The Blessing of Little Things

 It's been a long time since I've thought about the blessings I receive from little things, but today, I was reminded I need to remember them. 

I was walking through the Butterfly Center at Callaway Gardens with my youngest granddaughter. As we were weaving through the beautiful plants, we came upon a pond filled with turtles. Leaning over the rail, we watched as they moved their webbed feet back and forth, gliding slowly through the water. It was such a little thing, but it brought us both joy. 

When we finished watching the turtles, we moved down the pathway and were surrounded by beautiful butterflies. Flying overhead, we saw Yellow Swallowtails, Blue Morphos, Cloudless Sulfurs, and a million other butterflies I can't name. It was beautiful and overwhelming. What brought me the most joy was watching my sweet granddaughter trying to catch a butterfly. 

I'd brought her to this butterfly center for years, and she remembered past visits where I taught her how to get a butterfly on her finger. Very patiently, she waited for a butterfly to land, then walked slowly over and slid her finger in front of it. Without moving, she waited. In just a few seconds, a butterfly was walking up her finger. She smiled a big smile and then moved her hand slowly to show me her catch. Naturally, I snapped a photo. I wanted her to remember this moment, and so did I. 

Throughout the day, we experienced one little joy after another. By the time the day was over, our hearts were full. 

Life is so short and if we don't pay attention to the blessing of little things, they'll pass us by. I hope you'll look for the little blessings that come your way. Take time to savor them. Commit them to memory! Make each one precious. When you look for them, you'll find them. I promise. 




 

Getting more mobility

It's been 8 weeks since I had my knee replaced and it has been a very challenging time. Granted, the pain and swelling have decreased, but they are still here. I'm still taking Lyrica twice daily to help manage nerve ending pain and find myself having to take extra strength Tylenol two or three times every day. I've chosen to do that instead of continuing on the opioids. 

Yesterday, my husband and I went to walk in one of our local state parks. It was hot but we were thankful for the cover of trees almost of the path. We enjoy being out in nature. We saw several deer, butterflies, and beautiful wildflowers. As we were walking along the path, we were startled to find a snake. Upon close examination, I determined it was a copperhead so we gave it a wide berth. I'm thankful we had chosen to walk on the accessible trail instead of the wooded trail. If we had been in the woods, we would not have even seen the snake! 

I was proud of myself for accomplishing a one and a half mile trek. Though difficult, I pushed myself. I know that I have to do this to get back to my normal love hiking. 

When I got home, I made sure to ice my knee for about half an hour. Icing definitely helps the swelling. 

To be honest, I'm very tired of dealing with physical issues. My body feels like it has been cut and mutilated so much since 1962! I've had a lot of surgeries and I'm ready to call it done.

A month since surgery

It's hard to believe it's been a month since I got the new knee. 30 days have passed quickly and painfully. I had no idea I'd experience such pain with this surgery. I figured since I've already had several major surgeries, this would be a piece of cake, but I guess age has played a factor in this one. 

I wish people hadn't sugar coated it when I asked about their experiences with the same surgery. I like to know what I'm up against. That's why I normally tell it like it is. I guess they wanted to protect me and encourage me to go ahead and do it. 

Yes, I needed the surgery. Yes, I could have waited a little longer but I'd already pushed it off for 2 years and I'd already had 2 surgeries on that knee during those 2 years, so...I figured I'd better go ahead and do it before I got too old. 

The physical therapy has been tough and gets tougher every session. I think physical therapy should be called perpetual torture. 

The doctor had said I'd need 6 weeks of therapy post surgery. I did 4 and told them I'd do the rest at home. There's no reason for me to have my insurance company billed almost $600 a session and for me to pay my share when I can do the same things at home for free. 

So, I'll be working toward getting a good range of motion over the next few months so I can get back to doing the things I enjoy, like hiking. Right now, I'm using a walking when I need to and using a cane when I feel steady enough to do it. 

If you want to know the real scoop on knee replacement, it's a really challenging surgery. It's extremely painful and will take months and possibly years to recover from. Don't let people fool you into thinking it's a piece of cake, because it's not.  

 

It's hard to rely on others.

Since having my knee replacement surgery, I've had to rely on my husband for a lot of things that I can't do for myself. It's really difficult for me because it reminds me of when I was in a bad car accident in 1991. Back then, the only people I had to rely on were my children and some sweet people from our church. I hated to ask my children to do anything. The oldest was just barely 15 at that time and the others ranged in age down to two. They ended up shouldering a lot of responsibility they didn't need to shoulder. 

My husband has been willing to help me do just about anything and everything I need him to do, but there are some things I don't want to ask him to do. Simple things, like cutting your toenails, can be embarrassing when having to rely on others. So I got on Amazon and looked for something that would help. 

