A Hospital Visit- Meniscus Tear

My husband had surgery yesterday for a tear in his meniscus. 

The injury is a result of many years of being a carpenter

and other such activities that abuse the knees.

The final blow came in the chicken coop.

I had taken the day off to volunteer at the church rummage 

sale but after driving only a mile from home, my cell rang.

Come  home and bring a ladder.

He had been in the coop tending to the birds

and while attempting to jump down, he felt something

go very wrong in his knee.  He was stuck in the coop

and the birds knew it.  It was pay back time.

I had no time to waste so I quickly turned around and 

drove home, grabbed a step stool and helped him out

of the coop before they took their revenge.

Whew, safe.

LOL!

I left him to call the doctor while I headed to church,

knowing there was no way to get an appointment that day.

By the time it was all said and done, 

after the insurance had approved everything,

after payment for procedures not yet performed,

he was scheduled (for the 2nd time) for surgery Thursday.

Somehow, even though he told EVERYONE he spoke with 

about his past blood clots, the doctor didn't notice until

right before the first surgery was scheduled.

Then he had to have a dopler test to check for clots

before they could proceed.

All went well, he wasn't in great pain and I took him home

and plopped him in my recliner

(his looks like a Craig's List reject and the foot piece falls unexpectedly).

The blue bandage is really a super huge ice pack with dual

panels that slides in sideways and completely wraps the knee

with velcro holding it in place.  There is another bandage beneath

and other bandages covering stitches.  He can take this all off Sunday.

Do you all like the cammo Crocs?

They are some sort of trail Crocs with very thick soles.

He needed shoes to slip on and agreed to these.

Now he doesn't care what anyone says,

these are super comfortable and you can't feel any rocks

under your feet or get twigs stuck in sandals.

I want a pair too but I can't find women's!

The bad side of this is the twice a day injections he has to give 

himself to prevent post op blood clots.  No training, just a kit.

Thankfully, YouTube had a nice tutorial.

You have to inject yourself in the stomach.

It causes large bruising, being a blood thinner

but he has to do it for only 2 weeks.

In the meantime I'll take care of things he can't 

or I should say, things he should not be doing.

This is why I was so happy that I got my coop deck and door knob.

It's a raise coop because we had to disguise it as a tool shed

due to our subdivision regulations.  At some point we just gave

up and everyone started raising chickens, goats or having other

such violations (like our antennas).  

He could just jump into the coop but at 5' 2", I couldn't even attempt it.

Now I can walk in, the food is right there, gather eggs,

change water with the handy dandy squirter attached to the 

extended hoses going down the hill from the house.

  

Hopefully his recovery period will be quick because he needs 

to get back to work.  It's been almost 2 months since this 

first started with one delay after the other.

Being a carpenter, you have to take advantage of work

when it's available and right now was the worst time

for this to happen because they had lots of work.

Hopefully some will still be there when he recovers!

He's doing well, much better than some others

who have had the surgery. I have to try and hold

him back from doing too much though.