Day 7 after knee surgery and we're all still here to tell about it! The local wore off totally and the pain kicked back in. A rash broke out on Jeff's back from the Percocet, so he's trying to figure out which is worse..an itchy red back or a painful knee. Hope the doctor will get back with us soon regarding a new drug.
Other than that, he's the model patient. It's tough just sitting in the same position for so long each day. On top of recovery, he's also taking the story-telling class I took last month. Now that he's got the time, we figured it would be good to be on the same page. It's kind of funny listening to him tell stories while doped up on Percocet! :) I promise...we'll get them cleaned up and much shorter before we try them out on anyone!
Jeff has a follow up with the surgeon on Monday. Please be praying all looks good and he's well on his way to recovery!!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Knee Surgery
I'm having flashbacks to that time of life just after Ashley arrived. Waiting for that last "right-before-bed" feeding, getting up in the middle of the night, waking up early...I barely made it through three months with Ashley. Now I'm back in that mode being nursemaid for Jeff and I'm struggling on the third day! I wasn't cut out to be a nursemaid. God has more patient, more tolerant, more cheerful people He's using for this job. Poor Jeff, though, is stuck with me. Pray for him!!
As for the patient, surgery went very well. Two small incisions on either side of the knee had very little drainage. He's still in a little pain, but that's probably because I'm rather harsh with him on his daily exercises. "Push through the pain. They said it would hurt. You'll live." Empathy is not my strong point!
Right now, he's using a flexion machine 8 hours a day and is already up to 75 degrees of flexion. The cold therapy machine that circulates ice water around his knee 24/7 is doing a great job of keeping the swelling down, but eats 20# of ice a day. We don't have storage for that much ice, so the people at Conoco are getting to know me pretty well.
Ashley has turned into a wonderful little helper. She never complains when Dad says "I need...", or "Ashley, get...", but jumps right up and does it.
Thanks to my super awesome life group, one thing I haven't had to tackle is meal planning or prep. That's been a huge blessing!!
So, we've made it through 3½ days of post surgery recovery. Dad's getting really bored, though and tomorrow Ashley and I start school and won't be as available to him for that glass of ice water, snack, pillow adjustment, TV adjustment (I hate digital TV!!!), or the half dozen other little things that come up each day. Could get interesting.
As for the patient, surgery went very well. Two small incisions on either side of the knee had very little drainage. He's still in a little pain, but that's probably because I'm rather harsh with him on his daily exercises. "Push through the pain. They said it would hurt. You'll live." Empathy is not my strong point!
Right now, he's using a flexion machine 8 hours a day and is already up to 75 degrees of flexion. The cold therapy machine that circulates ice water around his knee 24/7 is doing a great job of keeping the swelling down, but eats 20# of ice a day. We don't have storage for that much ice, so the people at Conoco are getting to know me pretty well.
Ashley has turned into a wonderful little helper. She never complains when Dad says "I need...", or "Ashley, get...", but jumps right up and does it.
Thanks to my super awesome life group, one thing I haven't had to tackle is meal planning or prep. That's been a huge blessing!!
So, we've made it through 3½ days of post surgery recovery. Dad's getting really bored, though and tomorrow Ashley and I start school and won't be as available to him for that glass of ice water, snack, pillow adjustment, TV adjustment (I hate digital TV!!!), or the half dozen other little things that come up each day. Could get interesting.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Prayers answered!!
God is listening!! Jeff went back to see his Workman's Comp (WC) doctor after getting the MRI. We'd been praying that this be covered by WC and that the doctor's ego not be involved. Thankfully, the doctor said he was reversing his previous decision and OK'd the surgery by the specialist. WC will cover the surgery and rehab and will even pay a WC salary during this time. Wow! That was even more than we asked for!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Update on Jeff
Just wanted to shoot out a quick update on Jeff's job and his knee for anyone following that. We've had a lot of questions on why Jeff was asked to resign from Schwans. I'll give you the long version here.
Last August (2008), when he started, the job was part salary and part commission. He was given a schedule of sorts that showed where his sales needed to be each month. After the initial training (about a month), the salary part went down each month as the commission was supposed to rise to compensate.
Unfortunately, Jeff's route was somewhat neglected before he took it over, and it took him a long time to build relationships and his route. In November he was bringing home about $450 / week, which wasn't enough to cover much and we'd discussed the need for him to find other employment. About that time, he slipped on some ice and whacked his right knee on the step of the truck. That put him out of commission for several weeks.
About the time he got back to work, they announced a new compensation plan, which would have a constant base salary and have commissions added to that. The base was enough for us to live on, and the company had designed a new schedule with a slowly increasing sales quota. Jeff thought that was do-able, so he stayed on.
Around May, however, the regional rep threw out those sales growth plans and upped every one's quota to a set rate. Jeff was far below this as were most of the reps in his depot. His depot manager, in an effort to get his guys selling more, imposed mandatory longer hours (be on-route at 8:30am and could not get back to depot until 9pm) and required Saturday work if the quota was not fulfilled during the week.
Over the next three months, the screws kept getting tighter, the hours longer and worked counter-productively for most of the guys in the depot. By July, the 14+ hour days, six days a week most weeks was exhausting Jeff, and not reflecting positively on sales. We knew he couldn't keep it up much longer, but his anniversary date was coming up and at that point he'd have some vacation.
