Life After Surgery

Look at these massive sweet potatoes.

Those are really nice, Jonah. Yeah, you dug them out of the ground. Yeah, there's a lot more where those came from.

I think so.

There's a lot of moles. There's a lot of moles. See, which has got this one. You're taking on the, the sides, determined what we're gonna eat as our sides for dinner with our chicken.

What it is and not is.

Yeah, so what did you decide? But we're gonna try these sweet potatoes and see if they taste good.

Green beans and, um, green beans and fried green tomatoes.

Fried green tomatoes. Since, uh, Justin has been out, I have been heavily— let's see, I got that— or I've been heavily involved. We'll get some of those from the grocery store that I bought. So I have been heavily involved in Justin's caretaking, and we will get to that about how he's doing and all of that. So Jonah stepped up. He said, what are we gonna have for dinner? I said, I've got a chicken laid out. And then I said, whatever sides you want is what we'll do. So he said, well, this is what I want. And I said, okay, do you know where to get it from? And he said, yeah, the garden. So he went and harvested and got a whole bunch.

These are nice to peel.

Yeah, they are, aren't they? They look really nice. One year we grew some amazing potatoes, so I'm hoping that We have another amazing creepy kid in here. Hey, how are you doing? Did you not get an ice pack?

Oh gosh, I guess I forgot. Here, can you have one of the kids bring—

Yeah, hold on a second.

Yeah, well, Becca was hoping to be up and at 'em by now. I know, hoping to make supper. You say I am?

You were hoping that He really sucked it to me this time. This wasn't gonna be as intense.

This has been a game changer.

Yeah.

The headband holding the ice on. What do you want? Just scoot over, get you in frame?

Scoot over so I can get in frame. How did this happen? Did this fall down? Teddy! Friday. I'll tell the story, you don't have to talk. Only if you need to. Friday, um, we went in and had— that was your scheduled surgery day, and there was a chance that the implant posts could be installed. This is your third surgery that you've had this year. We started this process last November. We visited the oral surgeon, and then their first surgery date that they had open was in January, so we did that.

Cold from the polar plunge, or do you think I'm cold from that?

That is how— it's a lot of body It's a lot of work on your body. For those of you that don't know, um, he had a root canal done, and I believe it was like 2011. Anyways, it was done wrong and it had to be pulled, and that is where we believe the Lyme disease started for you because you were healthy and fine, and then a little over a year after after that, and when we dis— before we discovered that the root canal was actually—

'Cause my immune system was compromised, it couldn't hold back the line.

Yeah. That tooth then infected the tooth behind it that infected the tooth behind it. Is what one dentist believes happened. And so those teeth subsequently, so the 3 teeth on the bottom left had to be removed. How are you feeling?

I'm feeling okay. Yeah, feeling pretty rough around here.

And because they were abscessed and because of his history with root canals, our biological dentist obviously did not want to do another root canal. Um, so that was like 2014, 2016, 2017 when we were on the tour. And so, um— Sorry, I'm making this hard for you to edit. Hold on.

The great American farm tour.

So, we did not have the funds to put implants in when teeth started having to be pulled. And if you know anything about—

We didn't want the intrusion either.

Yeah. And if you don't—

We tried partials.

Um, we did try partials. And if you, if you don't have a tooth in there, then you lose the bone. And so he had a lot of bone loss. And so that's why we went to the oral surgeon. Our first appointment with him, we asked him, is this even possible? Like, is this even something that is even doable, or is this just a lost cause? And he's like, no, there's definitely— you are not the worst case I've ever seen, which we were like, yes! And so then that started the process of not only did we have to heighten, but we also had to widen the jawbone to be able to accept the implants and for everything to work properly. So you had the first one done in January, had a minor, very minor one done in June. You seem to be in much better spirits.

She's a professional talker.

You're funny. Stop it.

That's what I do for a living, Beck.

I was hoping that that was going to be all you needed, but then we went in on Friday, the oral surgeon sat down with us and said, look, I hope I can place the implants today, but there's a good chance that I might not be able to. We've also chosen to use ceramic implant posts due to research that we have done instead of titanium. So that was another reason why we had to— the, the jawbone has to be a certain width and height for ceramic posts to work. And so we knew going in that this might not be a post surgery and we might actually have to do, um, this, what he had done. So they put something called BMP in, in there, and they are holding it in with a titanium mesh with screws. And the titanium mesh is temporary. It's basically just a structure to hold everything in. And it took a really— the surgery was over, like, he— so when I left, he went with the oral surgeon, and that was like 1:30, and they didn't call me till almost 3 o'clock. To come and get him. I went in and got him, and the oral surgeon came and talked to me about everything and showed me what he did. And wow, I mean, they really put a lot of height and width on his jaw. So we're hopeful that this is going to be a, a solution to the problem. We now, we go back in 10 days-ish, and they'll do another x-ray, and we'll kind of get to see what's happening. In there, and then 3-4 months wait time, hopefully we'll be able to put the posts in. So that's where we're at. But it was a really, really, really difficult surgery, and the surgeon was like, I had to really get in there. He told us, he said it was— he really had to do a lot, and that we were going to have double the swelling. I believe it's because of the product that they use. The BMP causes that, um, and we have seen immense swelling. She has major soreness like going down his neck. Yesterday he had a little bit of a fever, which is normal. I know I was like freaking out, but the little pamphlet that they give you, it talks about that. But it's still scary, um, to go through it and but he's totally fine today. He's, he's been feeling much better. So what were you doing outside?

