All about Mama

So far Mama is doing okay. Her pain is manageable. It seems to come in spurts and each of those is short-lived. She is getting a greater range of motion; albeit, not as rapidly as I had expected. Her confidence is growing when it comes to getting around the house. She still cannot maneuver her left leg completely on her own when sitting or getting up from a sitting position, but she is gaining on that front. Getting in and out of bed is one of her biggest challenges. It will be a few more days until she can accomplish that on her own. At that point, she will not have to get me up in the middle of the night to help her get out of bed to go to the bathroom. That will be a nice change for both of us. She had trouble getting me up at 1:30 this morning. I am not sure how long she waited on me, but it was not a short period of time.

I left her this morning sitting on the couch with her hip propped up on a pillow, both legs wrapped in the compression sleeves we were given by the doctor’s office and ice packs on the top and bottom of the left knee. Victoria was not up yet. Erin was on her way with the kids. Grandma will be arriving mid-morning. She should have plenty of help. What we need now is some trained help to get her range of motion back. She still is not bending the knee more than about 60°. We need a lot more than that, but we do not have the training to recognize how much force we should apply against the resistance of the wounded appendage. That takes someone much more skilled than Victoria and me. Those who are trained Physical Therapists know how much to push, pull or stretch to apply to the injury to help it to heal. For us, when Mama groans or cries out in pain, we stop. They know when that pain is part of the healing process. They are not offended when a patient gets mad at them for the pain they are inflicting. We, on the other hand, have to live with Mama after the hurting.

Victoria and I are trying to work out how to care for Mama Sunday. She will not be going to church this week. Perhaps not next week either. We not only have to get her to the point of walking confidently, we have to get her to the point that she can survive being bumped and jostled. She is a child magnet and the children that are drawn to her will not care about the knee being banged about. They are not used to such a thing. They will not know to care. So, we have to get Mama to the point of being able to tolerate the impact to her incision as she deals with the children who will be very happy to see her again.

For now, we err on the side of caution.