Surgery Coming

Sooooo….I didn’t sleep very well last night.  It was my first night in my new house, alone.  Dad and Heath have been there the other nights….I have a cot and an air mattress set up upstairs where it is not currently construction.  J  Turns out, I do need surgery.  I have not been doing any exercising beyond daily construction labor at my new house and daily work activities, therefore, my hip pain has been minimal.  I had kind of dismissed the idea of surgery after pursuing all these routes.  After yesterday, I now know surgery is in my near future. 

Decision to Pursue

I got up and went to the gym this morning for an hour long swim.  I was kind of testing the waters because my hip hasn’t been hurting real bad due to lack of daily exercise.  I did a full hour in the pool just general swimming, no real laps.  I used water weights and the aqua jogger.  After the workout, I remembered why I hadn’t been working out very much.

We went to Bridgeport and worked with the bin building crews as they dried and oiled each piece of our bins.  When I got back inside, much to my surprise, I had an email with a second opinion from a hip specialist out of Colorado Springs.  Just to get this email was a blessing because originally I thought that I would have to take a day off work to travel down to Colorado Springs for the opinion.  The next HUGE blessing was the fact that he told me the exact same thing my trusted surgeon told me.  J  Torn labrum with the ability to repair it and clean up any damaged tissue.

Moving Forward

I called Trinket today at Storm Mountain Orthopaedics to see if there was anything that I could do to help with tracking down my insurance to get a pre-approved authorization number for the surgery.  To my pleasant surprise, she had already taken care of it!

Water?

We woke up and Heath cooked for us again!  Eggs and buckwheat pancakes!  Dad headed over to Menard’s and then to my house as Heath and I headed for early service at church then Sunday school.

By the time Heath and I made it to the house, Garry pulled in right after us.  Dad had already removed all the staples from the bedroom and pulled all that nasty tack board from the old carpet.  He had cleaned up the house too…a definite work in progress as we are doing major renovations it is increasingly important to keep it semi-clean so we don’t step on sharp objects or trip over stuff in the middle of the night.

He was making sure the ourdoor bonfire (of limbs and yard trash) was burning and under control (with the permit) as we had added a few things to it.  After Garry got there, Heath and him began working on the well.  After pulling the 50 feet of pipes, wires, etc. twice, replacing the well pump with a brand new one, and several hours later, much to all of our surprise....two wires were crossed.  I went out to check on them to see if they needed anything and I noticed that there were a couple of wires crossed that led to the barn.  Turns out they had been hit by a limb as we placed it on the bonfire.  All we had to do is untwist them and ta-da, done.  :)  Afterall, I did get a new water pump out of the deal from Daddy.  Thank you to all involved!

W-A-T-E-R!

Saturday

Dad was here and we all worked outside mowing, trimming, cutting down dead trees, brush, and burning ditches.  It was a full production day as Garry, Heath, and Dad were all here helping me out.  We got a lot accomplished!

When I went to get some water for the dogs, out of the faucet, I found there was nothing.  Noting that, I went inside to use the water and still nothing.  Just about that time Garry was coming up to the house to get cleaned up for his supper plans.  I told him about not having water and he immediately redirected to the well house and started taking stuff apart.  Let me give you a visual of this well house…..crawl in a hole, mouse poop, dark, possible snakes, creepy….this is a project in and of itself for another day at another time.  Garry hopped right down in there and started checking stuff.  After a little while he decided he’d have to come back tomorrow with some more tools to work on it more seriously.

 For the evening, since no water, Dad, Heath, and I loaded up and went over to Heath’s house.  Heath made us a wonderful supper in which Dad was super impressed.  The boys were at their mom’s so Heath changed the sheets on Justin’s bed for Dad.  He took a shower and hit the sack in that nice, dark basement.

