Thursday, December 28, 2006

two weeks down!

Saturday, December 23, 2006

lowlander outdoor adventures

Check them out.
http://www.lowlanderoutdooradventures.com/index.html
Props to Paul for having the balls to go for it and start an adventure tour business. More power to ya, Paul!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

operation and recovery

Here's a drill going into one of my bones in preparation for attaching my new ACL. (which it turns out was the simplest part of the entire surgery)

And here is my new ACL.

Here's my ripped and broken femur. Turns out I basically broke a bone. So six weeks no weight on it while it heals. See that pink part in the middle? That's exposed femur bone. It should be covered in a nice white cartilage.

Here is the cartilage reattached (with nails). It was floating around in my knee joint area.

Here I am on the couch with my newly reconstructed leg watching the 2006 Tour of Flanders (thanks John!).


Headed back to the doc today for an update.

Friday, December 15, 2006

post-op report

Finally go to ride with John B. again on Tuesday. At our usual time, 5:30am (0530). Unfortunatly, it was a short one, only a couple of miles, and, even less exciting, in a truck owned by MU. And the ride was to the Institute for Outpatient Surgery. My knee was repaired Tuesday morning. John graciously agreed to bring me in and stay with me until Bridget could get there after dropping Nora off at a friends house at 7:30. She didn't miss much as I didn't get out of there until 2 p.m. The staff of the IOS were great. (At least the ones I remember) Last thing I remember before 2pm was thinking that my glasses which were laying on my lap before surgery needed to go in my bag o' stuff under the bed. Evidently I chatted with John and the nurse for quite a while afterthat, even giving John some sort of emergency authorization (probably one of the smartest things I have ever done). Then Before I woke up I was chatting with the anesthesia people about Sam and Nora. If one gives out deep dark secrets under anesthesia, it sounds like I have a pretty clean life. Dr. Smith did one heck of a job fixin my knee. Evidently it was worse than expected and I think he expected pretty bad. I was in the OR for about 2.5-3 hours. A long time I later learned for a simple ACL repair. My ACL repair was simple but the rest was not. I had shorn off a bit of the end of my femur. Fortunately Dr. Smith was able to find the piece and replace it (Cool!). But that meant that everything will be a lot more complicated as far as recovery goes. I have to be off my left leg for 6 weeks. After that I have no idea what to expect. No weight on my left leg at all. That will be a trying time for all in our household. Started some electroshock therapy tonight. two little electrodes on my quad for half an hour. 10 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Kinda like a little massage. Anyway, enough pounding away at the keyboard. My knee is starting to hurt and I gotta go ice it again.

Pictures soon.

Friday, December 01, 2006

snowy day