I’ve been in Physical Therapy three times a week, and things are improving.  I am slowly improving a little each day.  This week I started my daily walks again.  I’m up to about a mile a day so far, with a break or two during each walk.  This makes things interesting, since I need a place to sit down for a few minutes halfway or 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through my walk, so I’ve been trying to walk in places with frequent benches along the way, like on the lakefront.

Socks has been coming with me, which is good for both of us.  He hasn’t gotten out much lately, and since he has slowed down much more these days, right now our pace is just about the same, making our walks comfortable for both of us.   Aside from the frequent face-plants (mainly when we come upon a curb drop-off–Socks apparently doesn’t see these coming sometimes and is unprepared for them) he does pretty good considering he can’t see or hear much.  It seems like he sure can smell things though, and he sure enjoys sucking up all of the different smells he can during our walks.  When I eventually pick up the pace and start walking two miles again, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to leave him home when I walk, but I’ll most likely be taking those walks during my one-hour lunches at work most weekdays anyway, so it won’t matter that much.

I have to get up and move around at least once every 30 minutes, otherwise my knee tends to get stiff in whatever position I keep it in.  Three weeks after surgery I was allowed to stop wearing the compression stockings, but it seems the swelling started to return this week, so I’m back to wearing them again.  They sure squeeze the crap out of my calves and sometimes itch like crazy, but my therapist insists they’re helping a lot, so I’ll keep wearing them as long as I have to.

Kevin, Matt and I are going to see the first showing of Venom tonight!  We’re all excited for it, and we’ll all have our Venom gear on, hoping for a photo op somewhere in the theater, preferably with a Venom display backdrop.  I just hope my need to move around every 30 minutes doesn’t bother anyone else in the theater tonight.  I think I might be OK just re-adjusting my legs in the luxury lounger once in awhile though, instead of having to get up and walk around every time.  I sure hope so, I don’t want to miss any of the movie.

I start therapy at a PT Clinic next week.  No more in-home PT.  This is good because I’ll be able to utilize equipment that will help my recovery progress even quicker.  I feel like I’ve been lazy, not getting out much, but that’s just part of the process they say.  I’m anxious to start getting out more so it at least feels like I’m accomplishing something.  I can tell virtually everything–getting in and out of the shower, walking down the basement, getting in and out of the car, etc., is all getting a little easier every day as I’m able to bend my right knee just a little bit more.

I’ve been having a little rash lately around the wound & the clear surgical tape covering it.  This tape is not to be peeled off, it has to wear itself off naturally, and I’m supposed to trim it with scissors as the edges peel up on their own.  So it’s getting smaller and smaller, but the areas where the tape was removed are red and tender and very itchy.  The doctor says I can’t put anything on it for the itch though–nothing on or around the wound at all.  All I can do it clean it in the shower (I don’t have to cover the wound in the shower any more) and ice packs stop the itching for awhile.  It’s a bit of torture a lot of the time, but at least I’m getting some relief.

I’ve been checking my temperature a few times a day now as well.  One clear sign of infection or Cellulitis is a fever, and I’ve had cellulitis in my legs a few times in the past, so I’m familiar with it.  Catching that again, with an artificial knee, would not be a good thing, and could possibly be disastrous, so I need to take all precautions and catch it as early as possible.

My post-surgery follow-up appointment went well.  I’m cleared to drive again, so next week I can start physical therapy at a Sports Therapy clinic and stop my in-home therapy.  I’m going to miss Christine, but it’ll be a big step forward moving to the gym equipment.

I drove home from the clinic without a problem.  I was pretty surprised.  Last week I had tried getting behind the wheel and could get my foot up onto either of the pedals.  No problem with that today.  Therapy works wonders.

Take a look at those X-Rays… You can click on the image to view it full-size.  All I need is a few more mods installed and I can freelance as a Terminator. 

I just finished today’s therapist visit.  I’m doing great.  She completed her evaluation and sent it to the doctor.  My post-surgery follow-up appointment is tomorrow morning.  Compared to how I was doing the day after surgery, I’m doing great and have made a lot of progress.  I am free to walk around at home with no cane or walker, and can almost walk normally for short distances.   I just need to keep up with the exercises and stretching to get full range of motion back and keep using the CircuL8 devices on my lower legs.  I can sleep in bed now, for about half the night (with the CircuL8’s), then need to move the the recliner with the CircuL8 devices on for the rest of the night.

