To all my beloved family, friends and neighbors,

I cannot tell you how much your loving support, messages, calls, cards, flowers and prayers have meant to me. I have felt completely embraced and held by love and light through this surgery and the beginnings of my recovery. Thank you so much! There were times along the way when I would dream of waves of positive energy flowing into me from everywhere and I knew it was all of you. I am truly blessed by all of you.

I’m happy to report the surgery was a success. I knew it was a great result when I was in recovery, and I saw the look on my surgeon’s face when he saw the xray. He was like a kid in the candy store. All the nurses kept saying, “He is so sweet. Don’t you just want to pinch his cheeks?” Then they would pat me on the arm and say, “Sweetie, you have a great doctor!” He took this photo of the xray with his cell phone and emailed it to me:

He had to do quite a bit of extra work to make a socket for me, as expected. He told me there was less muscle damage than he’d anticipated that he had to fix. But, my femur showed signs of stress because it had grown a bunch of bone spurs. So, to secure the implant in my femur, he zip tied it with metal wire, which you can see clearly in the xray. That may need to come out once the bone grows around the implant, if it bothers me.

My pain levels have been very manageable and I got to come home the morning after the surgery! It was good I stayed in the hospital the first night because my blood pressure dropped down to low 80’s over 50’s due to all the narcotics and anesthesia and they had to flush me with fluids and give me oxygen to get me through. I learned that heavy narcotics like Oxycodone don’t really work for me! I’m glad we didn’t learn that at home and poor Scott would have had to rush me to the ER! Right now I’m just taking some Tylenol and Tramadol (more moderate narcotic that I can tolerate).

I am very sore, but that’s normal. I can walk around on my walker and get in and out of chairs and bed. I also have some physical therapy exercises I am doing to get the muscles working again. They get you up almost as soon as you come to and can sit up. Pretty amazing.

The hospital (Renown South Reno) was wonderful! I had a private room overlooking a nice tree and everyone who worked with me was caring and attentive. I am particularly grateful to the night staff who had a lot of work to do to get me through the night.  I was amazed at the efficiency of their process. They know what they are doing! Here’s a sexy picture of me in my surgical gown (they can even plug you into a heat/AC unit to either heat or cool you–isn’t that nuts?)

My beloved Scott has attended to my every need and was there with me the whole way through, except in surgery and recovery. My gratitude to his friend, Marlene, who had coffee and sat with him during that time. The surgery took only about 90 minutes.  I am so grateful for his beautiful presence in my life–I cannot imagine having this experience without him. He’s fixing dinner while I’m typing. He is surely my rock and my sanctuary in this world.

And guess who else was there? My dad! When they gave me the first pills to start putting me under, he showed up. He looked like he did when I was young. He took my hand in his big, old paws and said, “Come on, kid, let’s go hang out under the apple tree.” Suddenly, I was under the old apple tree behind our ranch house, lying in the cool grass and watching the clouds go by. When I was young and we were both tired from doing chores, we would lie down under that tree and cloud watch, calling out the shapes we saw. It is one of my favorite memories of my sweet father. I cannot tell this part of the story without crying. It was an exceptionally beautiful experience. He stayed with me the whole way through my hospital stay and comes in and out to check on me here at home. He tells me, “I am only a thought away, always.”

It reminds me that life is a mystery greater than we can ever know and that love connects us eternally to one another–whether we are in a body or not.

So, on that sweet note, I’m going to wrap up this epistle and go eat some supper.

God Bless all of you for being here for me-I am so grateful! I’ll probably keep doing group emails for awhile, because my bandwidth and sitting time isn’t great yet. But I’ll be in touch individually as I am able.

Love to you all,

Rhonda