Hello world. Are you there? It's me, Fricki.
Oh do I have a lot to catch you up on. Just so you are not worried, I am not up past my bedtime nursing poor choices and alcohol.. I will explain in just a bit why I am still up.
A few weeks ago, I celebrated Thanksgiving with the cast and crew. This was my first holiday *actually* away from my family, which was very weird. It was not a day/event that I was actually looking forward to. Ever since I was a wee little one (well, since I was born) I have spent every major holiday/birthday with my family, so to spend one away from them was a big deal for me. Luckily, the producers of the show (even though they are British) decided to throw us a US Thanksgiving dinner. This was a really touching gesture on their part, and was a great way to get the majority of our cast/crew together. The party was at the Hotel Hanford, and they actually were not planning on having a dinner until we made our plans, and to that, I am very thankful! The spread of food was actually really nice and included every Thanksgiving staple. After dinner, my table started up a game of Charades, which then (obviously) the rest of the room copied and started to join in. Being my usual self, I always guessed "The Lion King" or "Back to the Future" because those are always winners. The rest of dinner went very well, and we finally meandered back to the housing and went to bed to get ready for shows the next day. I did manage to sneak in a call to my family, which of course, I timed to occur after everyone in Seattle had imbibed a small bit, and broken up into their secondary dinners (My family can be a little skitzo). It was different to be on the end of the phone on a family day.
The show itself has been going very uneventful. I still was doing quite a bit of climbing and lamp swapping in the top of the tent, which always keeps my job interesting and fun. As you read in my last post, I hurt myself on Halloween jumping into the Wendy house... unfortunately, my knee had been bothering me all monday and towards the end of November, I injured my knee again (Mind you - I was waiting for approval from the insurance company for an MRI to see what I had hurt in my knee) tightening the harness on John before the flight to neverland (I was kneeling on the stage, and I went to lean forward and twist to cinch down the harness, something in my knee popped, and next thing I knew I was rolling on the stage in tears from the pain). That was not very fun, and the company sent me to the ER the next day (I was too stubborn to go that night.. much for the same reasons why even if I hurt myself, I would continue to work for the remainder of the show) and finally I was able to get an MRI. After spending all afternoon in the ER, my doctor came in and told me that I had a torn ACL! That was definitely a step up from the original diagnosis of a torn meniscus. At that point, I was pulled off work for the night for some additional recovery time, and I was ordered to get a brace to continue work.
This is one of those points where my path could have gone two different ways - one where I have to cab everywhere to get stuff done and get frustrated, or the one where it seems everyone turns around and tries to help. Luckily, my story is the latter. Kathleen, who is our kick-ass office/company assistant (Not sure on her exact title, but she is awesome and also hands out paychecks... so high on my list of cool people, plus she has wicked good style), offered to take me to the doctor to get fitted for my brace. So the next morning we went to the doctor and I received my Forest Gump leg brace. The brace was designed to make it very difficult to twist my knee and to prevent full/hyper extension. I was permitted at this point to return to work as long as I was wearing the brace.. so I went to work that night (Wednesday...the show runs tues-sundays) wearing the brace and on a modified track (A track is essentially my cue sheet for the show - a list of what I do when).
For the next week, I was actually quite successful at getting through work. Obviously, I was pulled off all climbing, but it would be hard to ascend a wire ladder with a giant brace attached to my left leg. A week after getting the brace, we were heading into another week of shows. On the first show of the week, I was running substage to one of my cues, and as I rounded a corner, both myself and another actor heard something in my leg 'pop' and I screamed out in pain. I managed to hurl myself all the way substage to continue the show, mind you I had tears slowly coming out as I walked on my knee and it was in intense pain. This was about 10 minutes before the end of the show. As I kept going on with my cues, I had almost everyone stop me to see if I was doing ok, which I honestly told all of them no, I wasn't ok, but that I would make it through the end of the show. This was mainly because the end of our show is very complicated, and I knew that if I stood out at the point, it would really make everyone else's life difficult and hectic, and I knew I could make it through another few minutes. After the show, I made it backstage, leaned against one of the kingpoles, and finally broke down crying. The pain at the point was almost unbearable, and I knew that I was fucked.
The next day, I was scheduled for an appointment with Dr Marans, my orthopedic surgeon, and Mariners PT, for physical therapy. At that appointment, Dr Marans pulled me off work completely and asked for approval for surgery. Getting told that you have no options except surgery is very... annoying. I am someone who is always active, running around, climbing, and in general acting like a young guy. I knew at this point that my knee was in really bad shape, and could only just mentally prepare for the long road ahead of ACL replacement surgery. My recovery time was pegged at 2-6 months.
