Clearing the roof and where my tkr is now.

Yesterday I came home to a house with a foul odor and tried to find the source. Finally this morning, I realized it was coming from the bathroom and decided that the vents on top of the house must have snow over the top of them and be plugged. Hubby climbed up and started clearing it off, lots of snow, he even had to use the shovel handle to break through one of the vents. I decided a photo of him on the roof doing this was appropriate.


When I took the camera in, climbing over the snow he had shoveled in the front of the house. I decided to gab a shovel and clear the snow on the sidewalk, he was clearing the back of the house. All of a sudden this snow started filtering around me and then there was a plop on my head! Hubby had come across to the front and was clearing more snow off the roof and dumped it right on top me. I ended up with one more shovelful cascading down on me before he heard me shouting. I had snow in my coat hood, all down my back on inside of my coat. What a struggle to remove that coat and unload all the snow in the hood. When I got into the house, my shirt was white with snow on the back and I was very cold. I just snuggled up with a good movie and let hubs finish the shoveling, it was a much better thing to do. My exercise for the day ended up being a 3/4 mile walk to our mailbox about an hour later instead.

The seventh was the sixth month since my total knee replacement. Here is an update on the knee:

1. Depending on the weather, there usually isn't a lot of pain except when I first ride my stationary bike or come down the stairs before I do some knee stretches or exercises.
   
2. Sleeping is usually not a big problem. I sleep through most of the night (about 7 hours) with only one nature call. No more incontinence! That is usually a problem for quite a while after either tkr or thr. The Kegal exercises along with the exercises for improving hip muscle strength helped tremendously with this.
   
3. I sleep on the side which I did not have knee replacement (I had thr on that side) most nights but can sleep comfortably on both sides. I do use a pillow for the knee when I sleep on the thr side. Not between my knees but beside me with the bottom leg straight and the tkn leg bent or straight. If I do not get sufficient sleep, I have more pain.
4. I do my physical therapy exercises about 2-3 times a week, go to the gym about 2 -3 times a week, ride the stationary bike almost daily, rock in the rocking chair every day - several times a day (this is a great help), walk about a mile plus 2-3 times a week and swim at least once a week. I alternate these.
5. My knee on the outer side is still numb or tingly, due to the nerve over the knee being cut during surgery. This is the case with everyone who had had tkr. The area is suppose to get smaller with time.
6. I ice very seldom, only when I feel real tightness and have very little problem with swelling now.
   
7. I continue to take 250 mg Vicodin at night prior to going to sleep.
8. All of the above will vary from person to person.
   
9. Watch my diet and take a good woman's vitamin. I like the GNC vitamin the best, also take calcium, potassium (keeps the Charley horses from torturing me), and a baby aspirin.
10. I basically can do everything I want to do now and usually with little pain.
    

I hope this helps anyone has tkr. Everyone responds differently, but has some areas that are similar.

Veteran's Day

I always think of my dad when Memorial or Veteran's Days roll around. My dad served during WWII and although he never spoke very much about his service time, the few times he did, left an impression. One of the times he would talk about was when he was in France on the front lines. One dark night, they were in their fox holes waiting out the night when one of the soldiers behind him lit a cigarette. This was like a flare going off for the enemy and suddenly they were under fire. My dad told of how he lost some of his best buddies that night. All because one person decided he had to have that crazy cigarette! Often in our lives, it is the things that we do without thinking of the consequences or outcome that are our downfall. That circumstance was one of those times.
Our prayers must be for the leaders of our young men and women who are serving in areas of dispute now, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. I was listening to a former military Lieutenant on CSPAN tell of his time serving in Iraq. He spoke of how they were unsure of how to handle Iraq following the initial attack and what looked like an immediate win and how it has taken years to get to the situation where we can actually now see some progress. I feel that we are progressing only because they are hoping to have us leave their country. Now that Obama is in what will the result be? How long will be remain and what will the end result really be like.
Shopping
Today I went to Grand Forks to look for a winter coat. I wanted a coat that would be long enough so that if I wanted to walk when it was 10 - 20 below F I wouldn't feeze too much. I found a down coat at Eddie Bauer. That of course, didn't end the shopping day. I went to Target and Bath and Body and stocked up on toiletries. Picked up some winter gloves and a head cover that will keep me warm during the walks I plan to take. Then I headed for the Jelly Belly section and stocked up on about 15 different flavors. Ardmore and I are going to the temple in Bismarck this week so I thought it would be fun to have a treat for the road.
Tomorrow
Busy day at the museum again tomorrow. The art class is coming in to check the painting job I hope they will do. We also need to paint a couple of the other display areas and get the bunk stained. We have taken several of the exhibits apart so now need to get them together again. I called a noted military artifact collector in hopes he would exhibit some of his wonderful collection. He has collected WWII items for many years and has a fine collection. We don't have long to get our act together so we best get hopping!
Total Hip and Knee Replacement
I was thinking of the many things that have improved since I have had the two surgeries 9 and 4 months ago.
1. It is much easier to climb in and out of the car.
2. My back pain is not as bad as it was, although now I seem to have more pain on the opposite side.
3. My stamina is improving daily.
4. I can sleep without the awful pain I had before the hip surgery.
5. The trip to Grand Forks went well. I was able to walk for about two and a half hours back and forth across the mall, many times as I went to at least 10 stores for one reason or another. Super Target, I decided, was too much for my knee to handle as I didn't know where things were and knew I would give up before I got everything I needed.
6. Driving long distances don't bother me as much as they did before, Bismarck will be a real trial run though.
7. Exercising gets easier each day.

