Graduation Day

Well today was a wonderful day! I had a doctor's appointment today with the knee surgeon. I went to the appointment with my lovely brace on. This contraption has been my constant companion for weeks now. Dr. Parry originally told me that I would be wearing this stabilizer for 6 weeks. After two weeks of miserable sleeping with my lovely friend, I begged the doctor to allow me to take it off to sleep. I was surprised, but he said I could take it off at night. I immediately thought the following night would be wonderful, but much to my dismay sleeping was still very uncomfortable, however much better than with it on. It took a few nights being careful and taking pain meds, but sleeping has gradually gotten better. This Friday would be 5 weeks so I actually got out of this a week early. Hurray!
When I got to the office they x-rayed me to see how it was healing. He was pleased with the progress of the bones healing but saw that I needed practice walking better so he said I could graduate out of the brace. He didn't need to beg me that's for sure. I gladly put it away. This is a side shot of my knee but the front view shows how nice and centered my knee cap is now.
I told the doctor that I had to blog this so I wanted a picture of him for my blog. He said, "Well I think since this is about the knee I should take a picture of your leg", so he grabbed my camera and took some shots of me. I'm very pleased how nicely the scar looks. For me, this is a very nice looking scar.

















And here's the hero of the day, Dr. Todd Parry! Thanks doc, you did a great job!

Part 2 of The Long Awaited Day

From left to right, Gaynell Larsen Lippman, Connie McDuffy, Linda Worthen Lofgren. Linda came from Idaho. Thank you Linda.
Jennifer Nelson Barnhurst and Coleen Thistle Page, our host.
Jacque Stubler, Debbie's younger sister who was a twin, and Debbie Stubler Oldson. I don't know but I think Debbie, Jacque and Shiela might be triplets except that Jacque and Shiela are 12 years younger.


Last but not least, Joan Woodbury Leavitt and myself, Becky Terry Bartle. We started at 10:00 this morning and the last of us left at 6:45. Thank you Coleen for offering your beautiful home so we could visit and catch up on old times. And thank you my dear friends for coming to make this a very special day for me.

July 25th, 2009, The Long Awaited Day

Several months ago one of my childhood friends, Coleen Thistle's father passed away. I didn't hear about it until after the funeral. When I heard I called Coleen right away. As we were talking we recalled that I had arranged for our Laurel class when we were 16 and 17 years old to get together for a reunion. I did arrange it but it has been 17 years since we've been together. Ever since that time they have been bugging me to get another reunion organized. Well summer after summer I had so many things going on that I didn't but as I was talking to Coleen we decided to try and make it happen again. Coleen asked me to find as many as I could and give her the information. She called everyone and got it organized. Since we are all so busy and we wanted everyone to be able to attend, we had to wait for months until we could find a date that would work for all of us. Well today was the day. All but three of us live in Las Vegas, but the ones of us who didn't wanted to make the trip. Linda came as far as Idaho, Debbie came from Draper and of course myself from Logandale. That isn't much of a trip but it still took planning to make it all work out. We met at Coleen's house in Vegas. She was nice enough to offer her home. We met at 10:00 this morning and had the nicest visit. It is always great to have so many friends, but the old friends are especially nice because we all have the same memories of growing up in Las Vegas. We were sad that our wonderful Laurel teacher, Marva Davis, couldn't come but she was out of town. We all brought pictures of our children and grandchildren and just sat and told everyone about of lives and what has happened since we were young girls. We laughed, cried, and shared many special moments today. We ate a delicious lunch brought by all, and then shared some more.

Here are some group pictures of our laurel class and then we added Gaynell Larsen Lippman who was with us until she was 12 and then moved away and also Connie McDuffy who knew most of us from living in the 2nd ward as a young married girl.












I took individual pictures of each one so we could see up close. This is Claudia Windsor Walthers. As you remember, I can only have 4 pictures per blog so this is part 1. To be continued.

My Week in Provo

On July 20th through the 23rd, I rode to Provo again with Duane to spend yet another week there. Why not when it is much cooler, I have the time and I get to be with my wonderful husband and daughter. It seems I don't need anymore reasons to go than that. The temperature never has gone above 100 this year until the day I left to come home. It hit 101 and everyone was complaining how hot it was. I still thought it seemed very cool. You don't know what hot is until you come to good old southern Nevada. Now that's hot! Anyway, on Monday Duane and I took Louise Doty with us in the car and drove to Provo. That evening we decided to see Harry Potter 6. We enjoyed it and thought it was good to get out and enjoy the evening. The next morning I got up early and decided to do a session at the Provo Temple. It is such a beautiful temple and the grounds are always so well kept.
The rest of the day I did a few errands and cleaned house. I also did a lot of reading about the temple since last Sunday I received a new calling to be the temple ready coordinator. It will be a wonderful calling and one I will enjoy, but I also feel a lot of responsibility with this calling. The bishop gave me a pretty open agenda and basically told me I was to make up the curriculum. The first class starts tomorrow, July 26th, 2009.

