Post Surgery

As most of you know, I had surgery on December 21, the Wednesday before Christmas 2011. I decided to go with a doctor who is a plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Walding. He is a bit young but kind, down to earth, and thorough. I felt good about my decision. My surgery was scheduled for right before Christmas and I have 3 children, so decided to go ahead and let my children open their Christmas presents, and to also celebrate my middle son's birthday, which is on the 23rd of December. We enjoyed a nice, fun birthday dinner at Beef O Brady's. I said a couple of prayers and then left it in God's  hands to look over my children while I was in surgery at Flowers Hospital and to look over me during surgery. For anyone who missed my 2nd surgery, it was very bad! There were complications and the doctor, Dr. Champ Baker Jr. with Houghston Clinic treated me incredibly bad! So I was very very nervous to have another surgery. To my surprise, everything went very smoothly. Everyone was great. The hospital staff was wonderful. Dr. Walding made sure I was given something for nausea before my surgery and afterwards because I get sick from the anesthesia. He removed a lipoma, as I had suspected, and also removed 2 cysts of old blood and dead tissue that was probably a result of the 2nd surgery I had, an under scapula arthoscopic bursectomy. He checked the muscle further up to make sure there was nothing else there that shouldn't be. I would like for the right side of my neck to be checked for any lipomas as well (since that is one of the main spots my pain has been this entire time) just to put my mind at rest, but I don't know if that was a possibility at the time. The dr. says lets give it 6 weeks and see how I am doing. One of the very prominent lumps I could feel going across one side of my back turned out to be a consistently spastic muscle. My follow up appointment was Tuesday of this week. I had hoped to have the drain tube that is in my back removed but it is still putting out a lot of blood/fluids and the dr. wasn't quite ready to remove so I go back Tues. of next week. Hopefully it will be taken out then. The incision runs completely across the right side of my back, but if it helps at all then it was worth it!

An Early Christmas

This past Saturday the kids and I decided to go ahead and open our Christmas presents. I thought this would be a good idea since I'm having surgery this Wednesday. This will be my 3rd surgery concerning my chronic neck and shoulder pain within the last 1 1/2 yrs. I wanted to make sure that just in case anything does happen to me during surgery that my children's last memories be of us all celebrating Christmas together, and not of depressed sad feelings every year there after that Christmas rolls around. The boys all got to open a lot of presents and had a good time. The only thing we're saving for later is my youngest son's "Santa Claus" surprises, which we plan to do Christmas morning. Hopefully I won't be feeling too bad by then.
My middle son's birthday is this Friday also so we are going to celebrate that a little early too. Tomorrow night we plan on going to Beef O Brady's (his choice) to eat and wish him a happy 15th birthday. I will feel much better knowing everything has been taken care of and my children are happy and settled before I head in to surgery. Then all I will have left to focus on come Wed. is me. I pray that I've made the right decision and that I will finally get some relief. I feel good about it.
Merry Christmas!!!

Stuffing Doesn't Have To Be Stuffy

Guest post written by Annabelle Schumaker
For years now I've been eating stuffing at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It's like eating the stuff is even second nature to me now. But it's become a little boring, so I decided that when I'm fixing my family Thanksgiving dinner this year, I can fix a different version than the same old stuffing that I've eaten year after year.
I went online to see if I could find a really good different kind of stuffing recipe. When I was online looking up that stuff, I ran across some information on internet service in my area and I decided to switch over our home's service to that provider.
I found all kinds of interesting kinds of stuffing that I really canÕt wait to try out. I was thinking about all of the different kinds that I could try out for different types of meals too! I might just try out some of these different versions for different normal meals as a fun addition. ThereÕs just something so inherently great about stuffing as a dish itself and I love enjoying it!