D-Day for McCain and Obama

Today is the day many of us have been waiting for, either with a relief that we won't have any more political campaigning taking up the air waves or with the relief that they can finally cast their ballot for their favorite candidate.


Our township decided to vote by mail so we received our ballot about a month ago and have already voted. It was quick and easy and in the mail box before we knew it. Several states have allowed for advanced voting and lines were long yesterday. I am curious as to whether everyone will have the opportunity to vote this time. If the lines are as long as they appear to be, we will have some unhappy people. Then again, once the tally is done, people will either be happy or unhappy with whoever wins.


One of the advantages of living in the US is this wonderful right to a vote your conscience and not have anyone force you. We will have some voting irregularities but that is just a part of voting in any election. Since the 2002 election, the US has tried to implement practices that will eliminate voter fraud but this will still continue to be a part of any election.


I spend a lot of time rocking in a rocking chair prior to going on the exercise bike. This warms my knee and increases the range of motion. I haven't had much time to go swimming lately, we have been harvesting our soybeans. I miss swimming and will be starting again in a couple of days.


We finally had nice enough weather to do that. It is very wet in our fields and we had to leave about 3-4 acres as we can't go there. Ardmore decided to put a load of soybeans on the truck yesterday while it was in the field. He has been doing this. i had parked it a little farther from the road and he ended up with it sinking and had to get the tractor to pull it our. That was the first and only time we have been totally stuck this year. We are done combining for the year! Hooray! Couldn't be soon enough either, it is suppose to start raining again tomorrow and then snowing. We had one of the warmest days since 1903 yesterday, it was 70 in Roseau. Today is suppose to be nice also then the cold is suppose to arrive. We will be in the teens in the morning by Saturday. Brrr!

Time is running out...

With nine days left until election, everyone should have their mind made up as to who they will vote in as our next president, either John McCain or Barack Obama. I am amazed at the amount of campaign money Obama has raised, over $150 million, the most any presidential candidate has ever raised. My next question, how has he done it and who are the contributors? Election night is going to be very interesting this year. I vote for my party platform, and I am conservative so I am a republican. I have voted across party line though in my district if I feel the man has the needs of our area at the center of his convictions. I am a McCain-Palin supporter.

I have been trying several new techniques to improve my range of motion. One is to do more squats at a counter going deeper each time and moving my feet back farther each time as I bend into the squat. I also stop on each step when going down the stairs and bend down my good foot with my bad foot on the upper step. This pushes the range of motion in my knee a little farther. Icing after doing any type of exercise that really exerts the knee is the best thing I can do after as it helps relieve swelling and pain.

I finally finished reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in life after deaf from a science fiction take. Although it was a long book, over 600 pages, I breezed through it in a week. Meyer is a Brigham Young University graduate and has several young fiction books that are very popular with the youth. I have one of them at home right now and plan to read it eventually. I have several books that I want to read right now but find that time is hard to come by without letting something else slide.

The kids were in from the shop class on Thursday and Friday and did some more work on the platforms. I think they will finish the project this coming week. I am going to contact an art teacher and see if she has some students who would be willing to assist us in paining the platforms, one for a Native American exhibit and the other for an immigration exhibit. Lots to do and think about this next month.

We have sure seen commodities drop in price the past two months. Oils is not in the upper $60 range and grains are tumbling right along with them. It was sure strange to pay only $14 for gas on Friday when I would have paid $35 about two months ago. Feels good though.

