I have surgery on my right leg scheduled for June 1st at the Mayo Clinic… It will be my 3rd surgery this year, and the third year in a row to have leg surgery. I really really really hope it works this time.

This week was the last week for Paula Deen’s cooking competition… so now all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that she’ll love my recipes and pick me to be a finalist! A big thanks goes out to Suzi for video taping all of my cooking videos!!! :^)

Last week was pretty crazy (as far as hospital visits go…). So here’s a quick recap.

Tuesday: down to the Mayo Clinic for the super-special-MRI test.

Wedesday: back down to the Mayo to hear the results and have a consult with the vascular surgeon.
In a nutshell, the super-special MRI was very helpful. They could finally pinpoint the spot in my leg where the blood vessles were being squeezed shut, and I was offered a surgery to release the artery (which is what they tried to do last year, but the surgery the Mayo is offering a different procedure. they would go in from the side of my leg instead of behind my knee). Functional Popletieal Entrapment Syndrome (aka PAES) is such a tricky thing to fix, so the surgery isn’t a guarentee BUT there has been success with this procedure in the past. The doctor would only do one leg at a time, and he would only do the 2nd leg if the first one showed signs of the surgery being successful.
I didn’t make any decisions about surgery right then and there, I went home to think things through.

Friday: Stitches were removed from my thumb, and x-rays were taken. AND good news! the thumb joint is fusing nicely! so at least tha seems to be headed in the right direction for a change!
So then I called Mayo because I decided I want to go ahead with surgery.
I haven’t done any hard workout since Febuary, and my legs only seem to be getting worse. It would be awesome to be able to make another Olympic team, but if I don’t I am OK with that. I just want to be able to use my legs and do the things I love. I want to be able to do the Birkie when I am older, I want to go for runs in the woods, I want to jump in some triathalons… So now I am waiting to hear back from the Mayo to see when I can get in.

BUT I did manage to fit in some more cooking videos… check out my HOLEY MOLE PIE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twCjYTnWr44

So I’ve been recovering from my second thumb surgery since my last update. It seems to be going alright. They did end up fusing my thumb joint (the cartilage was just too damaged, and too much of the bone was missing for another try at repairing the joint). So now I have a metal-enforced thumb… Watch out thumb war world.
This upcoming week I go to Mayo on Tuesday for a special-specialized MRI test with a special radiologist with a special procedure (for my legs). Then on Wednesday I go back to meet with the vascular surgeon, and hopefully this will be when I get some answer. Friday I head to the cities to get the stitches pulled out of my thumb!

I was back at the mayo yesterday to have huge needles stuck into my legs a few times, and I do not have compartment syndrome. Then I was sent to a neurologist (to make sure no stone is left unturned) and I do not have anything wrong with my nerves. It is now pretty much offical that my problem is vascular. I was supposed to meet with the vascular doctor tomorrow, but I got a call today and he wants to do a ’specialized’ test with a paticular radiologist. He wants this special test before he meets with me again to make any decisions on my leg situation. These medical tests are starting to get pretty exausting, and I will be very glad when they come to some sort of conclusion!
AND there is my finger… I have surgery on that on Thursday. So I will probably never be bending my right thumb again, but at least it won’t hurt every time I bump it or try to use it.
On a brighter note, I’ve been busy making cream cheese recipes for Paula Deen’s ‘Real women of Philadelphia’ cooking contest (http://www.realwomenofphiladelphia.com/). You can check out my cooking videos on Youtube

Since my last update I have been to the famous Mayo clinic for some extensive testing. The first day I went down there all the tests showed that my pulse was ‘obliterated’ when I contracted my calf muscle. Also, from my previous MRI the doctors could see an extra ’slip’ of muscle attachment behind my knee. So at the end of that long day it seemed like everyone was in agreement that my feet knumbness and calf pain was a vascular problem… So on day two at the mayo I met with the vascular surgeon, but he was not convinced that my problem was a vascular one. He wanted a more ‘in depth’ MRI to look at before making any more decisions. So 2 days later I was back at the Mayo for an MRI. Then I went home to wait untill the next week for the results of that MRI… which were inconclusive. I need to go back for more tests. So on the 26th I go back down to the mayo for some compartment pressure tests.
As for the thumb… I went back yesterday for another post-op, and my thumb joint is once again broken. The doctor said I pretty much have 3 options: leave it broken ( I don’t really think this is an option, because as it is now it hurts like a mother humper), try the joint repair surgery again (she thinks the chances of it working are pretty slim, because I had so much damage and it was out of joint for such a long time), or fuse the joint permanently. So I have surgery scheduled on the 29th to repair the joint if it looks like theres a pretty good chance of it taking, but if the cartilage looks too damaged for the repair I will have my thumb fused.
So the last couple of weeks have been a bit stressful, and I have some more craziness coming up… but I have been trying my best to hang onto my sanity by starting a garden (I started sprouting seeds in a ‘greenhouse’ which is an old doughnut display case), I have been brewing my own homemade kombucha, and I have been entering some recipes (with cooking videos) into Paula Deen’s cooking competition!

