I had planned on having a blog in before the holidays but I have been dealing with my last surgery. It was intended to be a simple procedure and quick recovery. Well, this was probably the most uncomfortable that I have been since the “day of the door.” I had to have the inside of my nose worked on to fix the damage from the accident. It was a quick outpatient visit on the 22nd of December for a deviated septum. I was home by 12:30, and in very little pain. In fact, you probably couldn’t tell that I had surgery except for the slight swollenness around my nose.

For the first two days I thought it was going to be an easy healing process. We spent Christmas Eve day here with the family, and my nephew Brett and his girlfriend Liz. We then went to Gary’s mom’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. Peggy and Tom cooked a wonderful ham dinner for the family, including Dave, Gary’s brother, Ryan, his nephew, and Kayla, his niece. Here is a picture of the cooks. We had a great time.

Then, on Christmas day, I woke up to the right side of my face being swollen to the point where my eye was shut. Thank goodness my mom and dad took over cooking the Christmas Day turkey, while I stayed pretty close to the couch with ice packs on my face. I took some medication and the swelling started to reduce, but very slowly. Fortunately, the doctor’s office called on Tuesday, and moved my appointment up a day, so I only had three days with no sleep.

The sinus pills I took did the job because by the time my appointment came around my face was no longer swollen.

What I didn’t tell you earlier is that there were two plastic tubes that had to be removed from my nose during this appointment. Once those were gone everything was back to normal. Now that it’s all over with, I’m glad I had it done, but it sure was uncomfortable during the six days of recovery.

We also received good news from the Tahoe Fracture Clinic. The doctor said, “Karen, you’re healing well, you can go back to your normal life and do everything a normal person would do, but, do not do your extreme life yet.” He asked me when we planned on testing and said he wants to see me a week before that. When we asked about physical therapy, he said to walk, walk and more walking. For any of you who know me, or have seen me at the races, that is an easy order to fill. I love to walk, and I am fortunate to have a beautiful walking path at work, which I will be back to full time at the beginning of the year.

So for now, that is it. We hope everyone had a great holiday and have a wonderful New Year. I will be blog again soon.