My Christmas Mistake

My sister got a Kinnect for XBox 360 for Christmas. You can see where this is going, right?...

She got a Dance Central 2 game. I have always wanted to play that game! It looks so awesome on commercials. So when she asked me to join, I put on my boot and figured I'd just move my arms. Of course, I couldn't really do that, I have to get into the game. I am also super competitive (and I will say I did win all but one of the dances).

More than anything my dancing hurt my knee. Since I can't really move my ankle in my boot, the pressure ended up being more on my knee. Now I'm not feeling too good. My plan is to elevate my leg tonight and do some ankle pumps to get the fluid out, and then really rest tomorrow. And no more dancing. :(

I will say my parents warned me as I was going to do it. But I wanted to dance!! It's just one of those things that is SUPER frustrating. I want to be able to do normal things again! I want to play games and go to the gym. I feel ready to do normal things now, the rest of my body feels better after surgery, it's just my ankle of course hasn't healed all the way yet. Why can't you have surgery and then go right back to normal?

Other than this horrible lapse in judgement, my Christmas was pretty good! It is the first one without my Gramps though, which has been hard. It's little things like cards and presents signed, "Mimi," instead of, "Mimi and Gramps." And missing his (recently) quiet presence and general silliness. I know he's happy where he is, and can look out for all of us now. I hope he helps me keep from dancing in the future, until my ankle heals!


Gramps and I trying to take a self pic last Christmas 2010

Gramps and I last Christmas 2010

Gramps' temporary marker and Christmas wreath at his gravesite.

Merry Christmas: Bacardi Rum Cake

Every Christmas for as long as I can remember we have Rum Cake for dessert. I took over making it and glazing it a few years ago. It is delicious, moist, and best served with french vanilla ice cream! Here's the Bacardi Rum Cake recipe we use. (We've made it with Bacardi rum and non-Bacardi rum, and I'm going to tell you, it tasted the same.)

Cake:
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (we like black walnuts best for their flavor)
1 18 1/2 oz. pkg. yellow cake mix
1 3 3/4 pkg. Jell-O instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum (80 proof)

Glaze:
1/4 lb. butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum (80 proof)

Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour 10" tube or Bundt pan.

Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. Mix all cake ingredients together. Pour batter over nuts. Bake 1 hour. Cool. Invert on serving plate. Prick top. Drizzle and smooth glaze evenly over top and sides. Allow cake to absorb glaze. Repeat until glaze is used up.

For glaze, melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in rum.

The recipe recommends decorating with whole maraschino cherries and border of sugar frosting or whipped cream and serving with seedless green grapes dusted with powdered sugar. We don't do this, but we do serve with french vanilla ice cream.

I not only poke small holes into the cake to absorb the glaze, but also use a pastry brush to brush the glaze back off the plate/cake stand and onto the cake.

Also, if you've never cooked with alcohol before, be careful when you pour the rum into the glaze! The alcohol burns off and can burn you!

Merry Christmas!

Nothing says Christmas like rum cake!

PT Progress

Dave and Brenda (at PT) were very excited to hear that I wore my shoe for 15 minutes yesterday. So today I got to do some new things at PT while wearing my shoe! I rode the bike for 10 minutes, did the balance board and balancing on a foam thing, worked on my walking (still having a lot of trouble walking properly) and resistance bands before doing EStim and ice. It was very exciting to progress to some new things! I still cannot stand on my toes at all! I am slowly working on that. It's so hard because all of the muscles and tendons in my foot and leg that you use to stand on your toes are really weak.

We've decided that instead of wearing the brace I will start to wear my tennis shoe. I'm starting with an hour today and I'll try to do two hours tomorrow, etc. It's very exciting to wear a shoe finally! Although it does hit the top of the incisions on each side of my foot/ankle, so I'm hoping those are less sensitive soon.

Stupid brace.

I did it!

I did it! I wore two of the same shoes for the first time in months, and a real shoe on my right foot for the first time since March!

