post-op!

Met with my surgeon today and he is thrilled with how everything went. He's also very happy with how well things are healing. 

He removed all the dressings which was pretty uncomfortable but tolerable. I was anxious to see what everything looked like. The incisions weren't any larger than an inch in a couple places. They were all closed up nicely and all stitches were inside. 

My doctor has really developed his techniques in microsurgery. He's able to perform extensive procedures in very minimally invasive ways. It's very impressive what he was able to accomplish with such little cutting! 

He also kept reiterating how disastrous it was in my wrist and elbow. He said that the tissue was so inflamed that when he opened up the joint the inflamed tissue busted out like a can of biscuits. The tissue he said he removed was about the size of a sardine!! Unreal!! He said it was about 12x the size of normal tissue in a healthy wrist. Basically he said it was no wonder I was in so much pain!! He also noted that a blind man could have looked at the condition of my wrist and seen how bad it was. Ha! He is expecting this surgery to be life changing!! So exciting!! :)

It's still quite painful, but he said to expect pain in the thumb region for sometime during recovery as it was the most extensive surgery out of them all.

Anyway, all in all I'm happy with everything! I've already noticed improvement in posture, aching, and other twinges I used to have constantly that are no longer there.  

Here are some photos for those of you who are interested in this type of stuff!! :) 

That is the crease of my elbow... Two incisions. 

My elbow..

Lovely swelling, atrophy, and incisions. 

Anyway.. Thanks for all the prayers for a smooth sailing surgery and recovery!! I am so thankful for all my family and friends blessing me like crazy with visits, meals, and help with my babies. You guys are amazing!! Love you all and God bless!!

Post-op freezer meals!!

After doing no preparation for my last surgery, and having to deal with an almost three year old and a nine month old last time, I decided that this time I will be prepared at home in regard to our meals for the first month afterward. I have so far made enough food for the first three weeks post-op!! I have a couple of meals that were volunteered to be brought to us, and I have another weeks worth of food that I plan to prepare so that Jeff can easily prepare our dinners or I can easily prepare them one handed.

This way, we will only have to shop for our weekly produce and won't have to worry about major grocery shopping for the first month. I feel so relieved about this! Not only will my surgery be a lot more intensive this time, I also have three kids this go-round! To say I'll have my work cut out for me is an understatement. Thankfully I only have one in diapers this time!

I decided that since I went to all the trouble to make all this food, I would share my list and recipes with everyone so as to provide you all with fresh new recipes and ideas for when you may need to do some extensive meal prep! These are all great freezer meals, so perfect for if you're having a baby, having surgery, have a busy month ahead of you, or if you just want to take it easy for a month. :)

So, here are a few of our favorites/highly recommended recipes!! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy these!!
(The marsala recipe is my FAVORITE. It's going to be our dinner for my birthday)!

1.) Pesto Chicken and Pasta

2 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 8oz jar of pesto
1-2 cups of milk
Garlic salt, pepper, and parsley to taste.

Cook chicken in large pan. Add soup, pesto, milk, and spices. Add pasta and enjoy!

2.) My own chili recipe

1lb ground beef, browned
half an onion, diced
two tbsp minced garlic
1 can chili beans in sauce
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed
1 can black beans, rinsed
2 cans tomato soup
1 can diced tomatoes in sauce
1-2 cans broth
1-2 cups of water
garlic salt, pepper, parsley, chili powder to taste

Combine all ingredients and heat thoroughly. Enjoy chili topped with sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, and freshly diced onions!

3.) Navy bean soup... you can find the recipe here!! I cut this recipe in half. Also, instead of using all that water, I like to use equal parts chicken broth, water, and tomato soup. It's soooooo good!!
http://taylortakesataste.com/navy-bean-soup-with-garloc-croutons/

4.) Shea's Meatloaf recipe! Jeff's cousin Shea made up this fantastic meatloaf based off a dish I made when we hosted them for dinner one night. Here's how I made it!

1.25 lbs ground beef
2 eggs
3-4 pieces of bread, crumbled
1 jar of roasted red pepper bruschetta
1 4oz container of feta cheese
1 cup of fresh spinach
1-2 tbsp minced garlic
Garlic salt, pepper, and parsley to taste

Combine all ingredients and place in a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes or until done. Serve with garlic mashed potatoes and a veggie!