Last friday I had my cast type thing removed from my arm, and I saw my thumb for the first time in 19 days… I almonst passed out! It is pretty gruesome, but the doctor took x-rays and checked it out from the outside and likes the progress. So I had 10 stitches removed from the palm side of my thumb, but the ‘button’ and pin were left in. I will be going back on April 1st to get those fun little extras removed from me. My new splint is much smaller, and its nice to be able to use my right hand a little bit more these days.

I’ve been trying to stay sane this last week by taking Topper for walks down by the over-flowing Mississippi River. He and I have different opinions on the river… he wants to go for a swim and catch big floating sticks, and I don’t really feel like taking a swim in the dirty water. Needless to say, I don’t want to watch him float down to New Orleans, so I let him get his paws wet and thats about it.
I have also been making my own yogurt with my new yogurt maker, testing out no-kneading bread recipes (since I only have 1 hand, kneading is pretty tough), and last night I took a kombucha brewing class! The yogurt is absolutely delicious, and the bread is pretty darn tasty, and I can’t wait to start making the kombucha!

A week ago i had surgery to repair my broken thumb (from a rollerski crash in October). I was in surgery for over 2.5 hours and the doc cleaned it all up, got the cartilage back in the joint, lined it back up and put a pin in it. I spent all of last week either puking from the pain meds or enduring the agonizing pain in my thumb that felt like someone was sawing it off with a lemon-soaked butter knife.
But I am feeling better now, I am only taking IBproufen for the pain and my stomach can handle that! I’m also getting better at using my left hand (my right is now a club, wrapped from my hand to almost my elbow). I go in on the 19th to get the hand released from the club, and the pin taken out of my thumb. YAHOO!!!

Last week I had an MRI on my legs… 3 hours later I was un-hooked from the IV and sent home to wait for results. By the time the doctor called 48 hours later I was hoping for an answer to my leg problems. Well… I did get an answer. He said that when he went in to do the surgeries last year my muscle attachments have ‘retracted’ more than he expected. What it all boils down to is: he didn’t take enough off last year. He was concerned about taking off too much (which I’m thankful he didn’t do that!) but I am still having blood flow blocked to my lower legs when I ski… This can all be fixed with another round of the surgeries I had last year…
Since my legs aren’t going to be back in action for a bit, I decided it was time to fix my thumb that has been broken since my rollerskiing crash back in October. It has been taped up in a plastic splint to protect it for the last few months… but since the cartilage is gone, the joint is not lined up right, and theres a fracture even the plastic splint is having a hard time these days keeping the pain at bay. So surgery on the thumb is scheduled for Monday (March 1st).
There’s a line between being tough and being dumb, so its just time to start taking care of my body in all the places it needs healing.
Now that I’ve been at home for a while, I’ve had a chance to do some fun things… The other night I took a sushi making class, and it was great! I can now make some awesome spicy tuna rolls! I’ve also been taking my mom’s dog (Topper) to the dog park pretty regularly, becasuse there is just something about watching a dog joyfully tearing through the snow that just makes you happy. (It also makes Topper happy, and it wears him out so he doesn’t tear apart the house).

here is the last few weeks in a nutshell. My legs have been giving me problems again. I am in pain while I ski, and now even when I am at rest my legs bother me. I’ve been to a handfull of different appointments last week to try and figure out what is going on (and I still have a few more coming up this week). All the doctors and medical professionals agree that something is most definately wrong with the circulation in my legs… And they have some theories as to why. More than one person thinks its because my hips are too tight and out of whack, which is pinching off the blood vessles supplying blood to my legs.
For now I’m working on getting those hips back to where they should be, and I’m doing my best to stay positive. This is incredibly frusterating for me, and its not always easy to stay positive…
:^)

sorry about the lack of updates lately… my computer decided it was time to die and it now needs a new hard drive. So I have been computer-less for the last several days. And it looks like I will be for a little while longer also.
Anyways, last weekend the super tour races were in Minneapolis, and I got to do some races right on my home turf! And it as it turned out the turf got pretty wet over the weekend!
Saturday’s race was a 5km skate race… and with the slick conditions my lower legs were giving me problems. They have been starting to bother me lately, and the squirrely and unstable snow just made it much worse. I felt good for the first 2 kilometers, but the last 3 were killing my legs and it made it impossible to use them powerfully.
The next morning was the 10 kilometer mass start classic. My legs were pretty sore and worked from the day before, but classic skiing is quite a bit easier on my legs. It was warm, and the course was a combination of ice, water, and mud… and the mass start was CRAZY. I managed to scoot around the outside of the madness and settle into the lead pack of Rebecca Dussalt and Maria Stuber for the first lap… but my legs were searing with pain (they were still angry at me from the day before, and even classic skiing in such unstable conditions were causing some problems). So the next lap I tried to stretch my legs as best I could on every downhill (not the fastest tuck ever, but it seemed to help to get some stretching in). I didn’t give up. I just kept pushing, and ended up taking 6th place.

A big thank you goes out to Bryan Fish and the CXC team for helping me wax my skis!!!!

Up next: Super Tour races in Telemark, Wisconsin this weekend!!! (I will be racing the 5km classic race on Saturday%2