Year 5 of a life sentence

For those of you who don’t know, I grounded Rodi from playing basketball when we were living in Germany.  It was early in 2005 when the grounding took place.  The reason at the time was due to the fact that he had to cut his wedding band off his finger.  He had been getting some injury or another every time he played the silly game and the cutting of the wedding band was my last straw.  I grounded him, simple as that.

A few weeks later while he was doing an exercise with his unit I received a call from the medical officer of his unit.  This is something a wife never wants to get after 10 at night, well at anytime.  I was told he had badly injured his leg and was in an ambulance on his way to the Emergency room.  My heart sank.  I was VERY pregnant which didn’t help, as my emotions were all over the place. I was imagining the worst.   Towards the end of the phone call I hear the Dr. say  “he was playing basketball when the injury happened.”  BASKETBALL!  Oooh I went from being scared for my husband,  to being extremely mad.  Then the Dr. told me he knew about the grounding, he (the Dr.) had assured Rodi that the grounding didn’t apply once you crossed a country border.  HA!

Now fast-forward 5 years and stop when you get to Monday, September 27, 2010.  You would think that we would be done with that knee injury, instead we found ourselves in the hospital getting Rodi prepped  for surgery.  Apparently when he had surgery in 2005 the tear in his ACL had not been repaired.  (go ahead and say it... ouch!)  So my superhero, my rock, my Mr. Everything, has been walking around in pain for 5 years with a torn ACL.  He has only played basketball once (that I know of) since that injury, and he hurt his foot.  I made him go to the hospital for x-rays, he wasn't happy with me.  My theory - commit the crime, do the time.  I am serious about this grounding thing.  His is a life sentence.

Yesterday was a hard day for me.  I can't stand to see him in pain, and he was in plenty of it. 

There was one bright spot in our day....

Bertie Mae!

No, we didn't take her with us to the hospital.  I think they frown upon things like that.  The nurse was checking Rodi in and when she got to the part where she had to check his feet for swelling she noticed his black toenail.  She asked if he had dropped something on his foot.  We couldn't help it, we both started to giggle.  She looked at us oddly.  We then proceeded to tell her that our cow had stepped on his foot.  The expression on her face was priceless.  I guess not that many patients at the military hospital have cows at home.  We almost busted out laughing when she asked us how we got the cow's foot off of Rodi's foot.  Poor Bertie Mae she didn't mean to step on his foot, she removed her foot just as fast as she put it down.  Why the nurse thought Bertie Mae would just stand there with her foot like a brick on Rodi's foot is a mystery to me.  It did make me smile though.  Smiling is a good thing when the rest of your day is going to be full of stress.

His surgery was the longest three hours, but he came out just fine and I can breathe again.  He thinks it is silly for me to be worried about a simple knee surgery.  Like I said he is my superhero, my rock, and my Mr. Everything, even a simple surgery puts him at risk, therefore I WILL worry.

Now we move on to recovery... I am sure there will be tales to tell in the coming days.