Thursday, April 25, 2013

Making Preparations

Five more days until my knee surgery. Is it okay to be excited about having surgery? Because I am. Ever since I scheduled this surgery, it’s like my knee somehow knows and has been trying to cause me as much pain as possible while it still can. So I’m pretty excited about the idea that after 4-6 weeks of recovery it *hopefully* will not hurt anymore. The only thing I’m nervous about is that 4-6 weeks of recovery….not the surgery itself.
Supposedly I will only be confined to my couch for 4-5 days before I can return to work, so here’s what I’m doing to get ready for that down-time, because even after those first few days I still will be limited in what I can do. And IF it turns out that my surgeon has to do a full ACL reconstruction (which I’ve authorized him to do if it needs it), I’ll be out for a whole lot longer. Although he doesn’t think he’ll need to do this, I’d rather be prepared, so:
1) My house is getting a really deep clean this weekend.
My bathroom is getting scrubbed, to include my shower and my tub. Everything in my house is getting dusted and vacuumed and wiped down because I don’t know how long it will be before I’m recovered enough to do another deep clean. And yes, I do have a husband who is fully capable of cleaning, but he’s going to have enough on his hands dealing with his whiny wife, so I’m going to try and make life a little bit easier for him.
2) I’ll be making some meals ahead of time.
I’m going to do some serious cooking this weekend too so that I can have stuff in the freezer to eat. Again, yes my husband is fully capable of cooking (he’s actually better at it than me), but I want to make this time period as easy as I can for the both of us. So I’ll be cooking some lasagna, soup, vegetable stew, and anything else I can think of that we can just thaw out and warm up for lunches and dinners.
3) A huge grocery run.
I’m going to take stock of everything in the house and make sure we have everything we need. Am I running low on shampoo? Grab a bottle. No more ice cream? Grab four cartons. Oh wait...
4) I’ve talked to my supervisors.
My boss knows everything about my surgery: what they plan to do and what I’ve authorized them to do. This way, if they do wind up doing a full ACL reconstruction, he won’t be surprised when I call in the next day and say “Um…..I’m going to be out for the next four weeks instead of the next four days.” He knows what’s going on and what I’m looking at as far as recovery goes. This just makes life so much easier for both me and my co-workers because they know what they can expect.
5) Lay out a few outfits.
This may be a little extreme, but depending on how bad I’m hurting, I may not really be able to spend any time in my closet wondering what I can put on to go over my bulky knee brace. And so I’ll probably have a few outfits grouped together for simplicity’s sake and to take any guesswork out of the equation.
6) The most important thing….
Make sure I’m stocked up on movies and chocolate. I know, I know “clean eating, Sarah.” But seriously, anyone who’s ever had surgery knows that ice cream and cookies and movies are a must…..right??  ;)
For real though, I appreciate all of the prayers and support I’ve gotten from my friends and family as I get ready to have this procedure done. It’s really not that big of an operation at all, but it is so wonderful to know that I have people praying for me. I’ve been at war with my right knee for the past five years, so hopefully after this surgery and recovery time I’ll finally win.
“If you say, ‘The Lord is my refuge,’ and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.”  ~Psalm 91:9-10

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