I could smell the brooder from up here. Oh boy, this can't stop.

You went and checked on it. So as you can see, look at me. Oh, hold on, it's really bad lighting.

All right, as you can see, started doing snuff.

He's got quite the swelling over here. What was wrong with the brooder?

It needed some shavings. I could smell the ammonia from here. The food was in good order. And the water, I refilled, but it was there.

You went out on the porch just to sit with the kids, get some fresh air.

And when you live on a farm, you can't rest on your farm. You have to hide somewhere so you don't see it all. Smell it all.

We've been going outside, sitting in the sun, drinking lots of water. He's drinking— he's eating yogurt and broth. And kind of like mushy scrambled eggs. That's about it, really. Drinking milk with pain medicines. The first night was horrible. The pain— the pain medicine just didn't touch it. The pain, it just didn't touch it. But by the second pain medicine time, it took it away enough where you could actually sleep. That first night was really rough. He, he barely slept. Um, that first night he maybe only slept 3 or 4 hours, and I was in and out of sleep. Like, I would sleep a little bit, but anytime he would move, I would wake up. And, and then last night, um, I was just checking on him constantly and making sure that he's like, you know, do you need pain medicine? What do you need? Just, um, making sure that he needs everything. So it's been way more brutal this time than it was the last two times, um, and we're super thankful Benj was here. I mean, I'm— so much of my attention has been to him and just making sure that everything's okay. You feeling— you feeling okay? Okay, he's back there resting. Roasting. Jonah has— he, um, battered— is that the word?— the fried green tomatoes. Uh, what else do we need to do? The green beans. Oh, I need to wash the— oh, that's, that's not good. Okay, and the lighting's horrible. Um, okay, so we're going to— I'm gonna wash all of the baked potatoes and get them in there, but I need to get them in the oven. Whoops, I should have done that before. Oh, you did wash them? Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Jonah. But they're starting to dry up. Okay, well, it's okay, they can be dry. I just— I'm gonna, um, we've got the sweet potatoes cooked, I've got the green beans going back here. I did get out some frozen broccoli because I like that in my, um, baked potatoes. Baked potatoes are still cooking, chicken is still cooking, and I'm doing the fried green tomatoes. So we are going to be eating soon, and then, um, I was thinking I would take the camera up to my mom's house and we can get an update on her, and you guys can see her intense knee Incisions.

So now practice cooking. I'm heating up oil for no reason.

Okay, so Justin, in all his extra time, has been, um, YouTubing about the carnivore diet, and apparently YouTube has opened up a whole new world. So he actually blended— so we ate— I cooked a roasted chicken today.

I guess tortilla.

He blended like chicken and eggs, cooked chicken. Blandon cooked chicken with milk, eggs, chicken, eggs, and salt, and he made those tortillas. Like, look at this.

That's a game changer.

Pretty good. I don't like this so much salt.

It was a little too salty.

It is a little salty.

What do you think, Gideon? You like it? Okay, so we got the whole crew. Even Benjamin's coming.

To go visit Grandma.

Justin stayed home. He's not up to— he's not up to visiting yet. Hey Grandma! Hello! How are you feeling? All the kids— we brought all the kids and Benj and food.

Oh, Benj is still here!

He's still here.

I thought you were taking off.

A blessing. I'm doing better than I thought I would. I didn't know what to anticipate. Of course, the first day's rough. Yeah, but with drugs at the hospital, everybody was great.

Yeah, so yeah, okay, so hold on. So it may be shocking to some people to see this, so I'm gonna show her legs where she had the surgery.

I, I asked the doctor, and since we don't have any pets in the house, they said it was okay if we left it open. Open during the day when I'm sitting in the chair.

They look really good, Mom. It's a lot better.

So I took a shower today and I can walk and bend my knee and even got out of the bed by myself.

Wow.

So huge improvement from yesterday.

Yes, yes. Every day it's just amazing. But there's like 25 in one and 20 in the other, and, uh, those will come out September 2nd and I'm just very excited.

Yeah.

So I have a—

You'll get to walk without pain.

Yes.

And I have a wrap that goes around here and then I just pull my pants down over it and then I ice it with the wrap on it if I want to.

Okay.