Getting There

Slowly I'm getting back to normal.  It will be a few weeks until I am completely there, but for now I'm doing well.

Wednesday:  I ended up feeling really sick on Wednesday from the pain meds on Tuesday.  Fortunately I am fine taking Tylenol and Aleve so I don't need to take those prescription meds anymore.  I got to unwrap my knee on Wednesday.  I have three little cuts with a stitch in each.  Now I get to have fun with band-aids since I have to keep them covered.  I also got to get out of the house before I felt sick on Wednesday morning.  We went to my Church to pick up a paper saying that I can be my niece's Godmother.  We also went to the grocery store.


Thursday:  I met up with my friend at the mall to get lunch.  My mom drove me and picked me up when I was done.  Not too much else exciting happened.

Yesterday:  A lot of "firsts".  I didn't use crutches at all which is where I should be.  I also drove a little bit.  I ordered dinner from a local pizza place, went and picked it up, brought it to our store, ate dinner with them, and drove home.  It was only 15-20 mins of driving but it was an accomplishment.  I also could bend my knee 90 degrees which is awesome.  I ended up seeing my sister and nephew at our store so I spent more time there than I wanted and ended up being in a little more pain than I should have been in by the time I got home.  It's still pretty swollen but it's feeling much better.

Today:  I'm spending the day babysitting my nephew Braydon.  I woke up at about 9:15 to a phone call from my sister saying, "We'll be there in 15 mins.  Thanks for babysitting."  OH...OK.  The second my sister left, Braydon starts screaming and I couldn't pick him up because he was kicking and I really didn't want him anywhere near my knee.  I turned on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on ON Demand and he quieted down and I got him to eat some breakfast.  My mom came and took him to the store at lunch time so I could go get lunch with my Dad.  While I was gone, my mom tried to get him to go down for a nap but she wasn't doing too well so I had her set up the pack and play and said I'd take care of it.  A few minutes after she left, he went to sleep.  He had been ready for a nap when she tried but she made the mistake of saying "nap" and "sleep" so he wouldn't go down.  I know by the look on his face if he's ready and if I need to read him a book or not.

Tomorrow is my niece Riley's Baptism.  I'm excited because I'm her Godmother.  My Aunt (my Godmother) and my cousin and her fiance are coming down as well as my other Uncle and Aunt.  I'm excited.  Either Wednesday or Thursday is my follow up appointment with the surgeon.  He will take out the stitches and let me know what the next step on my road to recovery is.

Surgery

I had to be at the surgery center at 6am yesterday.  I went back into the pre-op area and they did some baseline tests, put in a IV, and a ton of different people came and spoke with me - nurses, surgeon assistant, anesthetist, etc.  The anesthetist asked me if I had ever had anesthesia before and also if I get car sick easily.  I told her I had never had anesthesia but I do get car sick almost every time I'm in a car when I'm not driving.  They put a little patch behind my ear to help prevent nausea for 24 hours.  I had woken up at 4am for no reason and didn't get back to sleep so I was really tired already.  The gave me a sedative and then pushed the bed down to the OR and I was sound asleep a few seconds after I got into the room.  Everyone was surprised I was basically asleep already.

Next thing I remember is waking up and asking where my mom was.  The nurse said she'd bring my mom back into the recovery area once I woke up a little more.  I started crying because I was in a lot of pain and they weren't going to get my mom yet.  The nurse then went and got my mom and some crackers for me to eat so I could take medicine.  All of this was within 10 minutes of me getting into the recovery area.

When my mom got there, we called my dad and I spoke with him for a few seconds.  We then called my step-dad and then my grandma.  My aunt was vising my grandma so I was talking to her and my mom made me say bye even though I was completely awake at this point.  I then asked my mom if she had called my dad yet and she said, "Yes, you spoke with him."  I then remembered talking to him and recounted the entire conversation I had had with him.  Within an hour of getting to recovery, they sent me home because I was completely awake.

Since I've been home I've basically just been sitting on the recliner watching TV.  The surgeon called last night and asked how I was doing and answered our questions because I was gone by the time he got out of the surgery that was after me.  He said I could start putting weight on it with crutches.  As far as pain goes, I've been alternating between Tylenol and Vicodin depending on how much my knee hurts.  Its worse today than it was yesterday but that is expected.

The nurse called this morning just to check in and said to me, "I can't believe how perfect of a patient you are especially for a first timer.  There's gotta be something wrong - nothing every goes this smoothly."  I told her I get a sore throat every once in a while but that goes away when I drink water and that I do have some pain but its not unbearable.

