Are you ready?

We went to the surgeon today. We have new xrays of his injuries and had a lot of questions answered. His breaks are so broken, it is one thing to know that he was injured, it is quite another to see what the damage really is. Don't worry, we have copies. Let me digress.

For those who know my husband, know that he likes to see these things. I, of course, like to pretend in happy healthy fantasy land. Come on over, because we have pictures of the wreck, and now pictures of his breaks. And if anyone has video of the wreck happening, even better... I look at these pictures and my heart hurts and I realize how close I was to losing my husband. I think about how hard this journey will be for him and I praise God for blessing him and keeping him safe (or God just wanted to keep Steve as far away from Heaven as possible, depending on your perspective). I see his boat pictures, his xrays and I flash back to our first prayer, when we found out that he was in an accident and seriously injured. I was driving the girls to a friend's birthday party (and THANK YOU for taking them without a parent Nikki), trying to be strong and not cry, and I wanted to pray with the girls. When ever we pray, I ask "do you have any thing to say to God?" and one of them usually does. This time Andrea said "Dear God, don't take my daddy to Heaven, we need him too much." So I see these pictures and this is what I think. He sees these pictures and says, "wow look at that" "Hey did you see this, right in half" "Five breaks, look at this one right here, that's cool." My inside voice wants to scream and slap at him, but I just smile and nod. By the way, between you and me, he is not all brave and strong. He has been listening the final Harry Potter book on cd and he had to turn it off, because it was creepying him out. He said that he does not know if he can finish it, it is too nerve wreaking and upsetting. Oh, okay. A fictional book about wizards dueling with eachother is much more terrifying than flipping a boat and getting tboned by another and breaking five major bones in your body, landing in water, realizing that something is wrong because you can't really swim, yeah I get it, put the book down, it's too much. (FYI, I read it twice and listened to it and I managed to sleep at night...)

His surgeon says that his femur is healing well and is looking the best, so far, which apparently is typical, femurs like to heal fast. Good to know. His right fibula and tibia are still a mess, the breaks are not healed, they are still in pieces and more or less being held together by the hard ware, but the bones are starting the healing process. The projection is that those pieces will reattach with time. (Don't ask me, I don't get it either). His left fibula and tibia are also healing, but just starting, the breaks are not as severe as the right, but also not completely fused and also held together by hardware. He has some time before he can walk unaided, however the moving and walking with a walker, will help build the muscles, which will help the healing. We thought he had three, turns out he has five... He was amazed by this, I was... well, ready to break his arm, if he didn't start reflecting on this whole thing! So healing will take time, energy and pain. He has a fractured piece of bone lodged in his leg muscle near his femur (it was part of his femur) that may need to be removed at some point, but it is not in the way at this time and does not seem to be causing any pain.

He is not allowed to drive for at least four weeks, and this alone is the thing that is causing him the most pain... apparently he hates how I drive and his blood pressure goes up, just by being in the car with me. I am not the bad driver, trust me, I am a conservative driver and he is a racer at heart, he takes chances in traffic and in my opinion is a crazy driver... so my driving drives him crazy! I figure that I have two children to raise and I am not going to tempt anyone to take me away from those children. I usually drive five over the speed limit, but I tend to stay in my lane, even if others are going slow. When turning, I don't turn into traffic quickly, I wait my turn, so I don't have to turn and do 80, I can just turn and be safe. When I am approaching a light and it is turning yellow, I stop most of the time, unless I feel like I can't. In my handbook, yellow does not mean rush through it before it is red, it means slow down. Would you like to guess how he drives? He accused me of being in my 60's today, based on my driving. And since I am in the driver's seat so to speak, I drove even slower. I don't mind being a little passive aggressive now and again. So, if any of you know any of the top 10 race car drivers, we will pay gas and mileage for someone else to drive Steve around. And no, this was a not a car accident that caused all of this, this was a boat. He has not had an accident in years (unless you count the fence that jumped out at him, and our house, which also moved in the way unexpectedly). I was the last one to get a speeding ticket, so go figure (Don't judge, it was over six years ago).

He will have therapy frequently for the next few weeks, ranging from 4 to 5 days a week. This helps him move, improve his range of motion, stand for longer periods of time and learn how to do things for himself again. He is learning to roll over, lift his legs and flex his feet. When he needs help, our children are great teachers, because they have recently mastered all of these skills.

The Rehab doctor stated that Steve needs to be out until December before he can return to work. When he ask the surgeon when he could go back to work and he said that whenever Steve is ready, when he feels like he could handle the pain, be able to move and sit without pain and balance the time. I don't even know what this means, when he feels like he he is ready?! Tomorrow?! Christmas?! 2010?! He has at least five breaks in his legs in total. He can only stand for around 20 minutes with assistance and he needs to move from a sitting position, if his legs are not elevated, every hour or so, he needs frequent therapy to learn how to walk again, has a chunk of bone in his thigh, but he can go to work soon?! When I expressed shock (politely and respectfully of course), the doctor said well, healing takes time, but his job is not high risk, so he does not have to wait until December, if he wanted to go back sooner, he can. He explained that he can only see the bones starting to heal, he can not tell if Steve feels ready or "comfortable" in managing his job and his healing. His healing will be more intensive right now, because of the breaks and the limited movement, but it will be less each day, each week. So, Steve, are you READY? I have heard that his work is reading this, so let me state, like my driving, my healing is conservative, I think that he needs to wait, go gradually, and transition back to work. The other day, he wanted to water the grass (yes he has a walker), so he clunked around the yard with the sprinkler in his basket to place it down and then back to turn on the water. I could have helped him, it would have taken me 2 minutes, him 10, but he needs to test his strength, his energy and his pain. Doing this three times (every 20 minutes) wore him out. Now, I know that his job may not be as intense as watering the grass... but I think he needs to wait. He can not come back for at least two weeks, we all agreed to that, but he would like to return sooner versus later. You know, when he is ready...

Tomorrow, I will test his strength by having him do the dishes. What, don't judge, it is good for his health and healing.

Are you ready?

May God bless you and all that you love.