There were several options but I found one pair of long handled toenail scissors. It came with a diamond edge nail file and looked like the perfect thing to meet my needs. While he was at the store yesterday, I've bent over as far as I could and used the long handled nail scissors to trim the toenails on my left foot. It was very challenging, I will admit, but I got it done. I was happy not to have to ask him to do it. 

It's hard to be in handicap mode and have to rely on others. Nobody wants to have to ask for help with things like that. I've always been self-sufficient. Sometimes I think God allows little trials like these to see what we're made of and if we'll be humble enough to ask for help when we need it. I think He's still teaching me to let others do the things I can't do. 

Cutting toenails may not be humiliating to some, but it is to me. I'd rather do my own any day than rely on someone else. Maybe I'm being silly, but that's the way I feel. I hope you're never put into this type of position.

Meet Ned

Today I decided my knee replacement needed a name so I named it Ned. Ned the new knee! Kind of catchy, isn't it? Anyway Ned has been acting up today. We took a short ride in the car and before we even got back home Ned was screaming in pain. I guess it's partly my fault because I forgot to take my pain medication before we left the house. I've been trying to cut back on it because it's addictive. I don't like having to use something like that unless it's absolutely necessary. 

When we got home I took some extra strength Tylenol to take the edge off. Hopefully Ned will settle down after I ice him a lot today. 

Tomorrow will make my 7th physical therapy session. I don't know how much longer I'll continue to go. The sessions are costly and basically we do the same thing at every one, So I could do them at home quite easily. We shall see. 

Hopefully over the next few weeks, Ned will start to feel at home and we'll start functioning properly. Instead of being swollen and irritated, hopefully all of that will abate. I'm doing everything I can on my end to help it out.

If you look at the scar, you'll see some little black speckles. Those are internal stitches that are working their way out. The doctor told me the glue would dissolve over time. I'm putting aloe on my scar as well so hopefully it will be hardly noticeable in many weeks to come.

Oh, woe is me!

Knee replacement surgery is no joke. It's a major surgery and involves a long, hard road to recovery. Believe me, I know! It's been 3 weeks since surgery and I'm still having a lot of pain. The swelling has gone down some, but increases with long periods of standing or physical therapy. But the thing that bothers me the most if the feeling that my skin is going to split open when I bend my knee past a 100 degree angle. How much is that, you say? Well, when seated, a normal person's knee is bent at between 100 and 110 degrees. When you've had knee replacement surgery, forcing the knee to move past 100 degrees can put a lot of stress on the incision and make it feel like it will burst open. Thankfully, the surgeon took a lot of internal stitches and used super glue to hold the skin together, but the feeling of skin stretching past its limit is extremely painful. 

Today was physical therapy day. My therapist, Dr. Makayla, is kind and compassionate, but she knows what has to be done and doesn't let a patient dictate the session. She'll ask me how I'm doing during various exercises and if I say something is causing pain or I feel like I can't do any more, she'll let me rest. I'm glad she's not a slave driver. 

I have to do all sorts of exercises. I spend the first fifteen minutes of therapy on the stepper machine, then I go to seated leg lifts, heel to toe stretches, stepping over hurdles, going up and down steps, and today, I had to do the BlazePod reaction training platform. It's very challenging and reminded me of Twister but with a twist - the circles or pods in this case, light up and light at random times making the person doing therapy pay close attention in order to correctly step on the lighted pod. The timing of the lights increases in frequency the more the session goes on and makes the patient move faster and faster. By the end of my session, I felt like I was on some random online dance game- one my older grandkids might enjoy playing, but I didn't enjoy it. When I was done, I was sore. My therapist knew it and sent me to the icing table for some much needed cooling down. 

All of these exercises are to help loosen up and strengthen my knee while giving me back the mobility I had before surgery. I'm told it will take about 12 weeks before I start to feel better. I hope it's sooner than that. This old lady is struggling.  

 

11 years and counting

Today I celebrate 11 years of being cancer-free! It's hard to believe it's been this long already. Time has flown on occasion and gone extremely slow sometimes. I haven't thought about cancer much over these past few years but at the beginning, right after I was first diagnosed, cancer consumed me. I couldn't think about anything else. I'm so thankful to finally be able to say I've lived well over the 5-year mark that most doctors and cancer treatment centers hold out for. For some reason it seems to be the magic number. I never have understood that. 

On my last visit to see the oncologist, she said,  "Next year we'll move you into the survivorship program." I wanted to ask why. I've been coming to this cancer treatment center or about 10 years. It didn't make sense. 

No matter what they say, I'm believing in my heart that I'm completely cure of cancer and I will never face it again. My faith has carried me through all of these years post-diagnosis. Without it I wouldn't have made it this far. So next year when I go to the cancer treatment center for my tests, I'll go through the rigmarole and wait to see if everything is all good. Then I'll laugh inside as they move me into the survivorship program. It's just a formality for them but for me, it's a milestone. 

Everyday post-diagnosis is a day for celebration. Life is so precious. We should celebrate it more than we do. We are so blessed.