My friend Jordan wanted to know if she put stamps and a label on a bandaid box if it would still get delivered.  It worked and I now have some awesome PSU bandaids for when the huge wrap on my knee comes off.  Pictures of the box and my knee are below.  I'm curious to see how much of under the wrap is padding and how much is swollen.

Answers!!!!!

I went to the Letters from Home meeting and ended up writing a letter to be put in a car package.  While it wasn't the same as being able to write to my brother, it helped a bit.  Hopefully I can find something similar in Texas this summer.  I asked my brother for his address and got a reply of "i do but i dont have it with me. i sent it to just about everyones phone so you could ask them and iam sure they could forward it."  Thanks Steve.  No one I've asked so far has it.

This morning I had another doctors appointment for my knee.  I went to a sports medicine person at Rothman Institute.  I did some searching online later and it turns out my doctor is one of the doctors for the Phillies and some other sports teams (professional and college) in the area.  He said there is definitely a tear in my meniscus and he actually got my knee to really hurt while I was in there which is something the other 3 doctors haven't been able to do.  He said that since it's been over two months and it hasn't healed already and cortisone shots/medicine won't help it at all, the best thing to do is arthroscopic surgery.  He also took the time to explain the MRI, procedure, and everything else to us which the other orthopedist didn't do. 

Surgery is scheduled for Monday.  It is outpatient so I'll be in and out in a few hours and then be at home.  If everything goes as he is expecting it to I will be on crutches for a few days, can do a stationary bike in a week, can go on a treadmill in 3 weeks, and running outside in about 6 weeks.

Blood Drives and LFH

PSU is nearing the end of our first PSU-OSU Blood Battle.  It is a competition to see who can collect more blood over a few weeks this spring.  Currently PSU is losing :(

Yesterday I was volunteering at the drive.  Since I'm done work and am not taking classes, I am filling in OSC hours where needed as well as volunteering even when not OSCing.  When I was doing traffic control yesterday, there was this first time donor who was a walk in and had been there for a while.  She was nervous and I was trying to get her into health history before she freaked out too much.  When I was done volunteering for the day, she was on the table donating.  I had been talking to my friend Julie at the drive and had mentioned that I wasn't getting a good vibe from this girl.  I didn't think she was going to feel well after.  So Julie went over and introduced herself to this girl and kept an eye on here once she got to the canteen table.  I left and about fifteen minutes after I got a text from Julie saying "good call on that girl."  Turns out she didn't do too well and ended up on the recovery bed.  No one ever believes me when I say I can predict if someone will get sick or pass out before they even leave the bed.  I've done it with friends and I've done it with total strangers.

Tonight I'm going to a meeting for a group on campus called Letters from Home (LFH).  It was started by a few girls whose boyfriends are in the military and are deployed and has grown to include family and friends of deployed soldiers.  For the past few weeks I have been trying to find a group like this and was happy when I stumbled upon them.  I'm nervous to go meet them tonight.  Hopefully it will be good for me and not be a total waste of time.

Car and Blue-White Weekend

As I'm sitting at work Thursday I get a picture message from my mom.  It is a picture of the power window controls in a car.  The caption is "What do you need out of your car for this weekend?"  Now I'm very confused because my mom and step-dad had gone to pick up my car from getting inspected that morning, I knew it wasn't a picture from my car, and I had my mom's van.  Turns out they bought a car while they were down there picking up mine.

My sister Jenna got her license back last month and has been looking for a car ever since.  We had asked a family friend who works at a car dealership to keep his eye out for a car with a few requirements.  When they had gone to pick up my car, the friend said, "We have a few cars here if you want to look at them."  My mom called Jenna but she wouldn't have been able to get someone to drive her down there for a few days so my mom and step-dad decided to buy the car and give Jenna a choice of my Honda Accord (my car) or the Honda Civic ("new car").  Well the friend had then said to my mom that he'd rather see me drive to Texas this summer in the Civic.  So I get the Civic and my sister is buying the Accord from us.  Both are 1997 cars but the Accord is the low end model and the Civic is the higher end model.  The Accord also has about twice as many miles on it.  Once I pay my mom the last $1000, the car is completely mine since Jenna is giving me $2000 for my "half" of the Accord and we have $1000 from insurance from when someone hit the Accord last year.  The biggest pluses are power windows and doors, cruise control, a sun roof, and less car noises especially on the highway.

Friday morning I left to come up to PSU for Blue-White weekend among other things.  Friday night I hung out with some friends I hadn't seen in a while.  Saturday my dad and step-mom came up for the Blue-White game and for FACE's concert.  The weather was really crappy so we were all bundled in our rain suits and winter coats trying to stay dry.  I could only stay for a little less than half the game because I had to run some errands and go to the concert early.  I took a bunch of awesome pictures at the concert and then we went to the Corner Room for dinner.  After dinner I went home and fell asleep and slept for almost 12 hours.  It was wonderful!!!!!  Today was SWE Banquet and WEPO Training and then I went to a different EON meeting because I don't know if I'll be able to make the one for my group.

