Doctor's appointment

Friday January 7, 2011 Day 191

I got up again around 4:00 a.m., as I think my body is still trying to adjust to the time change. Brennan was up for a feeding, so I got to hold him again after his mother finished nursing him. As with yesterday morning, I returned to bed after Brennan fell asleep, and got up at 9:00 again.

Aren't they beautiful!!!!

I had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for this morning at 10:00 for an Aggie to take a look at my left knee, which has been bothering me since the cruise. I went to a sports medicine clinic, and I was very impressed with their process and their efficiency. I filled out all the forms online and they were ready for me when I arrived this morning - no more questions about history, etc. My first stop was the x-ray room where the technician took three shots of both knees and one shot of my left knee alone. Then one of the doctor’s assistants (another Aggie) came in to chat a bit about my problems, and we talked some about France as well. Then the big doc came in and gave me the bad news, which is that I have significant arthritis in both knees. He gave me some exercises to do and told me to take 1500 mg of glucosamine daily and perhaps I will not need knee replacement surgery in 20 years.(!) Because I will be returning to France in two weeks, we scheduled an MRI for Monday, with followup visit for Wednesday. If I were not headed back to France, we probably would wait to see how things are going, but I wanted to know whether there was any injury in my knee which could be repaired by surgery.

We arrived back at the house just as Alicia and Eric were headed out to put Eric’s car into the shop for a clutch job. I rode along with them for the very short trip to the shop. We three then returned in Alicia’s car.

While we were at the doctor’s office, Brennan and his parents were at his pediatrician’s office for a two-week checkup. He passed with flying colors, having almost regained his birth weight.

That afternoon we visited Kristi and Mike to see their new 4-day-old daughter, Peyton. There is a marked difference in the sizes of the babies, even though they were born only five days apart: Brennan is a little more than eight pounds, Peyton just at six pounds. She seems so tiny after having held Brennan.

Alicia, Shelli, Brennan and I went next to Costco after to try out Shelli’s new membership card. She was rather overwhelmed by the choices available, so we all worked together to help decide what to buy to feed the household through the next several days.

We dropped Ronnie at Joe’s, then Shelli and I went home - we were exhausted. We both took naps. Alicia and Peter bought fixings and made a delicious tortellini soup using some of the deer sausage Eric brought.

In the evening, Ronnie, Shelli, Alicia, Peter and Eric played games. Roger and I sat out, still trying to recover from the fatigue of our trip and still enjoying Brennan. Then Alicia, Peter and Eric left to drive down to Mary Ellen’s house for the night. She graciously agreed to host some of my family while we are all in Dallas.