My Week With Willow
“All little girls should be told how pretty they are,” says Marilyn. “They should grow up knowing how much their mother loves them.”
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Motherhood
All things related to motherhood
Looking Back to Brookfield
“Poets claim that we recapture for a moment the self that we were long ago when we enter some house or garden in which we used to live in our youth. But these are most hazardous pilgrimages, which end as often in disappointment as in success. It is in ourselves that we should rather seek
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“He Won’t Shoot Me.”
I don’t know whether or not this is true or if it’s Valley legend, but I’m going to share it anyway. From the moment the texts began chiming into my daughters’ phones, and postings on Facebook informed us there was a shooting in the neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, we paid attention as the details
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The Long Hot Summer Recovery Process
According to Tucson’s best and Willow’s favorite physical therapist, John Woolf, Willow is rockin’ it as she recovers from her ACL replacement surgery. Because of her hard work over the summer in Wisconsin with two different physical therapists, a certified trainer and a sports medicine physician, AND her good-girl behavior (staying off the waterski / wakeboard and not running), she’s right on schedule to get back to soccer.
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ACL Diary: Let’s Get Physical
When Willow started driving, no one was happier about it than I. Primarily it meant that after 11 years, I no longer had to drive a carpool filled with smelly shin guards and crusty socks to and from soccer practice. A month later she tore her ACL, and after surgery, I was back to being
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ACL Diary: Embrace the Brace
Warning: Contains foul language At Willow’s pre-op appointment with Dr. Tucker, one of his assistants fitted her for the brace that would become a big part of her support system for the first stage of her post-op experience. It’s an uncomplicated device made partly of Velcro and plastic, but primarily of black, foamy material, on
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ACL Diary: The Ugly, The Bad and The Good
Willow’s dad—the true videographer in the family—was out of town during the game when she tore her ACL. This is why I was behind the camera. I was recording for two reasons. One, so her dad could watch the game later, and two, because I was putting together college recruitment videos for Willow and another
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ACL Diary: Clearing Hurdles
The Surgery Itself Willow’s ACL tear happened during the first game of the 2011 AZ State Cup, which is the last tournament of the season, and the most important in terms of establishing team ranking. She was also in the midst of her school track season and had just posted her best time, three seconds
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ACL Diary: Pain and Percocet
“Has it really been less than three weeks?” On the news this morning, I heard that it’s been three weeks since Holly Bobo, the nursing student from Tennessee, was abducted in her front yard. These periodic abduction stories tend to upset my husband and cause him to worry about the safety of his own daughters.
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ACL Diary: Patellar? Hamstring?
“Go With Your Gut” The first thing we learned is that shredded ACL ligaments cannot be repaired. They may, however, be reconstructed. It wasn’t until we saw the MRI images and our surgeon pointed out the barely visible frayed remains of Willow’s ACL, that we truly understood. Options for ACL reconstruction surgery presented to us
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