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Grands are over for week three...thank god they are pretty self sufficient! The big one cooked hot dogs and box Mac and cheese for their lunch at gym camp today. First time working with boiling stuff and stove...she was pretty proud of herself. The little one had grandpa running around after her holding her up on her mothers old first two wheeler as she wobbled around the circle in front of the house....she wants to do it again tonight but I think gpa got tired and is going to find a smooth grassy hill to push her down.LOL tigger caught his first mouse and thankfully didn't sneak it in the house...he played for hours on the front porch with it. Lots of firsts at our house yesterday.
I am in week seven and feel as if I am going backwards...more pain, more tired, using the cane more...was pretty discouraged last night. Then I looked at my pedometer and realized I had walked over 6000 steps just doing "stuff"
around the house and running errands so I guess I am not doing too badly. Like most of us at this stage I am impatient to be fully healed even though I know that is an absurd desire....oh well. School starts up in five days and I have to pace myself. The first four days are packed with meetings from 8 to 3 with a short lunch break. Even that will be pushing things. The next week we start back full time for a full week. Unfortunately the system is making me write a 504 plan...another layer of tension till I have it done and have the principals agreement on any restrictions I have for the start up of school. Ah well, this too shall pass.
 
Tomorrow is the nine week mark for my hip and today school starts for teachers. I have to meet with the principal and the EOS lady to write a 504 plan to allow me to be accommodated in the work place...since I am not up to full speed we have to agree on how to allow for my disabilities. I am nervous about the meeting.
Gluten free zucchini bread in oven for the morning pot luck...we work in our rooms today. Mine is close to ready thanks to a dear friend who spent hours hanging pictures with a ladder...a task that was well beyond my ability.
Wish me luck...gotta scoot and get ready.
 
Home from first day of school. 504 meeting went well. Have a couple of concessions in place for the first half of the year so that is good. My energy and attention sure do flag as the day goes on...hope that gets better relatively quickly. LOL tired tonight and I didn't even do much! Ah yes, transitions...such joyous beasts.
 
Teacher training week is proving to be both difficult and painful for me. In spite of getting up frequently and walking around in the back of the meetings and using a cushion on the miserable chairs in the library I am flat out in pain tonight. My nine month old knee is positively screaming at me this evening. I am heading for the big guns...percoset time. In bed with ice on my knee and my legs up on pillows to see if I can get the swelling down. My legs look like tree trunks again. They haven't been like this in over a month. Glad tomorrow is Friday and then I have a couple of days of rest. Back to work is tough.
 
Aw, scienceteacher, this is the time of year I am so thankful to be retired. Hope a weekend of good rest gets you ready for the daily grind again. This is sounding pretty rugged. Hope this works out.

Sharon
 
nmscienceteacher I am sorry to hear u r in so much pain and that the swelling is back. Like u say the weekend is coming and you can rest. I don't know many people who realize all the prep work you do not to mention all the extra hours put in during the year. Teaching is hard work at the best of times. Rest when you can and keep us posted.
 
nmscienceteacher, I am following your return to school and will be very interested in knowing how things go when the kids return. I'm taking off the first two weeks -- the teacher pre-school week, and then the first week for kids. If I go back at that point, it will be about 7 weeks post-surgery. I'm hoping I can do that, but I did receive the "Sick Leave Bank" days to take me beyond that point if needed. I feel good right now, but still can't walk the distances I'll need to in order to navigate the campus, and I'm concerned about my overall energy and stamina with the demands of school.
 
