How quickly time goes by

I can barely believe that Christmas is around the corner. How did that happen? In fact the entire year seems to have rushed by in a flash. Early in the year I was anticipating our 3 week trip back to the UK, of course that was wonderful, and I got to meet up with so many friends and family, but 3 weeks is just never enough! All the plans I had to visit different places just fell by the wayside as we tried to fit in as much as possible in the time we had. We arrived back home in time for the twins to enjoy their last day of preschool before they broke up for summer.

Once again I planned to do lots of things with the boys, we had the entire summer ahead of us. I wanted to go to the zoo, go up Pike's Peak, have lots of picnics in the park, summer crafts - all sorts of things. I was so excited about the good times I had planned. And then I had knee surgery! I was stuck in a wheelchair for 6 weeks. Plus it rained a lot through the summer, much more rain than we ever experience here. Before I knew what was happening I was starting to prepare for the boys to head back to school!

And here we are. November 14, only two weeks until Thanksgiving and 6 weeks until Christmas! How did that happen? When I was single, it often seemed as if time was standing still. Life was slower altogether and I meandered through my weekends off work and my summer holidays. Pottered around in my garden, spent lazy afternoons reading a good book, and even stayed in bed VERY late reading the Sunday paper! Now two screaming little boys lurch through our bedroom door around 6.30am and hurl themselves on our bed. They don't understand how to whisper and be quiet, quiet is not a concept they get! So our days start early, if reluctantly, and the rest of the day just flies by in a blur!

I need to get started on Christmas cards and present lists. If I want to mail anything to my family in the UK I have to think ahead to ensure I don't miss the post! I certainly need more specifics on the toys the twins want Santa to bring them this year, a moon "thingy" is not really helpful to me! I need to go online and see what's the best price and where. I need to make photograph calendars for my family, it's a great way for them to see what the boys have been up to during the year. I need to think about food for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Chuck has no time off this year other than Christmas Day, so I have a feeling I will be doing a HUGE grocery shop with the boys in tow! Not looking forward to that at all! The boys have read and re-read the ToysRUs catalog, they want just about everything in it, except the items Oliver says are "girlish"!

It's another year almost done, but I am loving the season. The boys are so excited, they spent the day yesterday pretending they were Santa delivering present. They tied their favorite cuddly toys up in their baby blankets, handed them to each other - or me - so they could be unwrapped and enjoyed! Their delight in the snow, and the 'cel'bation' as Jamie calls it makes it so much fun for me! If nothing else, seeing and sharing these celebrations and events with them will keep me young! (As long as it doesn't kill me first!)

Knees, crutches and wheelchairs!

I am getting old, it's a pain in the bum, but it's a fact of life! I have been hobbling up and down the stairs lately because the pain in my knees has been escalating. I knew we should have bought a ranch (that's a bungalow to all my UK friends). The stairs are killing me! One night when I was bending down to kiss Oliver goodnight I felt something 'go' in my knee. Not sure where it went, but after that it hurt like hell and I really couldn't bend it and put weight on it at the same time. Watching me trying to go up and down the stairs without bending my legs is pretty comical!

I ended up visiting an orthopedist, a really nice guy called Dr. Stockelman. He sent me off for x-rays - normal - and an MRI - also normal, although it did show a small hole underneath the patella and a fissure at the back of my knee, all caused by osteoarthritis and my auto immune disease. He recommended an arthroscopy to clean out the knee and help my pain along. That was Wednesday, the following Tuesday I was in surgery! It happened so fast I barely had time to think about it.

Dr. Stockelman initially told me I would be on crutches for 6 weeks! I was stunned, and talked to his nurse later, who suggested I had misheard him as it was normal to be on crutches for two weeks at the most after an arthroscopy. I was much relieved! We rented some crutches from King Soopers - how strange to get something like that from the grocery store - and all was fine. My knee hurt A LOT! I could barely walk the first couple of days and found that using crutches was actually very difficult and painful! Anyway, I struggled along, hobbled around the house and waited for the swelling to go down and my stitches to come out. Two weeks after surgery I went back for my post op appointment. I wrote on my Facebook page that I was thrilled to be going to get my stitches out, that I would be running around the place like crazy and couldn't wait to lose the crutches! Silly me!

Confidently leaving my crutches in the car with Chuck and the boys I sauntered into the office to see my doctor. Almost the first words out of his mouth were "Where are your crutches?" I told him they were in the car, at which point he called the nurse to come with a wheelchair for me. I was forbidden to walk at all! He asked if I could remember talking to him after my surgery - and I couldn't - because if I had I might have recalled I didn't have just an arthroscopy. I also had something called a Pick Chondroplasty, which involved punching dozens of small holes into the bone to allow blood and bone marrow to ooze through and coat the knee in an attempt to provide a protective covering where the cartilage has been lost. He told me he often makes patients stay off their feet for 3 months and I should consider myself lucky that I was only 'sentenced' to 6 weeks!

He gave me a prescription for a wheelchair. I didn't think I needed it, but at home I couldn't even fetch myself a drink and take it back to my seat, crutches are not helpful at all in that way. We collected the wheelchair today, and while I feel kind of a fraud for using it, it certainly makes life easier - as long as I can get the boys to keep their things off the floor! Chuck has to go back to work next week, and I return to the doctor on August 27, when I hope to be able to dispose of both the crutches and the wheelchair. But this time......I won't be anticipating anything on my Facebook page before my appointment!