This Week in My Life: Week 11 of 2016

The view from here:

it's been foggy a lot this past week

My mom had surgery on her knee this week. It was a long day for both of us, though overall a much harder one for her! We were there for about 6 hours. Lots of waiting. The surgery went well, but she's having a lot of pain and weakness, as well as some side effects from the pain meds. It's been a role reversal for us this week, as I've been taking care of her the way she so often has done for me.

waiting in the pre-op room with my mom before they kicked me out

charging my phone in this handy dandy charging station

reading a good book in the waiting room

The gown she wore connects to this hose that blows hot air into it!
I thought this was strange but cool, and funny since it made her "inflate."

This is her knee bandaged up and enclosed in a compression stocking.
I have really cool pictures I could share of the actual inside of her knee, but some
people *cough-my-sister-cough* apparently don't find this as awesome as it is, so I won't post them here.

sunset

On the MS front:

Getting over steroid withdrawal took a few days of feeling awful, but it's finally over. As for the relapse itself, I still wouldn't say it's 100% better, but it's improved a lot. The weakness was still pretty major even a few days after I'd finished the steroids, but it's now at around 90% better. Significant, certainly, but I'd rather it was all the way. I'm also still having plenty of tingling/numbness going on. Today it's been in both hands. :-(

What I read this week:

Again, sadly not a whole lot. I'm almost done with Love Anthony, after which I'll get back to Divergent.

I thought I would have done more reading while spending so much time waiting around during my mom's surgery, and I did read some, but mostly I got distracted by the conversations around me. I almost had a hysterical laughing fit during one such moment of eavesdropping due to the subject matter and the way in which it was discussed.

A few days after the surgery, I took my mom in for a wound check, and once again heard some interesting convos in the waiting room. Of particular note was a conversation in which a lady was complaining about her neurologist because he keeps trying to get her to go on an MS drug. Her opinion on the matter is that she's already tried a few and they either don't work or they "make her see yellow school buses flying at her" or they can give you a brain disease that kills you. So that was interesting. I almost wanted to insert myself into that conversation, but I refrained. While I certainly understand her concerns and issues (except for the flying school bus side effect!), I also think that choosing to do NOTHING is probably the worst option of all.