Confident to Pursue Surgery

I spoke with Dr. Sarin today and after reviewing my scoliosis x-rays; he felt confident in proceeding with surgery.  He said that he would work with my insurance to make sure I could do the surgery in Steamboat Springs.  They could do it here in the valley, but my surgery is rare and our hospital here does not have the proper equipment and Dr. Sarin would have to fly the equipment here for my surgery.  He is comfortable with their hospital there.  He also said their hospital in Steamboat is private and they tend to work with people and their insurance.  He would see what he could get done so I wouldn't have to chase them down.

Second Opinion

I mailed out my records (x-rays and MRI) to Colorado Springs for a second opinion, hoping that I could get some answers through a phone conversation.  John had a friend who recommending this doctor, Dr. Huang.  He has been very helpful in my process.

Saturday

I just have to write real quick about today before I go to bed.  This has been quite a week of unexpecteds at work when Heath was out of town.  He got back in town late last night and we agreed that we both need to go in this morning to take care of a few things.  He picked me up and we went to Bridgeport this morning so that he could check in with the guys and I could work on my safety meeting stuff for our Monday meetings.  (On the way there, I got to speak with my WONDERFUL and BEAUTIFUL 89 year old grandmother in Pleasant Hill, Illinois.  What a truly wonderful blessing to have her.)  We left around noon to head to Silver Spur Feeders for some compost.  It's a feedlot that uses this really cool machine to "cook" their manure and somehow take all the smell out of it.  I am really impressed by it.  They sell it for $25 a pickup load.

We got it back to the house and Heath started working on that and Dad and I went into Melbeta to get some things to start burning ditches.  We need to get all the trash-weeds, dirt, dead things-out so water will run smoothly through them this summer.  We have to hurry and get them cleaned out because my wonderful farmer neighbor offered to help pull them for us.  He has a two week window between planting different crops.  Irrigation water is coming sometime in June although no date has been established because this is an "allocation" year.  I want to be ready!

My friend and roomie, from the House on Highland, came over to visit today.  I put her to work as we set the cinder blocks up around my garden that Heath was tilling.  Mr. Delton and Carol Herman, previous owners, dropped off the tiller for me to use just out of the goodness of their hearts.  By the way, today is their 50 year anniversary!  Congratulations to them for being such a great example to us all!  :)

Once Heath got done with the tilling, he looked at the line we were creating with the blocks and wondered if I was ok....apparently it was not straight and for a man that worked in landscaping for 10 years, he noticed....surprising because I am the anal one!  :)  So we decided to get the right tools tomorrow and finish it then.

Amy and I headed into Melbeta again to get some more supplies for Dad to continue to burn.  He stayed and babysat the fire (and the dogs).  When we got back, Heath was in painting a sample in my bedroom to see if I would like it in the sun tomorrow!  He then suggested that Amy take me to Home Depot and pick out colors of paint for my wall in the living room and dining room so we can continue to work on the hardwood floors.  We are currently waiting to sand them and make them nice until I get colors decided on for the walls.

  

We stopped by Liz's house for some advice and to look at her newly painted house.  I really like the way the white trim just pops out at you as you drive by, it is beautiful!  They showed us a program on the iPhone that you can take a picture of your room and then "paint" it with different samples with your finger on the touch screen.

Heading to Home Depot was a really good choice because Miss Amy kept me on track extremely well and helped me actually make a decision.  It was a productive run and I purchased 3 samples of paint to see if any of them would work.  We went with a light, medium, and dark kind of tan colors...thinking very neutral for now and then deciding later on other accents once I get everything else done and my furniture in place.  So exciting!

We got back through the rain!  Blessings!  Wonderful since the just got done drilling my seed last night!  Anyway, we painted all three samples by a wooden door frame.  We have taken all the light fixtures down, so we will have to wait until tomorrow to actually see the difference, but we both agreed on the lightest one we picked out.  Made the beautiful wood trim "pop" and was a warm/neutral color to start with.

More tomorrow on other decisions....so much fun!  Got to call Mom on the way home today and tell her all about this crazy color picking out and progress we are making on the house.