The Post That Nobody Wants To See... Including Me!

I'm a dork... Let's just put that out there. 

As I've aged over the years, little injuries to myself have become more severe which, in turn, requires more recovery time, if not external help.

A couple of years back, I tore a tendon on my pinky finger playing with the boys on a family camping trip.  It was painful.  It required doctors and physical therapists and I still get to deal with a digit that will never be straight again.

Then last February 28th, about the time I was finishing up PT for the crooked digit, I took devil-dog Juno out for a piddle and stepped off the side of our front stoop.

My right foot landed on a loose landscaping stone and I rolled the ankle, spraining it.

In the 9 months that followed, it has been swelling, hurting and occasionally locking up on me.  Most of the time, the locking up would occur after long bouts of sitting like work days in the office or Sundays sitting on my fat butt watching football games.  

However, there were many other times when going down steps would cause severe pain and the occasional lock-up, which is highly undesirable because of the obvious fall situation.

So, I finally sucked it up and went to the doc as my list of other ailments was finally long enough to justify a visit.

They did more x-rays and then sent me in for an MRI.  The doc I was supposed to see looked at the MRI and declined my visit, sending me to a foot/ankle specialist.

I know!  A specialist!  I'm moving up in the world!

I went in and had a chat with the fine bloke and he showed my the MRI pictures and explained what I was looking at. 

Turns out that I had broken the cartilage cap between the foot & ankle and there was  a floater piece in there, hence the occasional locking up of motion.

I top of that, I had bruised the top of the foot bone and where the bruise (blood) eventually dried up, I had a cyst that had developed there.

The fix?  Surgery to go in and remove the floater, scrape that damaged bone down to create a divot and then the bleeding form the bone should cause some scar tissue to form, replacing the part of the cartilage cap that I had broken off.

And so, on Dec 22nd, I had the surgery.  The remainder of that day and the 23rd were smooth sailing.  Virtually no pain and I took neither anti-inflammatory nor pain meds!

Wooo-hooooo!

Then came Christmas Eve which saw me spend the better part the day in my bedroom trying to sleep thru some rather intense pain...

Finally, I got to pay for my stupid...  Pain is a wonderful teacher and reminds us during recovery that we do NOT want to go thru this again, and as such,  we should behave...

So on to pictures...

Just a warning;  they're not too bad really, but if you're squeamish at all, you may want to simply move on to the next post.

This is the wrap, with about 3 pounds of gauze under it.  I think the gauze was as much for padding as it was for mopping up any errant blood.

The boot to stabilize things.  I always thought these were kinda cool, but I'm over that now!

Oh, and then I broke the middle toe on my good foot by losing balance on the crutches (trying to go too fast) and stubbing the poor little piggy on the left crutch.  More pain for good teaching...  This was several days later.

That's my foot with the three small incisions the good doc made...  a little swelling but looking pretty good here.

Then there's this...  my leg turned a different color to up past the knee and got crazy bad itchy!  It's also swelling a little more.  This was taken after we had returned from the doc's office for a check-up and to have the sutures removed.

Then this showed up, which actually made me feel a little bit better because of how bad my heel had been hurting. 

And then there's this shot from Jan 2nd.   The bruised heel is still going strong along with new bruising across nearly the entire top of the foot and the whole thing is bloated like a Schmitz at a buffet. 

And so it is...   If you were thinking that you may sprain your ankle this year, I would discourage that.


Back to work tomorrow...  in the office that is.  Yikes!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2016 from the four of us Schmitz critters!! 

The mobile chaos unit at the roots of a fallen redwood tree (July 2015).

Ginberbread Cookies & Houses Follow-up

As part of the somehow-always-hectic-rev-up to the Holiday season, this year we were preparing for that with some Doc appointments determining what to do with my ankle that I injured back on Feb. 28th. 

As a result, I posted nearly nothing in December and now I am hobbled with crutches and have time to fill, so therefore, I am playing catch-up...

Another short post to tie up a loose end or two...

Mama making some ginger'ish type cookies with two cute varmints.

And the older lad, who had no picture of himself with his gingerbread house in the post here, so we are correcting that slight with this somewhat blurry picture... the only one we have since we fed the houses to the deer and other critters that roam our yard in the shadows of night.

Laundry, Chaos Style

Laundry and dishes... two chores that are never done. 

Sometimes they are made harder by creatures who have other ideas...

Exhibit A: Juno in the laundry basket had determined that it was time for fetch, not laundry.

Exhibit B: Caleb warming himself in a dryer full of warm clothing.  He thinks our house is too cold!

Exhibit C is one of which I do not have a photo of, but I can claim that I am affected by it often; laziness...

Thanksgiving 2015 - Post #2 - Schmitzs

So now we find ourselves at the Griffith home in Bondurant with some fantastic food and equally as fantastic family. There's not a whole lot to say that pictures cannot convey, so I'll let the pictures do their work:

That's a whole lot of humanity seeking their next meal... and finding it!

God bless all of us and especially those of us who seek meals and do not find them on a regualar basis!!

Vacation 2015, #4 - Seattle, Pike Street

Today's vacation post finds us in downtown Seattle at the Pike Street Market. This is one place that was sort of a "bucket list" place for me ever since 1993 when I first sampled the delectible flavors of the Pike Street Brewery and their wonderful XXXXX Stout.  Alas, it was not to be and maybe never will be.  

It was a bit of a tenuous morning as a Kindle got crunched in a car door, people wanted other people to eat when other people didn't want to eat and so on... 

All worked out well as it usually does when humans don't try to make it how they want.  We all proceeded thru the day well fed and had a lot of fun during said day.

 

I tried to capture the depth of the shopping/shops in this photo.  There the ramp up to street level on the right and the stairs to the lower level on the left.  Not too mention all of the "stuff" straight ahead, should we choose to proceed in that direction...

My first real "fish toss".  The boy in the striped shirt had just caught the big fish from one of the workers...

And here, a different worker caught the fish that the boy in the striped shirt had thrown back to him.

This was a shot of the are that will appear a few photos from now under the infamous Public Market Center signage...

That's a shot looking down Pike Street towards the parking ramp from where we were walking.

This is the street corner from which we "enjoyed" breakfast in the aforementioned tenuous manner...  beautiful view, by the way!

Our entourage in full glory.   We were approached by another family which had obviously adopted and they asked if we would take their photo.  We did, and exchanged the favor asking if they would take ours?

Gingerbread Houses, 2015 Style

Since I'm about 6 months behind on posts, I figured I would throw one together that is fully current and proper for the holidays!

I am not only absent from all of the photos but really didn't participate either as I was in the kitchen cooking up some pizzas; a cheese, a 1/2 sausage / 1/2 pepperoni for the kiddos along side a Caprese (roasted tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella pearls) and a Chorizo Sausage/ Manchego cheese (chorizo sausage [mexican style], manchego [goat] cheese with red onion and baby kale).

So after the houses were done, we ate and were merry!

The houses with their respective exterior designers.  3 Aunts across the back row starting with Aunt Doris, Dianne and Molly.  Then Caleb, Jonah (hiding behind a house) Sam, Zoe, Aunt Lesley and the inimitable Robby.

Aunt Dianne and Caleb.

My niece Zoe with her lovely Aunt Lesley.

Aunt Molly with Jonah.

And then Sam, absent his partner in house design.

All in all, a wonderful time was had by all and hopefully everyone left well fed!

A special thank you to Grandma Marlene who assembled the houses prior to decoration!

See you next year!