The Iceman rocks!

I just have say that this "Iceman" thing is a lifesaver. My dad had one from his shoulder surgery last year and when we visited them a couple weeks ago, he offered to send it down here for me to use after my surgery. My doctor had prescribed one, but apparently insurance does not cover them, which is a shame because these things probably have the potential to shave weeks off of your recovery time by helping to get swelling under control. I think I've only had a few hours since my surgery where I have not had mine continually running and even in the few minutes when I have it disconnected, I notice an immediate improvement when I plug it back in.

Today was another improvement over the day before; I was probably at 4's and 5's for most of the day pain-wise and I was able to get all my exercises done with minimal pain. I was even able to start putting a little bit of weight on my knee while walking (putting most of my weight on my crutches, of course), but my doctor told me to start trying to return to normal motion as soon as possible, even if it was not normal weight-bearing.

We played a lot of board games as a family today, though Chase doesn't really have the patience to sit through an entire board game, so he usually floats in and out, forcing us to maintain his place in the game for when he decides to stop by and roll the dice once and a while. Last week, we introduced the kids to Monopoly, but it was a little too advanced for Chase, so we picked up Monopoly Junior to see if it was more his speed. The game was quite a bit simpler (and therefore less entertaining for adults), but Anne and I made the mistake of implementing a few of the "unofficial" rules from Monopoly in the Junior version, such as putting a nice big pile of cash in the middle of the board for when someone lands on "Free Parking" or doubling the salary received when someone lands directly on Go. In the Junior version, these only serve to make the game interminably long because no one EVER runs out of money once there is enough of it circulating throughout the game.

Isabelle is becoming a pretty good reader. She has been working towards earning a Barbie CD-ROM game that she's been begging for for about a year and a half. We finally decided last fall that if she wanted it that bad, we could use that to all of our advantage, so we made up a chart for her and told her that when she had filled it with books that she had read to us, she could have the game. Each time she finishes a book, she cuts out a little piece of paper in the shape of a book, writes the title on the "cover" and the date on the inside, and tapes it to the chart. I think there are probably close to fifty spaces on the chart, and she's down to the last seven or eight spots, so maybe in the next week or so, she'll finish it. Now if we can only figure out a way to replace Dragontales with Dumas...