Seth-n-Jode's Adventures

Mom and I arrived early today for Seth's orthopedic appointment.  The ambulance drivers arrived and Seth immediately started joshing with them.  He really likes ambulance drivers although I do hope he doesn't make this a habit!

The orthopedic appointment went pretty well.  They said that Seth's bones are knitting together properly and they took out all the sutures and staples.  Although they did say that he is having some extra bone growth on his right femur.  They say this is very normal in patients that have had head injury along with broken bones and the docs don't understand why the body does this.  Its almost as if the body overcompensates and tries to heal the bone with extra bone growth.  They aren't too worried about it just yet.  They just said that they would be watching it and it might require a small surgery if it were continue to grow and get too big and then they would just have to scrape it off.   They said they did not know if the left knee will eventually require surgery.  But they said in any event, it is not something they would do now.  They need Seth's other injuries to heal first and a surgery to repair his PCL tear on his left knee would be way down the road and it would depend on if it is something that is inhibiiting Seth from doing his everyday life.  I also asked if they were going to put a CPM machine (which would move Seth's right leg slowly) but the doctor said it wouldn't do any good since the injuries on the right leg are bone and not tendon related. 

As you know Seth's left shoulder was severely dislocated.  It looks like he suffered some nerve damage from this as his left pinky and ring finger are numb but the doctor did some evaluation of what Seth can do now and was encouraged at what he can do.  So he said this injury would probably just take time for the nerves to heal.  Unfortunately, the shoulder MRI did not make it with Seth to the appointment but Kindred is sending that over today so that the doctor can look at it to see if it tells us any more information.

The best thing of all that came out of the meeting is that Seth doesn't have to keep the bolster between his legs anymore NOR does he have to wear the sling!  Both of which were objects that he didn't like at all. Hooray!  They said that he can put his left hand up on the trapeze or use his left arm minimally to be able to move himself around.  They just don't want him using the left arm to bear most of the weight for fear of dislocating it again.  The doctor said that he can start squeezing balls with his left hand and said that the rehab is mostly "use it or lose it" right now with regard to the left hand.  Seth has been massaging his left hand constantly and was squeezing a ball so the doctor said that is the right track to get feeling back in those fingers as the nerve heals.

The doc said that Seth should be able to bear weight in three weeks on his right leg.  And he should be able to bear weight in 7 - 9 weeks on his left leg.  He can't bend more than 90 degrees at his hips or move his left leg across his right leg for 3 more weeks either. Its been three weeks since Seth's surgeries. And then of course, it takes time to recover to be able to walk again since he hasn't been walking for three months. 

They scheduled an appointment on July 29th for him to meet with Dr. Mann who is a sports medicine doctor.  We also scheduled an appointment on August 14th for a followup with Dr. Smith who is the orthopedic doctor we met with today.

Enough about the nitty gritty detail.  I want to share some personal info mostly to get it off my chest.  I have been having a fair bit of internal guilt over the fact that when I found Seth one month ago in the middle of the road barely breathing, I didn't do anything constructive besides panic and scream.  I was too afraid to try to roll him over for fear of further hurting him.  I simply did not know what to do.  I was alone except for the driver of the car who hit him who wasn't helping at all.  I didn't have a phone. Luckily, angels were nearby that heard my screams and within a few minutes of the accident had Seth stablized, talking and responding.  But there are times when I let my mind go to places that are just to scary to dwell.  Where I think of the what ifs or if no angels had been on hand. 

I have told Seth that we are going to ride this one together. He's going to help me when I'm down and I'm going to help him when he's down.  I broke down today in front of him and shared my feelings with him about how guilty I feel for not helping him when he most needed my help.  He stroked my back and said its all going to be ok.  I feel terrible about breaking down in front of him especially when he is so hurt but we've both agreed that in order to get through this thing, we are going to have to be brutally honest with where we both are at any point in time.  

Just like today, he was talking with a good friend of ours, Brendan, who does some contractor work for us up in Pagosa Springs.  Brendan has basically stepped in and taken the reins of a property we own up there and figured out some major contracting issues that Seth had been working on prior to the accident.  Another angel watching over us, really.  Seth got tears in his eyes as he was talking with Brendan.  I have never seen Seth cry in the 20 years I've known him.  Never.  And yet, when I asked him why he was crying, he said it was because there are just so many good people in the world who are helping us.  It scares me to see this mountain of a man cry because he is this sun around which I orbit. But how I have to think about it is how we will both grow stronger for it and that its ok for him to cry too for joy or fear or angst or the unknown.  Its ok and my sun is still there and now theres just a few drops of rain about me.

Anyway, I want to end the blog this evening with a kind of funny story.  Linda and Keith who are neighbors of ours in Durango basically threw me a rope and pulled me out of the recirculating eddy I have been in this past month to get me to go to Hot Yoga.  So I went to a 90 minute Hot Yoga class on Sunday morning.  Now I've been doing Hot Yoga for about 3 years but I'm definitely on the short bus when it comes to doing proper yoga poses.  I'm all bound up and basically can barely touch my toes most days.  I guess the only thing I've got going for me is that I try!  My goal in my Hot Yoga classes in Durango has been to have my teacher say "Beautiful pose, Jody" and really mean it for the fact that I'm doing a beautiful pose.  But no luck so far!  Anyway, after my Hot Yoga class this past Sunday in Boulder, the teacher comes up to me and sure enough asks if this is my first hot yoga class!  I tried to answer in such a way that she didn't feel like she had to pull her foot out of her mouth.  But we basically agreed that this class was Bikram and it wasn't like the Vinyasa yoga I had been doing and thus why I still look like I'm learning!

I still consider myself Yogini of the Mountain.  No matter how good or bad my poses are!  The picture for today is Seth, Kelly and John doing yoga up above Namche Bazaar in Nepal.  A pretty awesome setting for yoga if I do say so myself.  The only problem....no air....