I haven’t retried “Driving Mode” yet since last week when I couldn’t get my right foot up on the pedals, but I will try that again in the morning before the doctor appointment.  That’s one of the questions I have for the doctor–whether I can drive yet or not.  So that’s it for my knee update for today.  Now back to my regularly scheduled playlist.

Well before my surgery I created a playlist on Plex of all of the movies I have been meaning to catch up on, watch for the first time and others I have been meaning to watch again.  I’ve watched several of them since my surgery, but there’s plenty more to go.  Right now it’s the Godfather trilogy, and I was in the middle of The Godfather when my therapist arrived this morning.  It’s awesome, but I’m even more excited to get to Godfather II though.  Stephen King tweeted this recently:

Someone asked me yesterday, “What’s the best movie you’ve ever seen?” After a night to sleep on it (which I didn’t really need), I can confidently answer. GODFATHER II.— Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 12, 2018

The hundreds (sometimes thousands) of replies to many of his posts could keep me entertained for eons.  That one, especially.  If you’re a movie buff, check it out.  You can click on the date in the tweet to go read it.  I’m heading back to my recliner now to finish The Godfather.  More tomorrow.

I’ve been walking around the house without using the cane or walker for the past couple days.  I’m not sure if it’s better for my knee to walk around this way, or to still use the cane or walker to assist me.  That’ll be a good question for my therapist visit tomorrow.  I can’t seem to find a decent answer on the web.  That’s about it for today on my knee status, so you can stop reading this particular post right here if that’s all you’re checking in for.

Ticket sales for the movie Venom went on sale the other day, so I grabbed ours right away.  We’re excited for this one.  Matt’s a huge Venom fan.  It’ll be him, Kevin and I at the first showing on 10/4 – the day before the actual release.  Should be a blast.

I watched two awesome Stephen King prison movies yesterday: The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.  Both very long, both worth every minute.  I hadn’t seen either of them in quite some time, so they were both pretty refreshing as well.  My favorite character in each?  In Shawshank it was Morgan Freeman.  You can’t go wrong with Morgan Freeman – God Himself. He even ironically refers to his own last name in the movie as he talks about wanting and not wanting to become a “free man”.  In The Green Mile it’s John Coffey (like the drink, only not spelled the same) played by the awesome Micheal Clarke Duncan.  Sadly, he passed away recently.  He was engaged to Omarosa, a former aide to Donald Trump.  The details of his untimely death were explained in her book “Unhinged”, which was primarily about her entire history with Donald Trump.  At the time I read that book, I hadn’t known he had died, so it was a bit of a shock for me.  I also loved him in the movie “Armageddon.”

Sandy recently found this old photo of Rick from his Class of 1969 Bradford yearbook, and because I was so  amused to find a “Pick-O-Rick” I just had to post it on Facebook.  Kevin found it behind the microwave in the kitchen while he and Sandy were installing our new microwave oven this week and showed it to me, asking “Do you know who this is?”  I think Sandy had already told him it was Rick, or he already looked on the back of it, which had “Class of 69!” along with Rick’s autograph.  As soon as I saw it, I shouted “It’s a…PIC-O-RICK!”  Anyone who knows Rick & Morty, the cartoon, knows “Pickle Rick”, and you can’t say it without shouting it.  I got quite a kick out of this and couldn’t resist posting it.

Waze is now being built into new Lincoln vehicles.  It’s in all of their TV ads, which shows a Lincoln driving through crowded city streets containing real-world representations of Waze in-app icons.  Goofy, but that’s expected from most of today’s commercials.  I’m just wondering if it also includes the popup ads that appear whenever you come to a stop in the Android version of Waze.  If it does, I sure hope there’s not an extra charge to get a Lincoln that’s “Waze-equipped.”  That’d be crazy.  And if it doesn’t have the popup ads, I’m betting there’s a pretty hefty add-on charge for the feature on the sticker price!  Either way, I think I’ll stick to having all of my navigation functions on my phone and use a magnet mount.  That way I don’t have any issues with built-in functionality expiring over time, if I don’t keep paying the periodic fees, or when the built-in app just gets a few years old and the manufacturer decides to no longer support it on older models and versions.  Inevitably, one or more of those very frustrating issues will happen sooner or later.  My phone also gets replaced occasionally too, yes, and updates are frequent, but at least I have more options for navigation, should anything happen to Waze or a better option comes along.  But anyway, more power to Google (who bought Waze) for getting this contract.  I’m sure it’ll make them even more billions of dollars and secure their place even more in the Navigation world.  It’s weird how Waze has hundreds of millions less users than Google Maps Navigation does though… This tide will probably start turning now.