Soybean harvest

On Friday, Ardmore decided to try to combine the soybeans. He always asks me to come and get him when he takes a truck out, and it is invariably just before I am leaving for work, which always makes me late. This time was no different only... He took the truck out and drove it into the wet field and with mud flying behind the back wheels, pulled it right back out and took it home. End of trying to harvest. Saturday he asked me to drive the truck across the chisel plowed field to where he was going to try to harvest. I thought it would be better to fill the combine and drive it home and empty it in the yard for the first trip. He only combined about a 100 bushels and decided the call it quits. It is still too wet and it is scheduled to rain again tomorrow! The question is, will we ever get the soybeans off?

We had stake conference in Winnipeg this weekend. We did not go. Ardmore does not like to stay over night and we can't go through the border before 9 unless we go through the Roseau crossing which adds an additional 45 minutes to our trip making it a 3 hour trip. He and I both had meetings on Saturday but I can't take the long trip two days in a row. I think about how it would have been to cross into Canada if 9/11 hadn't happened. We live only about 5 miles from the border. It is a small crossing and the plans were to make it accessible with an id card similar to a credit card. The cameras and the machine were all in place, then September 11 happened and all that changed. Now we need to have id and a birth certificate or a passport. Hours at our crossing have changed from 8am to 10pm to 9am to 5pm. It has made things so much more complicated. Government intervention in the way of making our country safer.

Now a little update on my thr and tkr:
The swimming definitely has helped as had the rocking chair and riding the bike. There is still considerable stiffness and I have problems with range of motion. I like to go on the computer when I am in bed just before I go to sleep. My knee does not cooperate with the bend I want and then it swells and gives me pain off and on all night.

Misty, foggy, and warm...

As you can tell by my heading, that is what we are contending with again! We had about an inch of rain today. Ardmore asked me yesterday if he should take the bean header off the combine and park them both. My answer was no yesterday, today, I'm not so sure that was the proper answer.We will need some very warm weather with wind to be able to get back in the field, but we live in northern Minnesota and it is the middle of October so...

Breanne and Josh celebrated their first wedding anniversary today. Michelle had little Damen. She said she had to take him out of church because of his screaming. He loves to hear his voice so every once in a while, just screams. No crying, just screaming! It was so funny when I was talking to Breanne yesterday, every once in a while Damen would scream. She said it is so loud it pearces her ears.

It seems like Michelle's life is so busy, even on what should be days off. Take yesterday as an example. She had three piano lessons up in Valley Springs, which is about an hour away. Besides being a full-time student she teacher 10 piano lessons each week. Thank goodness she doesn't have any small children under foot.

My knee is so stiff today. I try to flex it but it is just too sore. I did walk about a mile and a half, but no cycling tonight or rocking in the rocking chair. I am swimming about 5 times a week, which seems to help with the stiffness and the range of motion. My goal is to be able to sit in church and put my foot up on the cross-bar at the base of the church chairs. This is going to be an accomplishment. I find that walking down the stairs has been easier this past three days, and doesn't cause me pain behind my knee until the last three stairs in our split entry home when I go to the lower level.

I made some Romagrotte for Ardmore this evening. This is a Norwegian treat that is enjoyed by the people in our area. I make this in the microwave.

Microwave Romagrotte
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1/8 cup sugar
Salt

Place milk and cream in a 1 1/2 quart bowl and heat to scalding, add the sugar and a little salt. Melt the butter and add flour, mix to paste and add to milk/cream mixture and mix well.
Cook on high stiring every minute until like a pudding. Top witha a little butter and sugar-cinammon when you serve it. This was commonly served by the pioneers as it was made for ingredients they had in their homes and it was quick.

That's all Folks!

Harvest Continues

Yesterday turned out to be very nice, 80 and sunny. Ardmore took off the last of the canola and heading north to the home farm to continue with the wheat. Took a couple of hours to finally get rolling as we had to change combine headers. He had considered swathing but it was so nice he decided to just go with the straight header. Hurrah! I would have been the one on the swather and as much as I can entertain myself with my Ipod, hours and hours of going up and down on the swather gets monotonous, plus it is so much easier when we straight head the wheat. I think the wheat is running about 60 bushels to the acre this year. We took off 600 bushels in about 3 hours yesterday.

My Knee
Could I say I am less than happy with the tkr? Yes. It is painful. I think the biggest problem is that I have varicose veins behind my knee and they are giving me so much pain my range of motion is being limited. I wonder now if I would have done this replacement if I would have known this would have been a complication. Well, I guess I will have to see it to the end, whenever that will be, and see what the outcome is at six month, one year, etc. I hear it does get better. I sure hope so.

