Category: General

Karen Allen's leg pain is gone. Her back is still sore. She hopes that the soreness is from the surgery.

Karen is stuggling to not use her back. The doctor doesn't want her picking up anything heavier that a plate of food for six weeks. Karen's research on the Internet confirms his demain. It is because the disc has not healed and could reherniate under the load.

Everyday for the next six weeks, Karen has friends helping her and baby. Today, Karen and Katherine are at Anne Bell's house for the day. Tomorrow, someone will be at our house to help.

I hope that after all this work that Karen's back heals correctly and that her back problems are gone.

My wife, Karen Allen, had a microdiscectomy today to fix her herniated disc between the L4 and L5. She had beer trying a number of treatments with no improvement.

The procedure took all day at the hospital. The actual surgery only took about 30 minutes. The doctor was running behind by about 2 hours. Another surgery was moved ahead of Karen's surgery. Karen operation started at or around 3:30PM. She had to wait in recovery for over an hour even though she was ready to go in 15 minutes. But, the hospital doesn't check you out of recovery. They send you to a room, which was not available for another 1 hour or more. Once Karen was in the room, she quickly walked around the hall and used the bathroom which is the requirement to be able to checkout. But, the nurse was going off shift so the nurse indicated she didn't have time to do the paperwork and the next shift would handle it.

We arrived at the hospital after 9 AM and we got out of hospital around 8 PM or so.

But, Karen's back is already feeling better. She only has discomfort in the area of the actual surgery, which is super.

Karen's office sent her flowers, a basket of fruit, and a basket of snack. Wow! They are so nice.

– Brian Allen

Well, I have learned that after you have a baby everything else in your life stops. The blogs and web site updates were quick to go by the way side. Evenings out on the town were expected to drop off, but they to have ended.

Having a baby will change your life.

My sister, Hope Jones, is in town with her children for a month. She is jumping at the chance to see Katherine Elizabeth.

Her children have been video chatting with us over the past month. It started with them asking were is the baby. We would show them Karen's belly. After the birth, they wanted the to see Katherine Elizabeth. Who still is manner sleeping.

Her husband will be joining her later during the visit. He is presently attending a number of conferences for this work.

Well, the travelling has stopped for now. Karen and I extended our stay for a week at the gulf, but we are finally home.

Now, we get to work home repairs, because our siding installer informed us that the back of our house is rotting. We have three windows over our deck that have large amounts of rot around them. We are going to have to replace a lot of the wood structure prior to the siding being installed. Bummer!

Well, I helped my brother setup a simple web site. You can check it out here: www.usaSchoolsRus.com.

It is a very simple site. I need to get him to improve it, but it is a start.

My brother runs a fundraising business that school organizations use to raise money. His business produces discount cards.

I am in the process of redoing our photo web site. It has a new address and here it is:

http://www.theallens.info/photos/

The old address will still work, but it will push you to the new site after reminding you to update your links.

Also, I am adding software to allow others to post their photos to the site.

The appearance has changed as well.