Feeling great today.  I’ve stopped taking the Oxycodone completely.   Tylenol is sufficient.  The pain has lessened and I took another shower this morning.  I’m up to “marching” with the walker now, and primarily using a cane.  I’ve gone out on errands with Sandy a few times, in both cars, and everything is progressing nicely.  I’ll be going out to dinner again this weekend.  I love these “test” outings.

I can’t wait until I can get out and actually walk, even just out to the nearest Pokestop or Portal, which is about 1 block away, so I can start playing games again.  I’m hoping Kevin can spot me when I get to this point.  He doesn’t even bother to make that little walk himself on days he doesn’t work though… sheesh, he doesn’t know how good he’s got it.  I guess advancing his daily spin and catch bonuses just don’t motivate him like they do most other players.  Once I get out there walking myself, I plan to try to increase my distance daily until I’m back up to at least a mile and off the cane, then ramp it up back to two miles a day, minimum.

My follow-up appointment for my knee is Tuesday.  At that time I’ll find out from the doctor if I can drive yet and move my rehab to facility with proper equipment, or wait a little longer with more in-home therapy.  It’s a toss-up at this point, so I have my in-home therapy appointments already scheduled for next week, just in case.

Yesterday I went outside for the first time since the surgery.   That was nice.   It was also the first time I used my new Handy Cane (as a cane, that is) too.  I’ve used its reacher feature several times already, and it was even very handy after I got into the car–with the car door being wide open so I could bend my right knee enough to get in the passenger’s side, I couldn’t reach the door handle to close the door, so I used the reacher to grab the handle and pull the door closed.

Sandy drove my car (which in itself seemed a bit odd) going to the restaurant, but she’s a good driver.  Even so, it was still a fairly painful ride.  I could feel every bump in the road in my knee.

As a test before we left the house, I got into the driver’s side and acted like I was going to drive just to see how it felt.  I couldn’t even lift my foot up onto the gas or brake pedal without much effort and stretching.  I’m definitely not there yet, so driving is still out for now.  I’ll have to try it again in another week.  I know a few of the therapy exercises I do several times a day pretty much directly apply to these same actions, so I know I’ll get there soon.

My therapist took the bandage off today – 7 days after my surgery.  She said it looks good.  Sandy took a picture, and you can find it on this site if you look a little.  Don’t look for it if you’re easily grossed-out.  That’s why I didn’t add it directly to this post.  Not everyone is comfortable looking at that kind of horror show up-close and personal.

I guess it’s ok.  A friend send me a photo of his knee at the same point of healing, and it looks fairly similar, except he had zip ties on his wound.  I have nothing – no stitches, no zip ties.  From what I understand, they used some sort of surgical glue.

Anyway, if feels much better, and much less itchy this way.  There’s still a clear somewhat invisible bandage over it.  If you look closely in the photo you can see it.  This will eventually starts to peel off.  When it does, I’m supposed to trim the edges.  I shouldn’t try to peel it off, just work with it naturally as it works its way off itself.  My entire knee area still seems oddly “tight”, almost like it’s still wrapped in a huge thick bandage, but with some effort I can stretch it to walk and exercise.  It’s slowly coming back.

Well, it’s 9/11.  I usually re-post my original 9/11 posting from, 9/11/10, 9 years after, asking for stories, so I’ll add that as a link in case anyone missed it over the past 17 years.  Damn, this site is old:  So… where were you??

This morning I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is about a kid who lost his father on 9/11.  If you hadn’t seen it, it’s worth watching.  I watched it several years ago, but didn’t remember much of it, so it was pretty interesting all over again.  I also watched the “9/11 Inside The Pentagon” special that PBS aired yesterday.  I think that one was actually new, I hadn’t heard of it before.  It was interesting as well.  That’s about it, I’m all 9/11’ed out for this year, except for our flag.  Kevin and I raised our 9/11 flag on 8/31 this year.  I figured we’d fly it for the full month of September, so I’ll take it down and put the regular American flag up again at the end of the month.