I definitely could not have done it for more than 15 minutes. Not only is my right foot swollen, it has like no muscles! It felt so weird to wear a shoe! There's clearly A LOT more work to do. I was able to walk almost normally, without too much of a limp, but I had to walk very slowly. And at least now I can tell Dave he was right - a real shoe will fit on my foot. (He keeps laughing at me because, as he says, I act like I have an elephant foot for my right foot).

Who ever thought I'd have to build up to wearing real shoes? It's such a weird thing to do! For now I'm back in the boot. I'm refusing to wear the brace.

I'm wearing 2 of the same shoe!! :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes!

Today I made red velvet cupcakes for my swimmers! I LOVE red velvet, and I think they're especially fun for Christmas. I'm not going to lie, I made these from a box. Hey - I needed a lot of them! But didn't I decorate them beautifully?!

Yummy! Red velvet cupcakes!

Setback: Update

I went back to PT today. My foot is a lot better! I could do more stretching and use resistance bands for strength again! It's pretty stiff after being in the boot for so long though. They say it will still be a while until things can progress - basically I need to be able to walk more and walk normally before anything else can happen.

I really do think the brace the doctor gave me is the problem. So Dave (PT) wants me to - get this - TRY TO WEAR A REAL SHOE! I haven't worn a real shoe on my right foot since I injured it back in March 2011. It's been more than 9 months! I can only wear a really good shoe (my good tennis shoes with ortho insert) and only for 10-15 minutes around the house - NOT out. I am not convinced my foot will fit into a shoe (part of the reason I haven't worn one in over 9 months) but Dave is sure that it will. So I'm going to try this tomorrow, let's see how it goes! I hope it works because my right leg looks crazy - my foot and ankle is swollen and my calf is so skinny from muscle atrophy! It looks so ridiculous next to my other leg!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies might be my favorite Christmas cookie. They are so good we can't keep them in our house... But there's no need to be a Monica and analyze an old cookie to find the best recipe. My favorite recipe is also Phoebe's great-great grandmother's, Nestle Toll House.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12 oz. package) Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
optional: 1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks.

My cookies in the Christmas cookie jar! (before someone ate them all...)

Holiday Greetings from the Holiday Armadillo!

Layered Peppermint Cheesecake

A couple weekends ago I made a layer cake with peppermint cheesecake layers and white cake for my mom's quilting bee luncheon. The recipe was from Southern Living's December 2011 magazine. It was a little complicated - so much to do! So I am posting the link to the recipe on Southern Living Mag's website! And the picks we took of our cake!

Layered Peppermint Cheesecake

One of my beautiful peppermint cheesecake layers!

Assembly

So pretty! Do you like my decorations?

Yum!

Setback

Well I've had a setback in my recovery and progress. Here's what we think happened: I had been practicing walking correctly by bending my foot and pushing off on the ball of my foot. (Apparently this is what "normal" people do.) After finally finding that my brace would fit in two sizes too big Crocs I started wearing it most of the time. Friday I went to the grocery store (I <3 Wegmans) and then made soup and finished all of last week's baking. By the end of the day I was aching, which is normal when I over do it a bit. But the aching didn't go away.

In fact, the aching turned into PAIN. I could barely walk at all it hurt so bad. So I went back to mostly wearing the boot (especially when visiting with friends in Baltimore to see my fav Christmas lights in Hampden!) and trying to stay off it last weekend.

When I went to PT on Tuesday it was still sore. They looked at it and don't think I've done any damage to anything, I'm just sore from over doing it. I didn't fall or get kicked or something like that, so knowing that nothing was damaged was a huge relief. So I rested until PT on Thursday. But it still hurt. It is SO frustrating because I had to go back to the beginning - being stretched, only doing ankle pumps, massage for the fluid, and EStim and ice. I can't do any strengthening exercises or anything I had advanced to. Boo.

I'm in my boot and resting through this weekend to see what happens. Dave (PT) told me if I have to stand to put my weight on my left foot. Awesome. This should make coaching my first meet this afternoon interesting!

I blame the brace. I've never liked it. Ahhhh!!

Hampden lights!

Marcelle, Amanda, and I at Hampden lights!

