Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Another one bites the dust

Things have been very hectic! We've been going with the flow and preparing for my surgery when BAM, life kicked us where it hurts.

Last Monday night (roughly two hours after my spacer part II dilemma), my husband was playing soccer with some friends when he got hurt. He ended up tearing his achilles tendon in his right leg. We had to rush to the hospital and suddenly our lives got a whole lot more complicated. We made an appointment to see an orthopedic specialist (the next day) and he confirmed our worst fears. His achilles was torn and pretty badly. He recommended surgery and soon. They were able to fit him in for surgery the following Friday.
I've been preparing for my surgery for months, I can't imagine being told, "Yea, you need surgery. Lets do it on Friday." Unreal. My hubby is a trooper cause I would have been a hot mess.
Friday comes and we go in for surgery. Luckily, I didn't have to miss work because he came to my hospital and had his surgery. By the time he got out of the OR, my shift was over. The best part? My husband is one of those people who is VERY HILARIOUS when coming off anesthesia. Since I work there, I was able to check up on him in the PACU (which the nurses don't typically allow in PACU cause their patients can turn critical very quickly if something goes wrong). After I checked in and said hi, I left to let him fully wake up.
The next time I saw him, he was sitting up at the day surgery recovery. He saw me and his face lit up. After I sat down next to him, he started humming and then busted out some awesome rap lyrics. I knew I should have come in with my phone on record. Would have made for an awesome youtube video. Now he is recovering and being a typical pain in the ass patient, haha! He came out of surgery in a splint because of swelling. But last Thursday, they took that off, checked his stitches and put him in a hard cast.
I was amazed because the incision is much larger than I thought it would be. I figured 2 maybe 2 1/2 inches max but he's got a good 4 inches of stitches. He didn't just tear his achilles, he also shredded it as well. The shredding carried very far up his leg. The doctor said that it's the worst shredding of a tendon that he's ever seen (great, should have known that don wouldn't do anything half-assed! haha). So now, he's in the hard cast until June 12th when he'll be fitted for a walking boot. He'll be stuck in the walking boot for a minimum of 6 weeks.

Don's bright orange cast to match his bright orange hair!

Now, since it was his right foot, he hasn't been able to drive. His coworker lives nearby and has to drive by our house in order to get to work so he's been picking Don up and driving him in when his schedule works out. Unfortunately, we aren't sure when Don will be able to drive again. And he was supposed to be my "reliable person" to drive me to and from the hospital on my own surgery day. Hopefully, he'll be able to drive by June 19th but if he can't, we have a few other people who could potentially drive us into Mass General.

In other news, tomorrow is the big day where I get my appliance placed. I'm hoping that it's smaller than it was when I was a kid. I'm sure this will now increase my 15 minute brushing and flossing ritual to closer to 20 minutes now, haha. Although I do have to say that I will be very happy to be able to floss my upper teeth again. Not flossing because of the spacers makes me feel like my mouth is never fully clean.

Well, tomorrow is just another chapter in this journey. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Kinda stupid but that's how I'm trying to look at it. :D
More to come (hopefully) tomorrow. I make no promises that I won't be a giant whiny baby though!

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