rehab update, and other Clan news...

Last week at his follow up with the surgeon hubby got an increase to 90 degrees range on his leg braces, so his Christmas was more mobile... This was way more than we were expecting and now it is easier for him to fit into tight places because his knees are allowed to bend... his legs are VERY long and his turning radius is a lot smaller now... That improvement in his mobility was a wonderful gift... In addition he is now able to kind of "hop" on the left leg and use the walker to get around in the the house more too... so access to the shower is a lot easier, and other areas of the house where before the wheelchair would not go are newly available to him. He is so happy about that... his happiness is contagious. I am really happy for him too... and so grateful for the Lord's blessings in helping him heal so fast...

We are one week farther into this whole process and only 2 weeks from hubby being able to put his weight on his right leg... He started range of motion exercises last week, which are going great, and as soon as he can go weight bearing he can start working on strengthening. He is doing wonderfully...

I wish I could say I am doing as well... I am still more tired than normal, even for me... My anemia is better, but the residual effects of the last few months health issues linger. I am hanging on, but just never feel up to much of anything... even spending time updating this blog or reading RSS feeds and blogs I normally can't wait to peruse are not drawing my attention... For one thing, I keep falling asleep with the keyboard in my lap. [chuckling] But mainly it's because the disease is fully active again and I feel like I have the flu much of the time... so that isn't fun and those symptoms make me want to hibernate... It's really not depression... just exhaustion and that overall sickly feeling of needing a nap all the time. It's a real pain.

We still have help coming in... meals a few times a week and help from the kids are a wonderful blessing... but I admit that the drain on my energies over the last 5 weeks has been a lot for me to handle. That makes hubby feel even more impatient to be well... but he can't rush his recovery too much more than he already has, and we are both trying to be patient... It's been an eye-opener to me how the elderly must feel when they care for each other with very limited abilities and resources... and it shows me that we as a couple need to plan even better for future possible emergencies... Many of the preparations we did make have been life savers... but we need to set more aside... and we need to try harder to live on less, when we have more to save... We can do better than we were doing... we had gotten complacent in some areas...

As far as social events over the last week... we had the opportunity to spend Christmas Eve with family and extended family/friends at Son1 and Sweetee's home for a wonderful Polish menu... I ate way to much and enjoyed every single bite... Sweetee and her mom cooked for days, I think, and OH MY how tasty it was... All we did was provide a couple of simple deserts which I wanted to make anyway, because honestly I simply had to make hubby his Pecan Pie which didn't happen on his birthday this year, since we were at his surgeon's office that day... but I couldn't believe it took me hours to make one pie and one batch of shortbread cookies... what's up with that??? Still it was definitely a wonderful celebration... and we were really happy to be included...

Christmas was very simple and quiet for us this year, and that was probably just what we needed...