Recovery

Recovering from ankle surgery is a long process. I guess I didn't think too much about this ahead of time, and at times I have become very frustrated. It will be at least 6 months to a year until my ankle starts to feel normal. And they say I will have swelling for up to a year after surgery. I've been wanting to write a blog to remember my progress, so I might as well start now!

After surgery I was in a splint for 12 days and basically stayed in bed the whole time. Although they told me some people only need their pain killers for 3-4 days after surgery, I needed mine for all 10 they gave me, and had to have some refilled. I do not do well with pain. I accept this about my body, and am glad I know this about myself.

After 12 days I went back to the doctor and was put in a hard cast for 4 weeks and was still non-weight bearing. I was still in a bit of pain, but having the hard cast made it a little easier to get around - although showering was always an adventure of getting the plastic protector over the cast, slowly jumping with one leg into the shower, etc... Two days after being cast my Gramps died unexpectedly. (My Gramps retired when I was born and was my caregiver when my mom went back to work. He has always been a very special person in my life.) If it hadn't been for my scooter I wouldn't have been able to get around with my family to help plan the funeral and wouldn't have been able to get to the grave site to say goodbye.

After getting the cast off my foot was swollen, barely moved, and the incisions looked ugly and gross. I was put in a boot (which can come off to shower and sleep!!) and started physical therapy on Halloween. Two of my incisions were still open, and I screamed at poor Cristina when she tried to touch me. Right then Cristina told me if I did not start touching and moving my foot I would have major problems. After going back to the doctor and using something impregnated with silver to help close the wounds, I committed to doing my ankle pumps and massaging my foot with lotion mutliple times a day.

At first I was allowed to put 30 lbs. of weight on my foot while "walking." To measure this I pushed my foot down on a scale. 30 lbs. is basically the weight of my foot. Slowly but surely I was allowed to put more and more weight on my foot. It was very painful in my heal at first because of the bone work that was done during surgery. It felt like my bone was walking on the ground without any padding. But sadly the only way to get that padding back is to walk on it more. Ouch.

After weeks of walking with a crutch or walker, one day in the middle of November I realized that I could put all of my weight on my foot and walk on it!! Very exciting! Slowly I walked more and more. And as predicted, the more I walked on it, the more the padding built back up and walking was less painful. One day instead of crawling up the stairs and scooting down on my butt, I realized I could WALK up and down them (one leg at a time, of course)!! And just like when I was 15, my mom and I went to the high school parking lot to see if I could drive. I could.

Right before Thanksgiving I went back to the doctor again. My x-rays looked good and my bone was healing well. I was given a very sturdy brace to wear in a shoe, and was supposed to slowly transition to wearing that instead of the boot. Except that the brace did not fit in ANY shoe! My mom and I sat in DSW and tried every tennis shoe they had. Finally we went with Crocs that were too big - they are literally the only thing this brace fits in.

I then had to re-learn to walk - my foot had forgotten after all that time! I am still working on the motion of walking correctly, and can only walk (very slowly) for short periods of time and only drive short distances.

I still have a LONG way to go, but looking back it's good to remember I've come so far!

Morning Glory Muffin Bread

This can be made into bread or muffins. (I always make muffins.) They're perfect for breakfast when you have overnight guests. They can also be made ahead and frozen in a Ziplock plastic freezer bag for up to one month. Just remove them from the bag and let them thaw at room temperature.

Morning Glory Muffin Bread

1 cup chopped pecans
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup canola oil
3 large eggs
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 (8 oz.) can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 large carrots, finely grated (1 cup)
1 cup golden raisins

1.  Preheat oven to 350. Bake pecans in single layer on a baking sheet 5-7 minutes or until lightly toasted and fragrant. Cool completely on a wire rack (about 15 minutes).

2.  Meanwhile, combine flour, salt, baking soda, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture.

3.  Whisk together sugar, canola oil, eggs, and vanilla extract; fold in crushed pineapple and carrots. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in toasted pecans and raisins.

4.  For bread:  Spoon into 2 greased and floured 8 x 4 inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 55 - 60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on a wire rack 15 minutes. Remove from pans to wire rack, and cool completely (about 50 minutes).
For muffins:  Spoon into lightly greased muffin pans, filling two-thirds full. Bake at 350 for 23 - 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack about 5 minutes. Remove from pans to wire rack, and cool completely (about 30 minutes). Makes 2 dozen muffins.