Jeff's always been open about his working Schwans as a temporary stop-gap until we leave for Kenya, and, at the end of July, his boss asked for a set date that Jeff would be leaving. We don't have one of those, so his boss asked for his resignation immediately, but agreed to give him his vacation. We found out the next week that his depot had hired three new drivers and they needed to make room for these guys.
We're not sad, and we're not panicked. At this point, we don't even feel like the Lord is pushing us to find other employment. Actually, we feel the Lord's hand in this entire situation. We'd been praying very hard for God to relieve some of the pressure Jeff was feeling and also very hard for our funds to come in so we can get to Africa. I'd been having difficulty with making calls for appointments to share our ministry. (It's very discouraging when people ignore your emails or don't return your calls.) With both of us now working at sharing God's call on our lives, we're able to connect with many more people who have a heart for Africa or who want to be a part of an amazing growth in the church there.
We also found out that Jeff will need arthroscopic surgery on his knee. (The one that was damaged in his November fall). The kneecap is out of alignment; he has bone spurs under it, and there is a tear in the meniscus that needs to be mended. He's scheduled this for August 20th and will need four to six weeks of rehab after that. He would be out of work anyway. At this point, we're praying for Workman's Comp to cover the claim and for Jeff to be able to use the specialist that diagnosed him to do the surgery. (Workman's Comp wants him to go back to the WC Dr. who wiggled his knee and said he didn't have a problem!)
So, there you have it. God is in control. We're at peace with that, and we're anxious to leave for Africa by end of September!
Last August (2008), when he started, the job was part salary and part commission. He was given a schedule of sorts that showed where his sales needed to be each month. After the initial training (about a month), the salary part went down each month as the commission was supposed to rise to compensate.
Unfortunately, Jeff's route was somewhat neglected before he took it over, and it took him a long time to build relationships and his route. In November he was bringing home about $450 / week, which wasn't enough to cover much and we'd discussed the need for him to find other employment. About that time, he slipped on some ice and whacked his right knee on the step of the truck. That put him out of commission for several weeks.
About the time he got back to work, they announced a new compensation plan, which would have a constant base salary and have commissions added to that. The base was enough for us to live on, and the company had designed a new schedule with a slowly increasing sales quota. Jeff thought that was do-able, so he stayed on.
Around May, however, the regional rep threw out those sales growth plans and upped every one's quota to a set rate. Jeff was far below this as were most of the reps in his depot. His depot manager, in an effort to get his guys selling more, imposed mandatory longer hours (be on-route at 8:30am and could not get back to depot until 9pm) and required Saturday work if the quota was not fulfilled during the week.
Over the next three months, the screws kept getting tighter, the hours longer and worked counter-productively for most of the guys in the depot. By July, the 14+ hour days, six days a week most weeks was exhausting Jeff, and not reflecting positively on sales. We knew he couldn't keep it up much longer, but his anniversary date was coming up and at that point he'd have some vacation.
Jeff's always been open about his working Schwans as a temporary stop-gap until we leave for Kenya, and, at the end of July, his boss asked for a set date that Jeff would be leaving. We don't have one of those, so his boss asked for his resignation immediately, but agreed to give him his vacation. We found out the next week that his depot had hired three new drivers and they needed to make room for these guys.
We're not sad, and we're not panicked. At this point, we don't even feel like the Lord is pushing us to find other employment. Actually, we feel the Lord's hand in this entire situation. We'd been praying very hard for God to relieve some of the pressure Jeff was feeling and also very hard for our funds to come in so we can get to Africa. I'd been having difficulty with making calls for appointments to share our ministry. (It's very discouraging when people ignore your emails or don't return your calls.) With both of us now working at sharing God's call on our lives, we're able to connect with many more people who have a heart for Africa or who want to be a part of an amazing growth in the church there.
We also found out that Jeff will need arthroscopic surgery on his knee. (The one that was damaged in his November fall). The kneecap is out of alignment; he has bone spurs under it, and there is a tear in the meniscus that needs to be mended. He's scheduled this for August 20th and will need four to six weeks of rehab after that. He would be out of work anyway. At this point, we're praying for Workman's Comp to cover the claim and for Jeff to be able to use the specialist that diagnosed him to do the surgery. (Workman's Comp wants him to go back to the WC Dr. who wiggled his knee and said he didn't have a problem!)
So, there you have it. God is in control. We're at peace with that, and we're anxious to leave for Africa by end of September!
The Bible in Any Language
Mission Network News reported July 09 that a coalition of Bible translation and mission agencies are working together to provide a database of Scripture in multiple languages. The Forum of Bible Agencies International has launched Find A Bible, an innovative and interactive website that gives easy access to 15,000 Scripture products in more than 3,000 languages. Jon Anderson with World Bible Translation Center says, "Find a Bible is a website that comprises all Scripture resources that we can access either in print, digitally, audio, or in any other format that we can find." Do try http://www.findabible.net/ . The coalition includes Audio Scripture Ministries, Faith Comes By Hearing, OneHope, Open Doors, SIM International, World Bible Translation Center, Wycliffe, and dozens of others. Anderson says veteran Bible translators agree, "This is the one place that has the most Scripture available to the most people in the history of humanity." Pray that God will use this Scripture resource to draw many to Himself.
OK! I hear you! So you want these Bibles to TALK to you? Try http://www.talkingbibles.org.
OK! I hear you! So you want these Bibles to TALK to you? Try http://www.talkingbibles.org.