Made it to Friday...just barely. Endless meetings have proven to be quite difficult. My legs are swollen and sore tonight. My newish knee has actually been more problematic...it hurts every step right now. The hip is just a bit achy. I had to dash cross town today after school to get a written prescription for some more percoset. I still need it at night. I went to my normal pharmacy only to be told that they were being limited by the DEA and they wouldn't be able to order more until the middle of next week and they wouldn't get it in until the following week. I have four left right now so that wasn't going to work for me. Couldn't cope so I went home and burst into tears...my poor husband! The pharmacy called me back and sent me to another branch...so I got my meds. It was about the last straw at the end of a very long and difficult day. Now I have the weekend to rest, one more day of professional development and four days of teaching. I have to admit this is slightly tougher than I anticipated at nine weeks. I will have to be careful to not overdo it next week. Off to bed...done in.
 
nmscienceteacher, I am SOOO sorry that you are having such a difficult time returning to work. Glad you were able to get your percoset. What kinds of accommodations is the school making for you via your 504 plan? Hope next week is better for you. Keep me posted.
 
504 accomodations...duty near my room surrounded by my walker with my back against the wall...as you know middle school kids are big enough to knock us on our keister!
in my classroom I will be given the first half of the year to work into expected walking around and working with kids at their desks. The school system will also provide me with a rolly stool like the ones doctors use to roll around the classroom on.
Hopefully that will be enough. I am going to have the kids remind me to get up and move, and to do some exercises as we go through the day. I figure 6th graders are little enough to need to get up and stretch and move some and it will let us practice QUIET transitions also! Killing two birds with one stone again.
Our intro to school has been wretched. Basically our teacher evaluation system (new) figures we are grossley incompetent and makes us document and prove we are not. Very disheartening. Lots of good teachers were reduced to tears by the list of demands on us with no time provided to do them--this is on top of a meager 1% raise (the first in 6 YEARS), and increase of .7% pulled out of our pay to prop up the retirement system, changes in health care system to a 80/20 with a $10,000 cap before the system picks up all cost...highest paid teachers in NM on tier 3 have a base pay of $50,000 and our EA's have a pay scale of about $13,000 yet they have the same insurance cap as far as we have been told. We just feel really beat up.
I am looking forward to meeting my kids, cause I know they will remind me why I teach. At this point the system has beat us up so much all the joy in teaching is ground into dust.
 
nmscienceteacher, Your latest posting nearly made me cry, because it is so similar to what is going on here in Florida, and all over the country. It seems that teachers are being treated as the enemy, and blamed for everything that goes wrong in children's lives. I think things are even a little harder in New Mexico than where I teach, based on what you said. The new medical plan you described sounds just horrible. A $10,000 out-of-pocket max? And of course things like doctor's office co-pays don't even count toward that. Who could even afford to have a hip transplant under a program like that? Our plan is being negotiated now, and I'm sure it will be worse than it was this year. Fortunately, I was able to opt out and go on Medicare in July, and now that I have Medicare and a Medigap Supplement, I don't have any doctor's bills at all -- except for my monthly bill, which is affordable.

One very important warning... The little rolling chair sounds VERY dangerous! You could so easily fall! Much better to have a stool -- preferably with a back -- that doesn't have wheels. I have a little two-step stepstool that is perfect for sitting on -- very comfortable -- and it has the tubing that I can use as arms to help myself stand up. I was in a doctor's office with my husband a couple of days ago, and I sat on one of the rolling stools and had a hard time standing up. Please be careful about this.

I am planning on asking for similar accommodations to your, but I won't need a 504 plan. Talking with my principal will be enough, and I'll probably just get a note from the doctor. I'm going to ask to be excused from hall duty for three months, not to have to escort the students back and forth to lunch (clear across campus!) for three weeks, and for flexibility in walking around the room during class.

One thing that really helps in my school is that our principal tries his very best to take the pressure off us regarding all the new evaluation systems and weird requirements that come down the pike. He tells us to focus on building relationships with the students, and on teaching, and he doesn't micromanage. But not all principals are like that, and teachers are really hurting all over our district and statewide.

Stay in touch with me about your experiences in school, and I'll keep you posted from my end. Stay strong and fall in love with all your new little 6th graders and their shining faces!
 