Before:  Ready to go in the oven!



After:  Ready to eat! Yum!

Kindness: Aloha Spirit

Early last week I was in a really bad mood. It was cold and gray out, and I just felt blah. So I went to Starbucks (now that I can drive again and get around a little!). The barista there made my day and cheered me up.

I paid with my Hawaii Starbucks card and she noticed it right away. I actually feel upset if people don't comment on it, because let's be real, it's really cool to have a Hawaii Starbucks card (especially when you live somewhere other than Hawaii). But she wanted to talk more about Hawaii. She was so happy and friendly. Her mood rubbed off on me! She is getting ready to transfer from NOVA to a 4 year university, and I might have encouraged her to apply to Hawaii. Why not, right?

So often we go through our days and are in a rush and don't consider others. When someone slows down and takes a moment to be friendly and kind it really can make a difference. Who might need some kindness in your life? How can you show kindness to others?

a black sand beach on Maui, January 2011

Oahu, January 2011

whale watching in Maui, January 2011

Cake Pops

Making cake pops was an adventure! I have been wanting to try it and a pasta dinner for the high school I coach was the perfect excuse to try my hand at them. This is how I did it, with some advice from some lovely ladies who were kind enough to help when I had a cake pop emergency! Let me warn you, this is not for the faint of heart!

1 box of cake mix (and ingredients to make it)
1 can of store bought icing
melting chocolate (can find this at Michael's or a baking store)
anything else (candies, coloring, etc.) you want to decorate with
lolipop sticks
wax paper and/or something like styrofoam to stick the pops in to dry

Make the cake as directed on the box. Mash it up in a large bowl and mix it with 1/4 to 1/2 the can of icing. (Do NOT use too much icing! 1/2 the can is probably too much, but I did use that much). Form the mixture into small balls and put in freezer for about 20 minutes. While they are in the freezer melt your chocolate and color it if desired. Add about 1-2 tablespoons oil to thin the chocolate.

Take cake balls out of the freezer. Dip the end of the lolipop stick in the chocolate (to help it stay in place) and push it about halfway through the cake ball. Dip the cake ball into the chocolate to cover it. Gently tap it on the edge of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. Place cake pop either on wax paper or in a piece of styrofoam to dry. Decorate as you desire.

Mine were only halfway successful. I made them but was unable to decorate them after I burned my last batch of chocolate. I made them purple and was going to put a black "B" on them for Battlefield High School. Oh well. They were delicious! The kids and parents LOVED them and I did not have a single one to take home! Success!!

(I used yellow cake mix and cream cheese icing, which tasted like donuts, and a chocolate cake mix with chocolate icing. Delish!)

Getting started.

My cake fell apart, but that's fine because you have to mush it up!

Cake pop fail! It was too heavy because I used too much icing in my cake mixture.

Cake pop success! I used a styrofoam block to put them in. Be careful and make your holes ahead of time or the styrofoam will get allover your cake pops.

Cake pops ready for transport! But sadly not decorated.

Lessons Learned

I learned a lot from my experience with my ankle. Like, it's hard to do most things when you can only walk on one leg. But most lessons were more important than that and I hope others can learn from my experience.

1. Listen to your body. You know your body better than anyone else, even your doctor. If you're young and not healing, there's something wrong. Young people hurt themselves, but the benefit of being young and healthy is you heal quickly.

2. Be an advocate for yourself. It's ok to speak up if you don't like what's happening. If you called the practice to see a certain doctor, see that doctor. If you've tried what the doctor tells you to do but it's not working, speak up and let them know.

3. Take someone with you to major medical appointments. I wish I had taken my mom with me sooner. I found that I would get overwhelmed at my appointments and not hear everything or not get all my questions asked. Having her there made it easier to advocate, ask my questions, and have someone else hear the answers in case I forgot.

4. Write down your questions. You will feel overwhelmed and forget to ask things, so write them down ahead of time when you think of them and bring them with you to your appointment.