The week is going to be weird because I don't have to wake up for work.  I have lunch with friends, dinner with mentees, and various meetings, but other than that I don't really have anything to do.

DONE!!!!!

I'm done work.  I really can't believe how fast it went. 

Thursday was actually my last day.  My supervisor came to me Thursday morning and said "I'll take you to lunch tomorrow and they we can wrap everything up and you can leave."  I had to be out of my apt by 2pm Friday so I told him that and he said ok we'll wrap everything up and you can leave after lunch tomorrow.  I said ok.

I scheduled my meeting with him for 1:30 Thursday afternoon, had a meeting with my student program adviser at 2:00 and a meeting to pass off my last project at 3:00.  In my meeting with my supervisor he went over some final things.  He had already done my review so it was more of just a project status update/what do I do with computer, materials, etc.  As I was leaving his office he says to me, "You don't have anything left to do right?"  I said after my 3pm meeting I was projectless.  He said "Since you would only be working a few hours tomorrow anyway, turn in your badge and 80hrs time before you leave and don't come in tomorrow."  I didn't argue.

I left work at 4:15 pm and went home, met my mom, and packed my apartment up.  If we were done by 7pm I could turn in my keys and go home officially.  We checked out at 6:45 pm

Now I'm up at school for a few days then home until I leave for Texas the second week of May.  This weekend is Blue-White up at school and there is so much going on.  I'm so excited to be back with friends again.

Sharing Problems

Do you ever have one of those days where you just want to hide from the rest of the world?  It seems like nothing is going right and no one understands what is going on.  You feel like the only way to escape is to get away from everyone and everything.  Well, that's exactly how I've felt the past few days.

 

Some of you know about the things that have been going on in my life.  Some of you I've only told part of the story.  I wanted to take the time to put everything out there for all of you.

 

The main thing is that my step-brother Steve just deployed to Afghanistan.  He is a Marine and I am really worried and scared but I'm also praying that he will be ok and come home safe.  I've had two other step-siblings be deployed and come back safe but only one of them was to Afghanistan and she wasn't doing as dangerous a job as Steve will be doing.  They're also older than me and I had only known them for a few years before they enlisted in the Marine Corps and deployed.  Steve is basically my twin.  He's six weeks older than me and we've grown up together.  I guess what is getting to me the most is that everyone in my family expects me to be ok with his deployment and be able to answer their questions because I have "been through it before" because of Jay and Krissy.  I definitely feel like there is no one to turn to who understands.

 

Another thing that is more recent I found out about last Thursday.  I had asked my mom if we could swap cars for the weekend so we could get mine looked at before the drive to Texas.  She said no because she had to go visit her Aunt Blanche (my great aunt) in the hospital.  Her cousin said that she probably wouldn't make it through the weekend.  Well, Sunday night they moved her into hospice care and she passed away early Monday morning.  I probably shouldn't be counting but that makes 5 family members (4 grandparents) who have passed away in the past 3 years and most of them were of cancer or some other disease.  I know they're not suffering anymore, but it is still hard to deal with.

 

These two things coupled with my normal family stresses, frustration with my knee, and not being near friends have made everything seem overwhelming.  Some days have been better than others but I still haven't really been myself for the past few weeks.  I keep telling myself that everything will be ok and that everything happens for a reason and that I just need to "Let Go, Let God."

 

You guys who are reading this and have helped me deal with all of this are awesome!  I know you all have your own struggles to deal with but the fact you take the time to listen to me and help me really means a lot.

Lessons

Work is winding down.  I can't believe it is almost over.  Looking back I have learned a lot about both engineering and myself.

 

Over the past 15 weeks, I have worked in 6 different building on 9 different projects with too many people to count.  I have done project work and process work.  Project work is more of the "here's a problem find a solution" or design work.  Process work is like the design of experiment (DOE) and trial I ran.  While I liked both, I think I liked the project/design side of things more.  However, I would be happy with doing something like either in the long run.

 

This afternoon I had my performance review with my supervisor.  He made me tell him what I thought my strengths and weaknesses were and rate myself.  He then told me what he thought my strengths and weaknesses were and gave me some tips for future assignments. 

 

Weaknesses:

He said I need to be more assertive when dealing with people, I need to work on conflict resoultion because I don't like confronting people, and that I could have communicated with him better though he knows that I was working closer with someone else in the group who was always in the loop.  He also suggested I keep an excel spreadsheet with the progress of my projects as I go so that if he were to ask where everything was I could just send him the spreadsheet then.

