Promises Kept.

Some kind of normalcy is returning to my household: Dan is working from home today. He is off the heavy duty pain meds, sitting in the study with his knee iced, leg propped up and thankfully has something to engage his brain with again.
So here's how the last week has been:

We casually sauntered into the surgery center on Wednesday, thinking, so naively, that things would be all better soon. Dan tore his ACL and meniscus playing softball and we were hoping both could be repaired using part of his hamstring for the ACL. The surgery went swimmingly, on time and uncomplicated, which was wonderful. One of the funniest parts of this whole thing happened when the surgeon came out to report on the repair: "Most hamstrings are 7mm and your husband's was 9mm! That's awesome! The biggest one I've ever seen was 10mm!" So now I'm all, Oh yeah? My husband has 9MM HAMSTRINGS!! I bragged to the nurses and everything.

I knew we were in trouble as soon as I saw Dan in the recovery room. He was shaking, shivering, grimacing and in more pain than I had ever seen him in. They gave him tons of meds, gave us the discharge instructions, and sent us on our merry way on crutches with the knee wrapped in an Ace bandage and a knee immobilizer on it. We came home and he went straight to the couch.

It was not good.

There ensued a few days of icing, wrapping and rewrapping, arranging pillows, timing the meds, following him everywhere, helping with the crutches and watching him try desperately to get better. It was not fun. Especially for him.

As you can imagine, between the pain, the discomfort, the boredom, the not sleeping, and the -horror of horrors- having to ride in the car with me driving, he was a touch cranky. (And that, my friends, is the understatement of the decade.) At one point I told him, "I took a vow before God that I would stay with you in sickness and in health... and that vow is the ONLY thing keeping me here right now."

He did go to church, which was great for him, but wiped him out. He started tapering down his pain meds yesterday and is narcotic-free today for the first time. He can occasionally walk with just one crutch. He is working from home today, which is so much better for him than watching bad television. He starts PT tomorrow and goes back to the doctor on Friday to get his stitches out.

I am looking forward to getting my hubby back, who has two working legs and can go to work and help me with the kids and have fun and is fun to be with.
And did I mention... he has 9MM HAMSTRINGS?!?