5. It's ok to ask 5 million questions. Ok, maybe not 5 million, but that's how many I felt like I asked. The week before surgery I was full of questions and called the office almost everyday. The lovely, patient nurses there called me back and answered them all. They didn't mind and understood that I was nervous.

Surgery

I was pretty nervous and wondering if I had done the right thing advocating for surgery. I asked a ton of questions about the surgery and recovery to try and get a picture of what was going on. Even doing that could not have really prepared me.

When I went in for surgery I was still really nervous, but convinced this was the right thing to do. It turns out, it really was the right thing. Here's what happened:

First they opened the back of my calf to lengthen my achilles tendon (not the torn tendon). Then they opened the outside of my foot to move my heel bone over. Next, they inserted a screw into my heal to keep it in place. Apparently they had to break my bone or shave it or something in order to do this. Later, this was the source of a lot of my pain when I was able to walk again.

Finally, for my biggest incision - they opened the inside of my foot/ankle. They were able to see right away what was wrong. The tendon had a tumor on it that was eating away at it. They removed the bad tendon, pulled down and reattached another tendon to replace it, and repaired a ligament.

The tumor was benign. If it had not been removed it would have continued to eat away at my tendon and other parts of my ankle. I thank God everyday that we advocated for surgery and did not wait another six weeks to have it done!

The Story of My Ankle

Here's what happened, in case you didn't already know...

Back in March I was at kickboxing. The girl next to me was doing amazing kicks and the instructor was yelling, "Faster! Harder!" I was like, "I can kick as well as this girl!" Trying to go faster I lost my form and struck the heavy bag with the inside of my right ankle instead of my shin. I was in pretty bad pain for the next few days and finally had to go to the doctor. After trying physical therapy and only getting worse, in April they finally ordered an MRI. The MRI showed a partial tear in my tendon and what they called "thickening" of the tendon. I was immobolized in a walking boot for four weeks and then supposed to restart physical therapy.

After four weeks immobolized in the boot, I still wasn't really better. The doctor wanted to put me in a weight bearing cast - which was a major problem since it was my right ankle and my job required a lot of walking and driving everyday. Instead she decided to keep me in the boot four more weeks. I was no longer sure that this doctor knew what she was doing and decided to get a second opinion.

The second doctor I saw gave me a brace to wear that fit in a shoe and wanted to see me back in six weeks, saying if it wasn't better by then we would need to talk about surgery. Being the "doctor snob" that I am, I didn't like this guy either or the prospect of surgery and decided to get a third opinion.

In June I saw the third doctor who thought that since it hadn't healed I should go ahead with surgery to repair the tendon. Tired of all of this, I scheduled the surgery for July and made plans to move home when my lease was up in July and to leave my job since all of the driving and walking was not allowing me to heal.

Before I went ahead with surgery I decided to see one more doctor - the doctor I originally tried to see (an orthopaedic surgeon) but was sent to the podiatrist in the same practice (the first doctor, who wanted to cast me when I needed to drive). Dr. Buchanan turned out to be amazing, and I have now learned to be a better advocate for myself - if I had insisted on seeing him instead of the podiatrist when I first called, all of this running around might have been avoided. Dr. Buchanan was sure that I would still heal, but that it would just take a long time. I cancelled the surgery, went back to PT, and stuck it out with Dr. Buchanan.

In August, my physical therapist Cristina, who is also amazing, reviewed my case after I had seen another therapist there for a few weeks. Cristina felt that I was not improving and was pretty sure I needed surgery at this point. She basically kicked me out of PT and sent me back to the doctor.

There's no need to tell you I was pretty frustrated at this point. I felt like I was losing months of my life as I had been on activity restrictions since March, had left my apartment and job, and was still in pain! This time my mom went with me to Dr. Buchanan.

Even though it was the end of August/beginning of September, Dr. Buchanan still thought that I could heal without surgery but wanted to put me in a weight-bearing cast for six weeks. He told us there was a 70-80% chance that I would heal that way. My mom and I saw this as still a pretty good chance that after another six weeks I would still not heal and need surgery. We advocated for surgery, and after reviewing everything with us, Dr. Buchanan agreed. We scheduled surgery for September 15.