4luvandlife

Yesterday was 3 weeks since my fusion surgery! The surgeon had said it would take 4 weeks for me to stop wishing I hadn't done it. And he has been right so far! I am focused on Thursday the 24th when I will hit that 4 week mark. I am hoping for the pain to be down and mobility to start going up around then. Mobility. The basic ability to move around. This is one thing that 8 years of back pain has made me appreciate. In the first week of recovery the pain was so high I would plan trips around the bedroom. If I wanted to put a movie in I would think about anything that I would need to bring with me or if there was something else that needed to be done in that area of the room. For example, there may be a load of laundry that needs to be folded and it is by the DVD player. Well, take 2 birds out during the trip to put a movie in. Plan on folding clothes when I put in the movie. No trip out of bed and across the room wasted, right? To improve my mobility I have been walking 5 to...

Thursday the 10th was two weeks post-op. I am surprised at how much pain there still is. The surgeon had warned me it will take 4 weeks to stop wishing I hadn't done the fusion. I should have taken his warning more seriously. I am getting a little stir crazy being couped up in the house for this amount of time. But we did get out last night to celebrate Mother's Day. We typically go out for a Saturday night dinner instead of a Sunday brunch. Below is a picture of us at Buca's celebrating Beth. This was my first time out of the house other than a walk since the surgery on April 26th. Happy Mother's Day to all you Mums!! I am grateful for Beth. She is an awesome Mom and she has been helping me through this surgery and the recovery. 

Welcome! Welcome! It has been almost 3 years since I posted on this blog. The last time was to document our move to Phoenix from Minneapolis. I am reviving this to update friends and family on my recovery from spinal fusion. Today is the 9th day after my fusion surgery. It is going well so far. For the most part, the pain has been what I was expecting. Tuesday and Wednesday both gave me a run for my money. But other than those it has been fairly good. The two images below show the condition I have. It is bi-lateral pars defects. In the first image you see a small crack in the vertebrae a little to the right of center. In the second image you see the cross-section of the spine looking down. That isn't an image of my personal x-ray but it gives you a good idea. The image below here shows the procedure I had done. It is a transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion. It took the surgeon about 3 hours to do after we spent about 1 hour in pre-op. 9 days out and I...

On Friday the 14th we celebrated our first month in the desert.  Below is a picture of us arriving to the Grand Canyon state on July 14th. Our first stop after crossing the border was Petrified Forest National Park. Leading us the whole way was Sparky.  Turns out he gets along great with Hawkeyes! We went out to eat on our first night and learned how to lawn bowl in Phoenix in July. We bought a new couch for the new house in our new state.  Our new dog, Luna, found her favorite spot on that couch. Our first excursion out of our neighborhood was Sedona. Things are good in the desert so far.  More news to come!

Halloween 2013

Henry did his first mountain bike race at Elk River a couple of weeks ago. It was 3 miles. He has done a lot more than that at Theo plenty of times. The 3 miles at Hillside in Elk River was different though. It was a lot more climbing and roots than I expected. Henry had to walk quite a bit. When we walked the mosquitos would feast. It was rough on the little guy. He was tempted to quit (he even had some tears) but he kept at it and finished. It was another good reason to be proud of him on a pretty long list. Henry said some funny stuff during the race. A couple of my favorites were, "I'm getting pretty dirty, maybe I should take a bath." and "I hope I get a scratch, that would be cool." After the race he scored a digital camera from the drawing. He was very stoked. It was a good thing too it may have convinced him to give bike racing another try.

It's the 1 that comes after the :00:00. The first salty sting to the eye. The angle of the July sun high above you but feeling like it's right on top of you. It takes 59:59 to get here but it is so sweet when you do. It's the beginning.