Attending 2 months of physical therapy was a blessing in disguise. It allowed us to plan ahead for when Andrew would have to manage caretaking for me, wrangling all 4 pets, and household management during February when I would be hobbling around on crutches. The first thing we did was stock our freezer to the gills with food, so that he didn’t have to cook something from scratch for every meal. We started by freezing part of our homemade Macaroni and Cheese from New Year’s. We slowly added 3 Cheese Manicotti, West African Peanut Stew, Chicken and Rice, and American Style Goulash. When we made a new recipe, we would eat some and try to save half. Andrew scoured the frozen section of the grocery store and supplemented our stores with: vegetables, fruit, shrimp, chicken nuggets, crab sticks, falafel, pitas, and bread rolls. By the time my surgery date arrived, we had run out of freezer space.

I purchased crutches a month in advance at the pharmacy. I had underarm crutches in Oregon from an ankle surgery in 2007, but they were super old and didn’t make the international trip with us in 2022. My new crutches are Canadian forearm crutches, and I had never used them before. The first order of business was a slew of YouTube crutch tutorials. I watched quite a few on basic walking with one and two crutches, and how to climb and descend stairs. One of the most important things I learned was how to mimic a normal heel to toe walking motion on the injured leg without weight bearing and I practiced this a lot. I was pretty nervous about using crutches on the stairs, but I forced myself to do it in advance.

Tip: the most important thing when climbing stairs with crutches is to lead with your strong leg, and when descending stairs to lead with the crutches and weak leg. It is also helpful to have a spotter if at all possible, especially at the beginning.

We spent a lot of time at home in December and January, I think it was our way of mentally preparing ourselves to be homebodies in the near future. I would have plenty of hours to fill after ACL reconstruction so for the first time in 4 years, I busted out my nearly forgotten video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH). I started my game in March 2020, but hadn’t played since December 2020. My first few play sessions were dedicated to relearning what the heck I was doing. My animal villagers were very surprised to see me again. Since I quickly fell back into playing daily, Andrew gifted me with an expansion, Happy Home Paradise, which focuses on vacation home interior design. Returning to a once loved game was an awesome way to zone out and forget about my mounting surgery stress.

Days before my stint in the hospital, we set up a recovery area in the cinema room. We have a small pullout, and Andrew rearranged the room so I would be able to navigate on crutches. The room is located right across from the lower bathroom which would make life easy for me. I knew that I probably wouldn’t be accessing the second level of our house for at least a month. The stairs are steep and I didn’t want to risk extra flights on crutches. When January 31st arrived, we felt as ready as we could be.