Wow.  What a Packers game last night!  They’ve got a lot to live up to, if the first game of the season is that good!  We had our Packers duds on, of course, so now I’ll be asked to wear them for every game this season.  Agh.  Oh, and yes, the play that took Aaron Rodgers out of the game (temporarily) was pretty painful for me as well!  Ouuuuuch!  I could just feel my new knee throb in pain when a Bear landed on his and forced it sideways!

Anyway, I took my first shower since 9/4/18 last night. No, I wasn’t stinky, the sponge baths work OK, but there’s nothing quite like a real shower. Sandy covered the bandage with a plastic bag and medical tape, and it held up pretty good.

I also weighed myself since a few weeks before the surgery just to see what direction I was going in. Turns out I’m up 4 pounds. I wonder just how much of that I can blame on my new metal and plastic parts… 2 pounds, maybe? Of course, then I’d have to also factor in the pieces of bone they had to trim off of the leg bones as well.  Ah, nevermind.

My therapist says she’s been going easy on me, which is standard for the first couple sessions, then she ramps things up, so this week should be a lot tougher. Uh oh. The belt-assisted leg pulls are pretty painful as it is.  She’ll be here at 8:30 this morning to get started.  Bring the pain, woman.

Haylie and Connor are here for the weekend, which is nice.  They’re a great distraction from the pain and keep me entertained.  Connor found “Little Inferno” on the Nintendo Switch and he’s been getting pretty addicted to it, burning everything he can.  I got Matt’s approval before allowing it though, that game seems like it could send the wrong message to a susceptible child if they didn’t already know better.

The pain seems worse now than it did the first couple days.  Maybe it took awhile for all of the original meds to wear off completely.  With that, and a couple of the daily exercises I do which require the use of a belt, there’s some serious pain.  The pain meds work pretty good though, I just gotta remember to give the pill about an hour before it actually kicks in after I take it.  

The Bears/Packers game is this evening at 7:20 PM, so we’ll be watching that, and the new Season of Shameless starts tonight, so I’ll have to DVR that one for sure.

Well, we were able to take the Ace bandage off today.  This is the outer wrap that covered most of my right leg.  Good thing too, because it was getting really itchy.   Underneath, covering my knee, is what looks like a very large band-aid.  The rest of my leg was covered in a blue-green ink.  My foot looked pretty alien.  But most of it washed off nicely during this morning’s sponge bath.

I believe at seven days the last bandage comes off, then we can see what my knee really looks like.  I’m going to try to take my first shower tomorrow, once we figure out how to wrap my knee so it’s waterproof.

The therapist added some new exercises yesterday, and I’m doing a little bit better every day.  Socks continues to guard me in my chair most of the day, and he’s doing a little better at navigating around my walker without getting run over when I walk around the house.

I’ve been sleeping in my recliner since I got home after surgery.  My bed is too high and too close to the wall for me to get in it yet, and it would just be too uncomfortable to sleep in it even if  I was able to get in it anyway.  I laid down for awhile in Kevin’s bed yesterday, and that was nice, but there was no way I could even take a short nap.  It was just too uncomfortable.  I was unable to find a position that felt OK enough so I could rest, so it went back to my recliner again.  It was nice to take the short walk and stretch though.  Anything movement and exercise is better than just sitting still and doing nothing.

Here’s some details on my new parts:

Wow, the Oxycodone sure sucks.  Yeah, it takes the edge off when the pain is bad, but it makes me too groggy and I can’t keep focus long enough to play the simplest of games.  I lose focus even trying to play the simplest game of Tetris and can’t get anywhere.  I wanted to try out the new Spider-Man came that released yesterday and Kevin bought.  I did, for about 15 minutes, (it was awesome) but then I couldn’t handle any more.  I’ll have to stick to watching Kevin’s live streaming sessions.  He likes to live stream his games a lot as he plays, so i might as well let him entertain me.

On the other hand, I can make it into my home office now, so it’s much easier to blog than trying to blog from my cell phone.  Can’t quite reach the aquarium to feed the fish though, so I’ll have to ring the bell for Kevin to come and do that.

My therapy exercises are twice a day, and a few of them are pretty brutal.  They leave me pretty sore, but just as the X1 Boot Suit ad says in Ready Player One, No Pain, No Gain.

Socks has been so nice, he lays right next to me in my recliner, alongside my good leg, and keeps me warm, then waits for me to return when I get up each hour to walk.

Ok, time to head back to the recliner and rest again…