Changed my avatar since i am back in the saddle again in front of the classroom...134 new 6th graders today with faces full of all kinds of emotions. Thanks bottomshollow for the picture it has a nostalgic ring to it since the days of chalk boards are pretty well gone. Yesterday I walked the dog after work and went a total of 9000 steps which is probably the most I have walked in 5 or 6 years. Today I am more tired and am currently icing my knee which really doesn't seem to want to cooperate and is swollen and hot tonight. I hate the first days because you have to talk waaaay too much and it is hard to remember from class what you have said and what you have forgotten to say. Tomorrow, thankfully, they have to take a math test and i don't have to talk as much. I did pretty well but i definitely fade a bit in the afternoon and limp more after sitting around during prep. I stayed out of the halls and used the cane as I tired. Although I am tired the familiar start up of school excitement has definately kicked in! I did better than I expected today.
 
nmscienceteacher I'm sorry I haven't been here in a while, so just catching up a little. You had a rough week last week, for sure! I'm sorry your knee is acting up-- it must be the combination of older but new knee with very new hip, and they're not in sync with each other yet. I'm glad today had some redeeming aspects for you to be cheered by! I'll be thinking of you as you really get back in the swing :)

Tigger and a mouse, oh my! Glad he kept it outdoors!
 
One more day to survive this week. I am in bed with my right knee "on ice" because I have bone pain that won't quit. Took a percoset and so far it hasn't touched the pain even though it should have kicked in. I am at 9 months on the knee, and although I am sure the healing was slowed down by having my hip replacement done i am a bit surprised that my knee is giving me this much trouble at this point. I know having the hip replaced put extra demands on the knee pretty early in the healing process but....this is getting old. My knee and whole right leg swell up during the day at work. By the evening I am on my cane and every step hurts. I still have an area just below the kneecap that is hot all the time. In the morning it is simply warmer...but by night it is positively hot. Does that seem normal to those of you with more experience? The knee was replaced in early November last year. Tonight it is more painful than normal...probably the cumulative effects of the week. It is really tender to touch in a line parallel to the incision starting about an inch below the patella and going down a few inches.

I have to acknowledge that I am walking more each day than I have done in probably the last five years. I am trying to move around the classroom as much as I can...and my hip feels better when I move rather than standing. I am sure some of my pain is due to being on cement floors all day...they don't have much give to them. Sorry for the rant, the amount of pain in my knee has caught me by surprise. I expected more trouble with the hip. I didn't anticipate pain to tears from the knee at the start up of school.

On a lighter note most of my students are darling. I always forget how small they are at the beginning of the year. I have a young lady from China who has been here for only a month. Thankfully there are five boys in that section who speak Chinese with some degree of facility and have a lot more English under their belts than she does! Thank god for google translate. I also have a Japanese speaker, one who speaks Urdu, several who speak Arabic and a few Spanish speakers. The sea of faces in my class is a real mix of ethnicities this year...but they all have the same scared/excited expressions and are new-student eager to please. It is going to be a bit of a challenge trying to adapt things for all my non-English speakers.

I welcome any suggestions on ways to get the knee in line...next week is a full week and I am a bit worried.
 
Hi there nmscienceteacher, so sorry you are having knee pain.. and that teaching has become so difficult with all the new administration issues.. Seems world wide.. I am pleased for you though that you are working out a system for the children to work with you to move more frequently... It will be good for them and also fun. Take care x
 
nmscienceteacher I am so sorry you are having so much trouble and pain now that school has started. I don't really have any suggestions, but I wanted to say I'm sorry to hear of your pain. I learned a long time ago from my neighbor teacher friend that teaching is a lot more physically demanding than it looks, and a hundred and some odd 6th graders cannot be easy to manage. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
 
nmscienceteacher said:
I still have an area just below the kneecap that is hot all the time. In the morning it is simply warmer...but by night it is positively hot. Does that seem normal to those of you with more experience?
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Sounds to me like you have a serious case of tendinitis which is being made worse by the demands of your job. The standard treatment for tendinitis is rest and pain meds. Are you doing nothing but resting when you get home? Because this is what you need to do. And what pain meds are you taking, how much and how often? Are you icing/elevating your knee? Can you do less walking at work?
 
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