an outpatient procedure and he'll be home by Tuesday evening. He'll be in a brace and on crutches at first, but should be off the crutches within a couple weeks. Then he'll have physical therapy. I'm not sure how long the physical therapy will last or how long he'll be in a brace. I do know it'll be about 6 months before he's back to playing soccer or anything else strenuous. So if any of you were hoping to beat him at basketball or soccer any time soon, now is the time to do it.

Autumnal Despair

All I wanted was spiced wafers. The kind that come in the orange box and go perfectly with hot apple cider. But our grocery store here does not sell them. And now I'm sitting at my desk with a cheap box of ginger snaps that get soggy after a quick dunk in my cider.

I hate Kroger and all that they stand for.

New Toys for the Hotalens

When Jamie and I got married, we had two old tv's both of which Jamie brought into the marriage. I honestly have no idea where they came from. We put the nicer - and I use that term very loosely - one in our living room in our apartment and the other we kept in our bedroom. At first, we had rabbit ears in the living room and just used the one in the bedroom for the occasional DVD. Then football season rolled around and the rabbit ears would no longer suffice for Jamison. Every time Florida State played he had to walk down to the complex's weight room and run on the treadmill for a few hours to watch the game. So he talked me into getting satellite (not without much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and I don't mean that figuratively). So we watched football and tv movies and college basketball in the living room, but kept the one in our bedroom for movies only. I'm unwavering in my no-tv-in-the-bedroom stance.

The hand-me-down tv's from I-don't-know-where worked just fine for most of the first year of our marriage. But as time wore on, it became impossible to read anything on the screen. Movies with subtitles were out and sporting events had to be watched from beginning to end to keep up with the score. But we made do. And I did not want to spend the money on a new tv. If we were going to get a new one, it would be a nice one not another cheap set, and we did not want to spend money on that at that time. We might not be able see the score, but we could watch a game or a movie and still enjoy it. We didn't need a new one as far as I was concerned.

Then we moved into our new house. The living room is bigger and when we put the little hand-me-down tv on our lovely built-in shelf not only was it impossible to see, but it looked like a big ol' ugly heap o' trash-picked yuck. Jamie had been talking about getting a new one for a few months, but I was not on board until we moved. I finally had to admit that yes it is impossible to see the picture and, more importantly in my eyes, it looks really tacky. Not to mention that because of the configuration of our living room and the shape of our couch, etc., there's only one place in the living room to put the tv and the couch does not face it.

So I said to Jamie that we could start looking at tv's. And he did. Here's something you should know about Jamie if you don't already: when he decides to make a big purchase, it's a major commitment. He looked at cars from the time we got married in June until the following January (if I remember correctly) before finally buying his Camry. And when it was time to leave the apartment, he spent hours and hours online looking at houses. The positive of this? He becomes very familiar with what he's looking at and recognizes a good deal when he sees it. And then he jumps on it. We did great price-wise with both the car and our house. Jamie held out until he found what we really wanted for a good price and I'm learning that his patience is usually to my benefit. So a few months ago Jamie started looking at tv's every time he was close to a computer. Or in an electronics store. Or came across a flyer in the mail or newspaper. We had agreed on a flatscreen, 42" (those do not look big in the store next to the 50" and 78" and 942" tv's). And I figured we might get one for Christmas. Maybe early next year. It would take months for Jamie to find just the right one for just the right price, I assumed.

We were at Jamie's grandparents this weekend visiting with his mom and siblings who were up from Florida for a few days. Jamie picked up the BrandSmart flyer from the Saturday paper and pointed out a good deal to me on an LG 42" flatscreen. I glanced at it (they all look the same to me) and said, "Um hm yeah that's nice," and didn't really think much of it. Until later that day when we were headed back from Stone Mountain and Jamie said something about everyone coming with him to get our new tv. And then drove to BrandSmart (a short aside: if you've never been to a BrandSmart, you need to. It's fascinating. It's scary. It's huge and full of appliances and electronics and people spending lots of money. And it's very neon. You need to go. Trust me on that one). Well, we went in, looked at the tv he'd seen in the flyer in person, liked it (I'm sure it didn't hurt that the tv was playing the Florida State game and they were winning); he decided it was a good deal and he pounced. Next thing I know, we were trying to figure out how we were going to get this monstrosity into a 7-person minivan with 8 passengers and broken trunk that doesn't open. We couldn't.

So on Sunday, we drove back to BrandSmart (everytime I say BrandSmart I hear it sung in my head choir-of-angels-style like StuffMart from Madame Blueberry...anyone know what I'm talking about? Anyone?). Now we're in our Camry which is not much larger than a minivan crammed with 8 passengers. But we figure out how to get it in there, drive home and set up the biggest - and nicest - tv I've ever owned. It looks much larger in my living room than it did in the store with all those enormous ones next to it.

And so we can read scores again. And I assume subtitles, though I haven't tried yet. And there's a cable cord running across the top of my fireplace and a cable box where my cute little basket of pumpkin spice potpurri once was. I'm told that will be resolved soon. But I do like our new tv and Jamie's very happy about it. And he let me get the Swiffer Wet Jet he's insisted we don't need for months. All I had to do was play the "We just spent a whole lot more than $17 on a new tv I think we can afford a $17 Wet Jet" card.

So if anyone is free on Thursday, I'll be watching Survivor Gabon and The Office on the big screen. With very clean floors. Feel free to join me.