Downtime

Being ordered home for a month for recovery was about the last thing that my brain ever wanted to hear, and so I was determined to cut that time in half by being a good patient and doing everything just exactly as the doctor ordered. Almost everything anyhow. The get up and walk as much as possible part I truly had problems with mostly because of the severity of pain when I did get up to walk.
No matter, during my time at home (I did manage to make it two weeks instead of four) I had people who love me coming to visit. Some stayed for hours (You all know who you are), some stayed for just a few minutes, some dropped enough movies by to entertain me for days. Then the ones who couldn't stop by in person, sent flowers, cards, and food! Bless all of you who cooked too, because it was scrumptious and you kept it reasonably healthy. The Big Dawg was also thrilled to have food coming in.
During week number two, I decided to put the 'get up and walk' command to use as an excuse to get up and take some pictures of what was happening in my daily life. I saw tons of this face from Ellie.
She was so very concerned that 'mom' had something wrong and wanted so badly to be able to comfort me. Abi was content to lay by my feet and provide her support in that way, but poor Ellie nearly couldn't stand it. She tried to finagle herself to get in my lap any way she could, much to her disappointment when it was unsuccessful. By the middle and especially the end of week two, she could lay next to me with a pillow in between to ensure she wouldn't step on me. So from that point I got to see a lot of this pose. Obviously since the pillow is in the background, Big Dawg took this shot.                                      

 Then you've got all the flowers I got from everyone! They were so beautiful and cheery that it helped being stuck in more enjoyable. 

Somewhere during that same week I had the capability to toss an empty juice bottle to the floor for the girls to play with and the result was this. While this was a welcome change for them, neither of them understood exactly why I was home all day but couldn't really have anything to do with them, or play, or snuggle. This meant that at night, the Big Dawg had his work cut out for him trying to catch them up. Thankfully he absolutely loves them and didn't mind one bit sitting down doing nothing but hold them.
At the end of the second week, I was allowed to go outside again for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed a beautiful, sunny Spring day. I captured some more really nice shots of the flowers I got and will include them below.

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by, called, came to hang out, brought food, and prayed for my recovery. Without each and every one of you I know it would have been a much harder path to walk for myself and especially for the Big Dawg. (he would have starved)

Catching up

Obviously the last few months have been a little more than hectic and sadly blogging has been one of the many neglected aspects of my life. One would think that with time at home under doctor's orders I would have had plenty of time to write and tell everyone all the things going on in the world as I knew it. Alas, a good portion of narcotic pain relievers kept me from thinking too much about anything. Needless to say, there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Without further adieu: Some pics of the world of the hospital pre and post op. If you're interested in all the gory details about the stay that I had and the tornadoes that occurred that same day, I'll share what I can.

FIL hanging out with James in the waiting room

Big Dawg and another man from church each had their 'girls' in surgery

A few hours post surgery and post tornadoes I finally got to have broth to "eat"

Reduced to just drinking it

Breakfast in the hospital :)