Nurturing vs. tough love

Maddie had surgery on Tuesday to repair a torn ACL -- I had written in an earlier blog entry that I questioned the necessity of this, but now it is done!  And she is in pain, which I truly think is a surprise for her.  And I get that.  I always think that I am stronger than anything and can hack whatever is thrown my way.  But pain, pain is tough.

Since Tuesday I have virtually been by her side constantly.   Not through any design -- it just turned out that way.  After we came home on Tuesday afternoon and I'd set her up in the living room on the couch, made sure her pain meds were up-to-date, that she had something to drink, a pillow to prop her leg, a blanket to keep her warm, the jelly beans she wanted so badly, her laptop and phone ... I at last settled down beside her in the chair and felt exhaustion creep into my body.

It's not easy spending a day waiting for someone to get out of surgery and not easy watching them be in pain.  In fact, I have discovered, it is quite debilitating!  So I spent the rest of the afternoon watching taped episodes of Ellen -- and everytime Maddie would wake up, she would say, "We're still watching Ellen?"  It was kind of funny -- she was in a drugged daze anyway, and then to find Ellen everytime she opened her eyes, was like Groundhog Day!  Finally she asked if we could watch another show!  (She never watched any of the shows, she would fade out the moment she opened her eyes!)

Fortunately I had meals prepared, so I could continue to hibernate in the living room with her.  When she would wake up and look to see if I was there, it reminded me of when I was on the same couch recovering from gallbladder surgery, and I was always alone!  No one wanted to watch what I was watching on the TV, so they all went into the other room.  So I spent hours and hours and hours alone, and I didn't like it.  So I wanted to be there for her, to give her that sense of security.

Then she started to ask, when I rustled in the chair "where are you going?"  She was becoming attached to my presence!  But there she was, a total invalid with this knee trussed in bandages and a brace and tears running down her cheeks from the pain, who could leave?

On Thursday we had to go to the doctor's office to have the drain removed, and I took a look at the knee.  Now, I don't know what I had been envisioning, but there it was, her knee, perfectly intact!  It was done arthroscopically, so the only incisions were tiny and below the knee.  There was, however, a hole drilled into the top of her knee for the drain tubing, and that was pretty cool looking.  But ... here I was babying her thinking that her entire knee might fall apart or something (you know how the imagination works!) and really, all that bandaging, padding and ace bandaging is one big overkill.  There is no bleeding.  At all.  I started to think, hmmmmm.

They want her to do excercises, they want her to start putting a little pressure on the leg.  And she's calling me to help her adjust her position on the couch.

I had, officially, become an enabler!  She didn't want to give it up!  Even her brother would come home from school and immediately put himself in her service, and he was busy bustling between kitchen and living room making deliveries!  So when I put her to bed last night I said, tomorrow you need to move around more, take less pain medication and a SHOWER!

So thus far it has been interesting.  She went into the kitchen and assembled her breakfast (leftover chinese food, but a recovering enabler can't jump off the wagon at the first sign of something they don't like!)   Then I watched as she tried to crutch her way into the living room balancing a tray of well, grease.

I jumped up.  Not to enable the patient but to save my rug!  She saw her opportunity and took advantage:  Oh, you don't have to take my plate, but since you're here, could you grab me a drink, that tray and my laptop?

She is good.  I didn't see any of that coming!  Like I said, my concern was for the rug!  But I found myself helping her get into position and I stopped.  No!  You NEED to lift your leg, I told her.  It's not some hunk of wood attached to your body, it is full of muscles that are perfectly intact and you need to use them.

She looked at me with such a look of sadness.  Clearly, she enjoyed the pampering, the special attention, the $15 bag of gourmet jelly beans (my mother got those).  But it's my job to discern the fine line between nurturing and the application of a little tough love in order to get her motivated.  And while it takes a strong stomach to be a tough parent, I can see that she needs it.  It doesn't mean I won't continue to help her out, but she HAS to take a shower.  She doesn't believe that this is an issue, but I am telling you, it so is.

She stinks.

 And I think once she sees her knee (she wouldn't look at the doctor's office yesterday) she will realize that she really is fine, that it's not a bloody pulp of quivering useless flesh.  Which is what I thought before I saw it!  Like I said, I have quite the imagination.

And so does she!