On September 8, we celebrated 46 years of marriage. Wow, 46 years with the same person seems like an awful long time! Yup, it is. Would I do things differently, perhaps and then perhaps not. I guess the old cliche "life is what you make it" rings true in a 46 year marriage.

What have I learned being married to someone for 46 years?

• You can't change them and they can't change you.
• Be independent.
• Always look for the good in any given situation.
• Have a life of your own and allow them the same.
• Take vacations alone periodically.
• Always remember the things you have in common and don't focus on the things you don't have in common, after all, you don't look alike, do you?
• Enjoy each day for what it brings.
• Last but not least, tell each other you love each other and show it

Harvest with the family

With our two younger men home, one would think the wheat would be all off, right? Wrong! Dad does not like to combine in the dark and would quit even if there was a hot wind and the wheat was dry as popcorn. Needless to say Brian, James and Mom were not happy. Brian had work starting on Tuesday. On Sunday evening, about 9 pm, Brian and I were on our way to Winnipeg where we spent the night so he could catch a plane to LA. Ardmore and James continued to combine until dark. After dropping Brian off at the awful hour of 5, I went back to the motel to sleep and when I awoke it was raining. Discouraged because no stores were open, I headed back home immediately. When I arrived, the sun was shining and James and Ardmore were combining. That was the last day we hit the fields, it rained great drops of rain that night, 1.25 inches. It put an instant stall on the harvest. We did have about 115 acres off and have about another 95 of wheat to go. The canola is laying and probably shelling out. At least the wheat isn't laying, it is still standing. I hope we have enough warm weather for the soybeans to ripen.

I did get a couple of good photos of the men on the combine and will place one here one.

James heads back to LA tomorrow and then we are left to pray for better, warmer weather so we can get the rest of the crop off.

As for my knee and hip, it does seem to be getting better each day. I have done some heat, massaging, and icing to keep the hip from spasming again. I had pt this afternoon. I need to work on getting my knee to reach its maximum movement and that is very hard. Today I had a different pt and she gave me some new exercises. one for the hip and some for the knee. I will be trying them out tonight.

So what have we eaten when the guys were home? Lots of blueberries. This has been the year for good blueberries and I have purchased more than our share. We had a blueberry pie and an apple pie. I still can't top the Twin's apple pie so don't even try, I just order one instead. We had cheese burgers, Brian's fabulous spinach scrambled eggs, lots of fresh fruit mixes, lemon chicken, and of course, potato salad. No, I didn't bake any cookies this time, bought some instead. I figured if I baked, I would eat more than anyone else. Its a good thing it is coming to a halt, I have gained three pounds and need to take it off pronto!

Tomorrow will bring a state of quiet to our home and the lack of family will haunt the house.

Charleen

Hip and Knee Replacements

I can see that my hip and knee replacements are going to improve my life tremendously. Today at pt my knee flexibility ratio was 113. PT will be having me climb down stairs this week so I decided to try it on my own this weekend. I found it went better than anticipated. I need more to do it comfortably, but I was able to do it easily without much pain.

Beautiful day again so I mowed the lawn late this evening. It seems our grass doesn't know when to slow down this late summer. Usually by now we are turning brown, not this year. Just when it looks like the weather is going to be too dry, we get a shower to keep it growing. The hot weather we have been having this past week has really helped our crop to work toward maturity. Hopefully when the guys come home we will be able to combine something. Yesterday when we took the truck south we drove past our canola field, that is turning also and will be ready to be swathed soon.

I added a new page to our Roseau Co. Historical Society website. What Minnesota Means to Me. It will probably keep me busy if it catches on.

5:00am and in pain again

I have to say this first month (Monday I passed the month mark) following knee replacement has not been easy. Now, I wake up about every 2.5 hours in pain on both the hip and knee sides. I know I am improving but being the impatient person that I am, this is getting to be too much! So much for what I commented on following my hip replacement on April 20th.

I will say I tend to overdo. I have spend an average of 2 - 4 hours a day at work during the past 2 weeks. Yesterday, I decided to stay home and mow the lawn. I started at 11:30 and took a break at 1:30. After eating some lunch and taking a rest I heading into town to see what was up with Crazy Days.

Crazy Days was rather disappointing. The streets didn't have their usual tables setup from one corner to the next corner and I didn't find anything to add to my clutter. I was the last of the big spenders. I did stop and have cake at the new Wild 102 Radio Station.

