Catching up....

Well, i'm at least going to make an attempt to catch up... I see that my last post was made in Nov. '10 recounting our March '10 trip to DC!  UGH.  I've found it easier to upload pics to facebook which has left this space sorely neglected.  I'll try to do better.  

Sooooo after our DC trip in early '10 -- moving L&J into their new house -- we came home to Jim's Achilles surgery. We flew home March 30 and his surgery was scheduled for 7pm March 31! 

                                 jim was a pretty patient patient!

                            This was Jim's view of the nursing station...

              Oh yeah, they almost forgot to shave his leg! haha...

Of course, there were delays and i ended up waiting (alone) for hours at Sycamore Medical Center  (Kettering). When i went back to recovery Jim was awake and 'joking' with the nurses.... good meds!  It didn't take long for the initial meds to wear off and he was in a lot of pain.  They gave him a little something and said i needed to stop at the pharmacy (down the street) to get the RX filled!  Well, he was in a LOT of pain going home because i couldn't give him anything until we got there.  I drove fast. 

   Somehow i got him into our bed with his foot propped up (above his nose). I slept on the floor so i could hear if he woke and needed anything. His meds were every 6 hours around the clock at first. This was Wed. night.

The next few days he spent on the family room couch using the 1/2 bath. By Sat. he was on his last pain pill.  Over my objections, he went to work for 1/2 day on Monday. I drove him the first 2 days, but he insisted he could do it after that. He was very tired after working.  It's hard to use a computer with your foot propped above your head!  :-)

 

Benny & Jim relaxing after work

 

Jim was feeling well enough to go to Power House on April 7th and let the kids sign his cast!

On April 12 we went to Kettering to have his staples and first cast removed and a new one put on.

The staples looked a little "Frankenstein-ish" 

They adjusted the angle of his foot gradually to stretch the tendon gently back into place.  








The surgeon said the got some "good experience" piecing his tendon back together since it was so shredded from walking on it for a month!  April 21st was the final trip for his last (orange) cast. Had to wait an hour just to get in. This was the hardest one for jim since they had to get his foot to the 'zero' degree angle. It took 30 mins. of painful pushing down on the knee to stretch out the tendon.

  That cast stayed on until May 13 -- then back to the cam boot and finally a REAL bath!