I have certainly gained a testimony of temple work the last few years and I love going to the temple and doing this work for others who have not had the same chance as I have. There is such a feeling of peace that I don't want to leave. I only hope that I can help others to have the same or similar feelings and love for the temple as I have.









On Wednesday I went to Springville to visit some old friends of ours. Guido and Joann Buffo have been our friends since around 1974 when we lived in Provo and Duane was going to school. We would go to the Buffo's nearly every Sunday night and visit. They kind of adopted us and took us into their family. We love the Buffos! It was so good to see them again.

Thanksgiving Anyone?

How far away is Thanksgiving? Well yesterday, we looked out our kitchen window to 13 turkeys on our front lawn. Duane grabbed the camera and took these shots. I've seen them roaming around several times in our yard but it still surprises us when we see live turkeys in our front yard. I guess that's called living in the country, right?

Time for Family

The day I came out of the hospital I went to my mom's. Even though I didn't look my best, we received a welcome visit from my Aunt Hazel and her two daughters Marie Alane and Peggy and Peggy's husband, Claude. Also my cousin Leona came to visit. They were visiting St. George because my Aunt Hazel's brother had a birthday party and they came to help him celebrate. Claude, Peggy and Aunt Hazel live in Mesa, Arizona and Marie Alane lives in Sandy, Utah. Leona lives in St. George. Marie Alane, Peggy, their brother John who isn't in the picture, and myself used to play together a lot when we were kids. We all lived in Las Vegas and spent a lot of time together growing up. I don't get to visit them often and so it was a fun surprise to see them again. I only wished that I could have looked better and not like I just had surgery.
This is my Aunt Delma from Covina, California. She came up and spent a week at my mom's. She is my mom's sister. She has 4 sons who are around my age. I also got to spend a lot of time with them growing up either at their house or ours. I have so many fun memories playing with my Johnson cousins and visiting with Aunt Delma. Thanks to Aunt Delma for being one of my nurses. It was great that she came when I was going to be at mom's so we could get in lots of visiting.

A Leg Straightening Adventure

I'm sure that most of you are not even aware that I have had crooked legs all my life. I've always been a little embarrassed about how my knee cap didn't line up with my upper leg (femur). I never really thought that years down the road it would start to be a problem but that time finally arrived. Years ago a physical therapist told me that because my femur and tibia didn't line up that it would eventually give me bunions but I thought he was crazy. Lo and behold last summer I had to have bunion surgery. I certainly didn't think last summer that I would continue on this summer with the next repercussion of crooked knees. Early spring, I was having swelling and pain in my knees so I consulted a doctor about the problem. He informed me that because my knee cap rode off to the side about 3/4" I would need a knee replacement because I had completely worn out the part of my knee that had been rubbing in the wrong place for 57 years. I certainly didn't like the sounds of that. I decided to try another doctor and he told me that I indeed had worn out that part of my knee but he said there might be an alternative surgery I could try. He said it would only work if I had no arthritis in the rest of my knee but we wouldn't know how the rest of my knee looked until they got in there. So on June 26th, I had my surgery. I was praying that I could get the realignment instead of a whole new knee. When I woke up I was told that indeed the one part of my knee was bone on bone and totally shot but because all the wear had gone to one spot the rest of my knee looked like a 30 year old woman's knee. So I got my wish. If all goes well, I shouldn't have to have a new knee until I'm an old woman or never. Here is a picture of Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George, Utah. It is a very nice hospital with very nice doctors and nurses.
The nurses took very good care of me. As you can see my leg is in a stabilizer for probably about 6 weeks. It is on there because they had to cut my bone and move the tibia over in line with the femur. Now I believe my knee cap is lined up nicely. I say believe because I can't really see my knee cap for the swelling, but it does seem straighter and my foot is straight when I'm relaxed.
As you can see, I had a great cheering squad. Duane was there too, but just taking the picture. I've had very good care starting with the nurses in the hospital to my mom, Aunt Delma, Heidi and Duane. They've all taken their turn. I feel very lazy and pampered. Thanks to everyone!


Here I am taking my first steps on a newly straightened leg. I'll start physical therapy next week to get mobility back. Boy I can't believe how I can't bend and move my leg. It's amazing how fast you lose the ability when you aren't using your leg. Once the bone heals then I'll be able to start the strenghtening part of physical therapy. The only sad part is that I have two legs and this same scenario will probably happen again next summer. Oh well, at least my legs will be straighter.