Allrighty, so this isn't going to be as complete or pretty as it could be.
However, I thought it was time to at least get a rough set of pictures up documenting the week prior to surgery through June! So here you go:
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| Banking blood prior to surgery. |
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| Trip to Oregon to see cousin Lauren and Aunt Colleen... |
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| ...on the Oregon coast for my mom's birthday! One week to surgery. |
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| Weekend before, putt-putt with family and Josh! |
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| A few days before, get together with a few friends... |
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| ...could not have come up with a better bunch of people to enjoy my first week of summer with! |
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| Wednesday night, dinner with the Klein family. |
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| Surgery day! 4:30 in the morning, heading to the hospital. |
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| This parking garage has one of the best views of Seattle. |
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| Phone from lobby to nurses station... and a bunch of seashells glued to a bowl. |
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| They had me change into the patient uniform, complete with great socks! |
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| Hailey arrived just before they took me back to pre-op... |
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| While I was in surgery, my family waited in the main hospital lobby... |
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| ...with Hailey for company! She's an incredible friend :) |
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| My family didn't see me from 7am 'til 4pm... |
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...which allowed them some time to explore the hospital grounds.
James Tower is the wing where I spent most of my time at Swedish. |
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| My parents and Hailey were called back to see me once I had been settled into the ICU. |
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| I was feeling ridiculously chatty, but didn't say anything funny, which was rather dissappointing. |
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| My surgeon, Dr. Hanscom, heard I was up for talking, so he stepped in to let me know that everything went well in surgery. |
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| I had two IV lines in my right hand/wrist, so they had it braced to keep me from accidentally bending it. |
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| Jacob came by not long after I woke up. |
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| One night in the ICU was more than enough. So many tubes, monitors beeping, nurses coming in and out. Sleeping is nearly impossible. |
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| This lovely tag was to remind us that I was the only one allowed to push my morphine pump. |
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| About 8am the next morning (Saturday) the ICU nurse had me sit up and move to a chair for the first time. It felt about as awful as my face implies, yes. |
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| She checked my back out... not much to see, though, considering how much tape Dr. Hanscom had on there. |
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| After a bit of breakfast, a physical therapist stopped in to give me some pointers on moving around safely. |
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| The full view of my ICU room. |
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| Right hand IV line. When they took it out, I was genuinely disturbed by how long the needle was O.o |
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| In case I forget my name. |
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| The lovely hemo-vac contraption that collected the fluid and blood coming out of my incision. |
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| Just a few minutes after the PT guy left, they loaded me up to move out of the ICU. |
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| That chair was the most brilliant thing ever... |
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| The view from my new room; Immaculate Conception Parish, where my parents and I stayed for a Seattle area missions trip two summers ago :) |
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| Catching up on texts from friends. |
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| Still Saturday, my occupational therapist, Stephen came by and took me for a walk, then made me change my socks. At the moment, it felt like he might as well have asked me to climb Everest. But surprisingly, it wasn't that difficult. haha |
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| Beautiful flowers sent by the Newcomb family. Little did they know, those are all of my favorite colors! |
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| Saturday evening I had a visit from my Uncle Doug and Aunt Cindy. |
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| Who wouldn't want to see these people in the hospital? |
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| Cindy left a humorous and inspirational message on my white-board :) |
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| Sunday morning the nurses came in, removed the tape, and took out the hemo-vac line. Quite the process; they gave me extra drugs for it. |
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| A little later that morning, Stephen came back to take me for another walk... |
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| ...he also took me through some range of motion testing. |
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| Just about when we thought I'd get a break and some lunch, another PT guy dropped in, and took me out to try stairs... |
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| ...as well as picking things up off the floor. My mom thought that was overkill. |
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| Sunday afternoon we had special visitors; the Hanley family, in town from Illinois! I was so thrilled to see them :) |
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| My Aunt Jo also came by Sunday afternoon... |
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| ...we wrapped up this visiting session with pictures, of course. |
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| Definitely was ready to get back in bed after people left. This was my night nurse two evenings, Olga. |
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| Spine before... |
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| ...spine after! |
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| Immaculate Conception Parish at sunset :) |
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| Had to include at least one picture of hospital food. |
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| Monday arrived, and by 9am my dad and Josh had rolled in. Josh hung out with me while my dad went to work, which allowed my mom to go for a much needed walk... |
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...and by Monday evening, we were packing me up and checking out of the hospital.
Along with some help from Josh :) |
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| ...I'm not sure which one of us was more thrilled to be going home early! |
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| My dad picked us up, and then endured my mother's worried backseat driving all the way home from Seattle. Honestly, it wasn't too bad of a drive, though. They gave me extra drugs :P |
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| Went past the church on the way out. |
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| Home, and all settled in with... hmm... 7 or 8 pillows! |
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| A few days after I got back I had my first visitors; Hailey and Brit :) |
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| Walking to the mailbox was a necessary daily activity. |
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Two weeks post-op, my mom and I went to walk the Orting Trail!
I completed my goal of making it far enough to see the cows, which we think was about a mile total :) |
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| Father's Day at my grandparent's house was one of my other outings early on... |
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| ...Jacob and I with Grandpa :) |
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19 days post-op we went out for lunch and to the zoo!
Josh and I are standing on Australia, where we will be 7 months from when this picture was taken! :D |
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| Yes, we have proof that my mom was along :) |
That's all for now, folks!