The historical society will begin the annual scavenger hunt for children next Monday. Dairy Queen is a sponsor with us and each Friday we will draw for a Blizzard. We didn't do as much advertising this year, so I hope it is successful.

Stitches and stuff

Yesterday was "feel sorry for myself day". I had been to PT on Friday and it was very hard, in fact so hard she told me to take it easy. That put me in a down mood, pain and depression. I had been there with my hip. I remember feeling that I was worthless and would not be able to do anything again. I know we must work hard at pt but we almost must understand that there are sometimes two steps backwards and one step forward.

Tuesday the stitches will be removed. Hurrah! I am having a hard time at night and some other times because they are irritating. When I try to get comfortable in bed now they are in the way. Laying on my stomach feels like I have a metal zipper on my knee with teeth that stick out. Even now, I am sitting in my recliner typing with the laptop on my lap and I had to put a newspaper between the laptop and my stitches.

I spent several hours preparing for a program at a local state park as part of the Minnesota Sesquicentennial. Yesterday was presentation day. Total disappointment, only about eight people were present. We did a general examination of the people who lived in the park boundaries prior to them donating or being bought out. I had photos and stories of the people who settle the region in the early part of the twentieth century. I found it interesting but apparently others found the day too warm and beautiful to sit in a picnic shelter and step back into the past. They wanted to swim, fish, and sun bath. It was actually more than I could handle and when I arrived home I was exhausted. something like that is too much three weeks out after two major surgeries. I even ended up requesting someone else do opening exercises in Primary. I didn't get up until 9 am so it was a good thing I had found someone.

Today, I have focused on doing some stretching exercises so when I go to pt tomorrow I will not be so stiff. Knee stiffness has been a real problem as well as feeling like I have a a 2-3 inch elastic band around my lower thigh just above my knee following exercising or walking. I walked about 1/3 mile today and was very sore after that. I iced it but it didn't seem to help the pain. I am trying to ween myself off of the Vikaden. I'm not sure but perhaps this is causing me to have some nausea. I think I need to learn what the word Patience means!

I just put my head back for a minute and fell asleep, then woke myself snorting! I wonder how many other people do the same thing.

Here in northern Minnesota summer has reached the midpoint. The Roseau Co. Fair ended on Friday with the demolition derby and fire works. I would not be surprised if Polaris Industries provided the fire works. I was too tired to even consider attending the evening fireworks. I did go out to lunch with a friend at one of the food stands at noon though. I always get a little nostalgic at this time of year, realizing that soon we will be harvesting wheat, then canola, and finally soybeans. The mad rush to get the crop off will cause us to lose the final days of summer as we rush from field to bin getting in the harvest before a rain storm. The wheat definitely looks like a beautiful wave of grain, although not totally amber yet.

More on Polaris...Polaris was first developed in our little town of 2,800, although the population was probably more like 1,500 when David Johnson, Paul Knochenmus, and Orlen Johnson developed their first snowmobile in the mid 1950s. Although this wasn't what Polaris Industry founder Edgar Hetteen had in mind for his company, they were making farm machinery at the time, the Polaris snowmobile is a common word in the homes of moat families where there is snow. But that is a story for another time as we lived In Hoyt Lakes Minnesota when we owned our first snowmobiles. Today we do own a Polaris snowmobile and a Polaris six-wheeler with pride. My husband couldn't live without his six-wheeler on our farm. He checks fields, hauls small loads of dirt and gravel, uses it as a ladder sometimes when he is working in an area that is easier to access with the bed of the dump in the back, hauls tools, a small portable air compressor, etc. across our farmstead when working on machinery. The six-wheeler is his portable workhorse.

Time to rest again!

Bruises

First day of phyisical therapy. It went pretty well, but I have been doing lots of exercising at home already. It is amazing how quickly one can see results. I was commenting on how surprised I was that there was not more bruising. Well that statement was squashed this evening when I decided to massage my calf because it felt sore, there was a bruise from behind my knee down to my ankle on my inner calf. No wonder there was pain there and I have been having pain in my leg and foot. This must be part of the TKR surgery, I guess.

I am walking with two canes. This seems to go very well, no corrdination problems and it is less painful to both knee and hip.

Talked to Breanne this evening, she had a weekend to herself. Josh took Damen to his grandma's home. The three of them had spent the 4th at his mother's but it had been about two months since Damen's great-grandma had seen him. He is quite a chunk, about 20 pounds. She said he loves carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, and pears. That should add some muscle to his body!