2.23.12

9:07 PM

This is my triumphant return to blogging.  It is mostly an effort to procrastinate when I should be writing my capstone.

Last night Jon and I went to see Brad Paisley.  Scotty McCreery and The Band Perry opened for him.  We purposely skipped Scotty. I have unexplainable distaste for him. My Iphone 3 camera reaaaally sucks.  We were so close and this grainy, blurry pic was the best it could do.

Brad was great. So many hits and a pretty amazing guitar player. He seems like a nice guy on top of all that. I am such a cliche and get really emotional about a few country songs no matter how many times I hear them.  One of them is Letter to Me.  I hate myself for it.  Every time the lump starts to form I have to force myself to get a grip.

Huge missed opportunity though - the UW marching band should have played at the end of Online.  Duh!


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2.17.12

5:12 PM

Jon and I went on a little weekend getaway to the Chicago burbs last weekend.  It was a good break from the February doldrums. This was the view from our hotel.  I thought it was pretty cool.  Close, but still pretty far away.

2.12.12

12:42 PM

Diz had baby #2 a couple weeks ago.  Eddie.  2 ahead of me already.  Geez.

I promised Starbucks on the day I went to visit...and promptly dropped/spilled her latte within 3 mins of being in the house.  Cool.  Is there anything worse than thinking you are going to have Starbucks and then something gets in the way of it?  No, there is not.  I felt really bad.

2.11.12

3:35 PM

We all came down from Madison to visit Nancy a couple weeks ago.  Like all of my trips "home", I smooshed as many activities in as possible.  We took the visitors to Pizza P and Yo Mama, natch.

Later I met Meghan and Tom at Le Reve where I rounded out my tour of eating my way through the tosa village.

2.5.12

1:26 PM

My brother-in-law's dog and partner in his K9 unit unfortunately just got diagnosed with cancer.  I spent an afternoon with them taking some pics of him so they'll have some good shots to remember him by.

1.28.12

11:09 PM

Emily & Josh's wedding was one of the best, most fun weddings I have ever been to.  They are such a great couple.  They hardly ever left each other's side for the entire reception, which was so sweet.  Since I know both of them, and both of their friends, and also a lot of Emily's family, I probably knew at least a quarter of the people at the wedding.  Makes the party so much better!  Their friends are their family and vise versa.  I'm not sure how many people can truly say that. You could feel the bond between everyone there, I think. The whole thing ended with a pretty fierce dance party consisting of the last 30 people left at the reception.  The blurriness of this pic is a good indicator of how much fun was had.

12.25.11

12:40 PM

Jon and I got these remote control cars for our nephews for Christmas.  The box said they could do jumps and flips, so I encouraged Keegan that he "should totally make the car jump down the step!"  One of the axels on the car broke after he did that.  woops.  I ruined Christmas.

12.24.11

6:00ish

My cousin won this Emmy.  An honest to goodness, for real Emmy award.  He brought it to Christmas so he could show it off to everyone.

6.11.11

gin

On an unseasonably cool day in june, we saw Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown Band and Billy Currington at Lambeau.  Wow.  This was a great concert.  It actually might go down as the top 5 most fun day of my life.  Tailgating started at about noon and we finally made it into the concert at about 5....where we stayed until about 11.  All 3 acts put on a great show and I think everyone there (including Billy Currington, Zac Brown and Kenny Chesney) knew they were lucky to be there since this was the first concert ever at Lambeau.  

6.10.11

Cooper and Gina did the Bellin Kids Run back in June.  I think it was a quarter of a mile.  Basically, they ran around the block. It was so cute!  

6.7.11

When I was deciding if I would go through with this surgery, I did a lot of research online to hear about other stories of people who have had ACL revisions.  I found a lot of negative stories unfortunately, but still went ahead with the operation after talking with a lot of real people who thought there was a need for it to be done (PTs, trainers, doctors, athletes who had the same injury).  So in case anyone who is in my same position and is googling "ACL revision" looking for a success story, I am recording it here.  (it is probably a little early to gauge if i am truly a success story, but so far so good).

Day 1: was able to do a single leg raise at PT

Day 4: able to lift leg in and out of bed on my own

Day 5: comfortable walking with partial weight bearing with 2 crutches

Day 6: saw my doctor, he is impressed with my quad strength.  mentioned that the 3 months of PT I went through prior to surgery has really helped.

Day 8: dragged myself out of the house to go to class
Day 9 : started to use 1 crutch in controlled environments for safety, but able to limp around with no crutches
Week 2 : went back to work
Week 4 : started driving
Week 6 : officially got clearance to stop wearing brace...although, I sometimes didn't wear it prior to that when I was at home and work.
Week 13: quad strength is about 75% of my good leg.  ham string is about 95%.  Got clearance to slowly reintroduce running into my life.