 

Strengths:

He said I did a good job taking initiative in getting new projects and finding different ways of doing things.  If I didn't know something, I tried to research it myself before turning to someone for help. He also thanked me for being very flexible this whole term.  The first week when I didn't have my work computer yet, I brought in my personal laptop and did some research into valves.  When he was unexpectedly out for a month, I found other ways of doing things so I didn't need his help.  When I did hit road blocks that required him, I worked on what I could do without him and asked for his help when he returned.

 

I laughed when he told me I was quiet.  Anyone that knows me knows that the only time I'm quiet is in a new or uncomfortable situation.  I'll admit I definitely have not been completely "myself" throughout this whole term, but I have become more comfortable with the people in my group and have begun having more conversations that don't revolve around work.

 

One of my goals for this term was to use the phone or talking to someone in person more for communication and not rely so much on e-mail.  It was hard to do so becuase I didn't have voicemail, but I feel as if I have gotten better about using the phone more.  If someone offered me their e-mail I usually wouldn't take it because if I had it I knew I would want to use it.  I feel like overall I have gotten better about it and will keep this on my list of goals so I can continue to improve my communication skills.

 

Another goal of mine was to get a better idea of what I want to do after graduation.  I now know that I would enjoy doing something similar to what I have done this term.  I have also confirmed my thought that I want to live near home.  Being only an hour away was nice because I could still attend family events but I was still far enough to be on my own.

 

I feel like the projects I have been assigned this term were actually beneficial to the plant.  There are tangible things that I can say I did and I learned many things along the way.  I definitely feel more accomplished than I did after my summer term.

 

My last day of work is this Friday.  I will be going up to PSU Friday through Wednesday for Blue-White weekend, the Blue in the FACE concert, and to see friends.  I will then be home for about 3 weeks before I will leave to go to Freeport, TX for the summer to complete my third rotation.

Work, Work, Work

I actually felt like a real person at work again today.  Since I only have about a week and a half left, I'm done with most of my projects.  The few that I have left have been ones that have run into obstacles along the way and I have spent a lot of time waiting for reponses and materials.

 

Yesterday, my supervisor decided that my trial needed to run today.  We just got the tools in last Friday after waiting for them for over a month and the person I've been working with on it had already contacted the scheduler about getting time on a lathe this week. My supervisor went to the scheduler's desk and made him give me time today so my trial ran.

 

I also spent the day chasing people around trying to tell them about a power shutdown due to electrical installation for one of my projects as well as making sure every thing is a go for the installation on Friday.  Too bad the thing we are installing electric for isn't going to be here for another 2 months.

 

I also finally got my cabinet shelf drawing out to the machine shop so they can make it and get the cabinets installed.

 

Tomorrow I'll probably be sitting at my desk messing around with the trial results in JMP all day.

Keep Waiting

I just want to start by saying thanks to all of my friends have been so awesome the past week.  I know everyone has been stressed but I think I've talked to a different person every night who has let me vent to them about one thing or another.  It really helped me through the rough week I had myself last week and will hopefully help me through the next few weeks.

 

I still don't really have answers on my knee.  I went back to the orthopedist last Thursday.  He said that the radiologist from the hopsital where they did the MRI said that I have a tear in the back of my medial meniscus (the cartlidge between the bones on the inside of the knee) and a small cyzt in the back of my knee.  The doctor said he didn't see either on the MRI and that neither would cause the pain I am having.  Since he doesn't know what is wrong, he doesn't want to do surgery yet.  He said if it still hurts come August then he will consider surgery.  That makes sense but at the same time there is clearly something wrong.  For now I am still waiting and going about normal activities.

 

After that appointment my mom and I decided that I would "test" my knee last weekend and this coming weekend.  By test, I mean do everything I would do if it didn't hurt to see how far I could push myself.  Last weekend we had a show so it was 8 hours on my feet, walking around, and gettting heavy thing off the floor of the trailer.  Needless to say, that didn't go over too well.  At least now my mom has an idea of what happens when it gets really bad.  This weekend is Relay for Life and WEPO teambuilding.  I have already talked with my Relay captain about only walking when I'm feeling up to it and she's completely ok with that.  I'm just happy I can be involved.  WEPO teambuilding is going to be the big test because it is outside in the woods doing different activities for a few hours.

 

After this weekend and talking with our family friend the chiropractor my mom has decided to look into getting a second opinion on my knee.  OUr friend said that I should not still be in pain and that I should have been ok by about 5 weeks after I saw him which was in the beginning of February.  My next appointment is two and a half weeks from now.  Here's to hoping we get answers from that.