At that point, I started coordinated my surgery/recovery. The following week I already had a trip to Seattle planned, so I was able to schedule my surgery for 2 weeks after the date of the last injury (and less than a week before christmas!). My mom surprised me by flying down to be with me during the surgery (which was a huge help) and she coordinated the first couple days of my recovery, and offered her house for the majority of my rehab (in Seattle... so she could ensure that I was not messing around on my knee and making anything worse). Our original plan was to get cut up on monday, then fly out late thursday night to Seattle so I could spend Christmas with the family in Seattle. Unfortunately, the Dr recommending on monday morning that I wait at least a week to fly, so my mom changed the flights (which ended up being a good thing, since my knee was even more damaged than originally thought) for me to fly back on monday, but still left her leaving on thursday...once again, I was destined to spend another holiday without my family! Luckily, one of my best friends, Jason, heard wind of me spending the thursday-monday in a hotel, alone, with a bottle of vicodin, over christmas, and swooped in to my rescue. He and his husband changed their plans so they could pick me up in Costa Mesa, and brought me along to their family Christmas. So I finally had a plan - get cut up on monday, recover with my mom at her friend Lisa's house (which was perfect - they were a soccer family so they knew all about ACL injuries), then crash at a hotel for a night while waiting for Jason, then transferring to his family for Christmas, do all my follow up appointments with doctors a week after surgery, then finally return home.
Next up, I had my surgery!
After my surgery, my doctor came in to tell me exactly what was wrong with my knee. Assuming I remember correctly (morphine distorts memory ability), I had a completely torn ACL, a partial tear in the PCL, and a couple meniscal tears. To put it bluntly, my knee was fucked. So the doctor replaced my ACL, trimmed up the tear on the PCL, and shaved down the meniscus. Waking up from the surgery was one of the most painful moments in my life (Rightly so - they had drilled through a bone in my leg and a bone in my thigh, plus roto-rootered the inside of my knee) as I came out of anesthesia screaming, but was not allowed to go on morphine until they were sure that I was cleared off the anesthesia. Luckily, that only lasted about 30 minutes, and I was finally given a generous dose of morphine, but still... waking up screaming in pain is not something I wish upon anyone. The decision was made then to keep me overnight at the hospital, since the surgery was a tad more excessive that we had planned, and the amount of pain I was in.
That night I spent in the hospital, kept company by a random guy who lost his appendix (well, it was actually taken out) at 2 or 3am. Monday night was where I started my new habbit - waking up between 4 and 5 when my painkillers wear out, only to take a couple more and lay in bed, awake, until they kick in. Surprisingly enough, this is not my favorite game (And gives you a good reason as to why I am up right now!). The first couple days of recovery went very well at Lisa's house. Lisa is the rallymaster for the Iron Butt Rally (my mom/step dad rode in it the last couple times) and she also had a daughter in soccer, so this was not her first time around the ACL rodeo. Lisa and my mom did an amazing job of making me feel comfortable and well fed. After a couple days with Lisa, I returned to Costa Mesa for a night before Jason picked me up to take me to christmas. I was invited to a christmas in San Diego, but I had to back out of that one after trying to go for a car ride, and realizing that nothing is easy when you have knee surgery, and car rides in particular are incredibly painful.
I was able to spend christmas eve/day with Jason, his husband, Jason's mom, and her sister. This was actually quite a lovely way to spend the holidays. Over christmas day, I skyped with my family in snoqualmie while my Step Dad opened his gift, then facetime'd with Adam/Todd who where visiting family in Charlotte (or some other random city), and Brandon (who just got an iPhone 4). After christmas dinner (and some fresh baked cinnamon rolls), Jason, his hubby, and I, returned to the hotel for some super awesome physical therapy. One thing I didn't mention before - I get to spend 6 hours a day strapped into a continuous motion machine (that cycles my knee from extension/bend over and over in a slow, controlled manner), and the majority of the day attached to a cold therapy machine (That is a pad strapped to my knee that cycles freezing water through it... like an ice pack on steroids).
So that brings me to here... awake at 6am, stuck to a machine that is plugged into the wall, waiting for my vicodin to kick in.
On that note, things are getting fuzzy. I am going to go try to catch another hour of sleep. Have a good one!
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