As for general recovery and where I still feel "off": 
-I still have a lot of numbness in my knee area. 
-When I get up from a chair after sitting for a while, my knee is a little sore and is kind of creaky as I try to straighten in. 
-Still cant kneel without major discomfort, but I am not expecting to for a long time.
-Sometimes I feel pain in the inside of my knee where I felt pain when it was torn. I know isn't torn, but I am hyper-sensitive about retearing and not knowing since that has happened already. I got definite confirmation all is good at my 6 week appt when my doc did (an extra agressive, IMO) Lachman test and it was totally solid. 

So, that is about where I am at now.  I have run a few times since I have had clearance. My PT has given me strict orders NOT to just go out and run 3 miles the first time I went out (ummm, as if my lungs would even be able to do that anyway.  Havent been running for at least 9 months).  I have been doing a 2 min run, 1 min walk thing for now.  The first time was a little rough.  I felt some pain while running, so had to be conscious of  my posture and attempt to keep my body aligned.  Poor body alignment is what we (who am I kidding - my doc and PT) have kind of decided is part of the reason why I continue to have this injury.  Anyway, I was reeeaaally sore the next day.  The next few times went really well though!  No soreness in my knee, just my legs/muscles, which is a good sign.

6.4.11

Shari's shower and bachelorette party.  We had a good time, to say the least.  I got clearance to not wear my brace earlier in the day and I definitely put it to the test on the dance floor that night.  I was in good hands though since almost half of the people at the party were PTs.

5.12.11

6:28 pm

Sorry if this is gross. I went under the knife for the second stage of an ACL revision a few weeks ago.  Recovery is going really well. My PT has had me focused on getting the swelling down though. My range of motion is progressing really well, but the balloon-like shape my knee has morphed itself into is hindering my ability to bend as far as I probably could if wasn't so swollen. So yesterday I was sitting against the wall with my leg in the air letting gravity do its thing, when I noticed how freakishly tiny my leg is!  I'm not sure why I was so shocked since this is not the first time my knees have been operated on, but seriously...look at it. My calf is concave.

4.23.11

2:23 pm



4:18pm

Love these guys.

4.17.11

11:44 am

Shari and I threw a baby shower for Lindsay's little bambina arriving at the end of May.  It was such a nice afternoon.  The shower started at 10:30am and I honestly thought people would probably be gone by 12:30 at the latest.  Instead our little group stuck around and talked until the late afternoon.  Always a great time with these ladies!

4.10.11

4:35 PM

I saw another blogger add time stamps to their daily pictures.  I decided I liked that and am ripping off this idea.  I think it adds another dimension to the picture...imagining what might have been happening before, after or while the picture was taken.  In this case, I went to Dizzy's on an unseasonably warm Sunday night.  We were waiting outside for her sister to arrive with our dinner and I took a few shots of Char.

4.9.11

1:04 am

(I guess technically this was taken on April 10th, but I am calling it April 9th.) Thomas turned 21 y'all! In celebration, we went out to celebrate at the finest that Water Street and Old World Third Street had to offer.  We drank, we danced and we drank a little more.  A funny sidenote: Tom wears plaid shirts like the one is fashioning in this picture often.  Meghan thought it would be great if we all wore plaid shirts to be just like him.  Such a great idea, so I came to Milwaukee armed with my favorite plaid shirt of the moment.  However, when I got to Meghan's, it turned out it was basically the same one she was wearing. Sooo, I ended up nixing the plaid shirt so as not to be twins with Meghan (because people mistake us for twins all the time.....yeah right.)  Thomas, Meghan and Taylor certainly nailed the plaid shirt theme though.

4.5.11

On our last day, we went to dinner at our favorite place, Mon Ami Gabi.  The atmosphere is always perfect and as a bonus, the food is so delicious.  It was the perfect way to end our trip.

4.4.11

This was the most expensive meal we have ever had. This restaurant exists in New York and apparently it is super exclusive. It is impossible to get a reservation and there might be people who have memberships there, I think. I had heard about this place and their legendary meatballs on the Food Network and on Top Chef, so I knew we had to go there since I knew we would never make it to the NY one.  I am here to tell you the meatballs were delicious.  I have never been so stuffed in my entire life though...and woah, we spent a lot.

4.3.11

It was Country Music Mania the weekend we were in Vegas.  The ACM Awards were in town and we got to go to the award show....kind of.  The real award show was happening at MGM, but there was a simulcast with a few performances and a couple awards given out at Mandalay Bay, which we were at!  After the awards show, there was a full on concert with about a dozen artists who sang about 3 of their most popular songs.  It was amazing and we were not expecting it.  After everything was over, we ended up being at Mandalay Bay for about 7 hours listening to country music.