5.) Chicken Spaghetti

I changed this recipe a little bit... I added a can of diced tomatoes in juice, omitted the pimentos, and only used parsley, garlic salt, and pepper for spices. It was quite tasty!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/chicken_spaghet/

6.) Steak Marsala

I created this myself, based on a dish I had eaten at Tuscano's in Monroe. So delicious!! It is now a favorite of ours. I've even made this sauce to serve over chicken breasts. It's very delicious, but Jeff and I have both agreed that it's best served with steak! Enjoy!

Butter
2lbs steak
16 oz baby bella mushroom slices
14 oz holland house Marsala wine
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
One half-to one whole head of minced garlic
Pepper to taste
Garlic salt to taste
Parsley to taste
1-2 tbsp of flour
1/4-1/2 cup of half n half or milk
diced green onions (optional for garnish)

Brown the meat in butter. Season with garlic salt, pepper, and parsley.

Melt butter in saucepan. Add mushrooms and saute for one to two minutes. Add garlic and marsala wine. Bring to light boil. Add balsamic vinegar and simmer on low heat for 10-15 minutes.

When beef is cooked, add the marsala sauce to beef. Add flour and half n half. Stir well and simmer for a few minutes.

Serve over garlic mashed potatoes and praise the Lord for such a delicious food to pleasure your taste buds!

In addition to the above meals, I've also stored organic frozen pizzas that I found on sale at the Grocery Outlet, pasta sauce to serve over frozen meatballs and pasta, lasagna, taco meat to use for (tacos, obviously) and to prepare nachos for a tasty treat one night, or for use in taco soup, garlic chicken and pasta (from the freezer section at costco)... and I believe that's about it. There are probably a few I forgot... but I made huge batches of these items for the purpose of making it last.

I hope you enjoy these recipes!! We sure do!! God bless you, dear friends!!

Update

I am seriously so beside myself with excitement this week! So many great things ranging from great health, a new add-on to our current home, and I was able to prepare a ton of food (thank you, Lord, for your provisions).

We will be so set on food that I won't have to cook for a month!! I'm so thankful, especially for my wonderful family who will not only be helping with the kids but they have also offered to prep some meals in addition to what I've done already.

Just a recap and some backstory on my surgery in case you're out of the loop... A few years ago I suffered a cartilage injury that I had arthroscopic surgery for as well as carpal tunnel surgery. Unfortunately the carpal tunnel release was the only part that worked for me. I've since dealt with constant pain that only got horrifically worse since May of last year. I have been taking pain meds to function through the pain ever since.

After discussing my issues with my first surgeon and receiving no help from him, I consulted another surgeon.... and again, no help from him either. Finally in January I saw the most incredible surgeon I've ever met! He was able to diagnose and offer a fix to every single issue. Apparently, I have joint hyper-mobility which can cause me to sustain an injury very easily as my joints move more than they were designed to. As a result, I will be undergoing ten surgeries. No, that is not a typo.

I won't even try to explain each procedure on the list as I honestly can only tell you with certainty about a few of them. On March 23rd, my surgeon will be removing a small troublemaker bone, two cysts, angry tissue and some calcifications. He will also be "reattaching" my thumb back in place by drilling a hole through the bone and threading a tendon through it, and then he will be reattaching the fascia to my elbow using a bone anchor, as I've torn it completely off the bone.

Words cannot even begin to describe the joy I have in the Lord for providing me with such a fantastic surgeon... This will literally change my life for the better. I'm not even kidding. The doctor told me that he has no idea how I even function with the amount of injuries I've compiled over the last few years. He said that these surgeries will make my pain about 95% better than it is now... so pretty much I'll be pain free!

While recovery is going to suck for the first week, I am very excited to have this all done and over with so I can enjoy my life. I almost lost hope that I'd ever be without pain, so this is absolutely a dream.

Anyway... that's that! I'll be sure to create a post-surgery blog about how everything went and what my recovery was like. I'll also be bringing home my bone!! So I'll be sure to share photos of that as well as any photos from surgery/post-op for you medically fascinated folks!!

God bless, friends!!