Freedom!

It's Saturday and I was allowed out of the house again for the first time since Tuesday. We walked to the village, picked up my paper and then headed to Tease for a Latte and a piece of Lemon Drizzle cake. Ross, complete with new haircut, was working:

We walked back home after coffee and Jo was preparing bacon butties for lunch when I received a text message from Gary, offering to come over and take us out for lunch. Nice thought, but just minutes too late. That's the second time this week we've had to turn down his offer.

Gary and Luca still came over and spent the afternoon here. Luca is going through his biking stage:

Today's drug regime is similar to yesterday - no opiates during the day - only first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Today's knee measurement is showing that it's down to within an inch or so of the "good" knee.

Less than a week until Kieran and Julie's wedding. Looks like Jo is going to be driving me down as Ross can't get sufficient time off work. Don't think I'll be doing much dancing. In fact, not sure if I'll even be able to have a beer by then or not.

Friday

It's exactly 2 weeks since my knee op and, for the first time, I feel almost human again. Whereas I couldn't be bothered with anything - especially last week - I feel ready to do things now, even if it's only sedentary for the time being. A sign of things improving?

The real tests come next week when I have 3 consecutive days of physio - one at Albyn sandwiched by two in Banchory mid-week. I need to keep up the exercises and get some external confirmation that I'm back on track.

I'm home alone this morning as Jo is at the West Church coffee morning - she bakes for all the "waifs and strays" as she calls them. Jo would normally then head off to Westhill for swimming and a Costco shop, but she didn't want to leave me on my own all day. I told her I would be OK, but she's not having any of it.

Kelly and I FaceTimed again this morning. She and Chris had just returned from a (quiet) night out at the cinema and a meal, with Chris' Mum babysitting. Kelly's still in a bit of a quandary about what to do for Christmas presents this year and she asked my advice. Who me? Haven't a clue, I'm afraid - I was less than helpful.

Changed the dressing again this morning, so this is how the wound looks now:

Discovered a new app for my phone today - Our City Radio - it plays local bands and it seems to be a global thing for most big cities. In Scotland, Aberdeen, Glasgow & Edinburgh are featured. I would imagine there might be one for Adelaide, although I suspect the nearest to Lucy would be Portland or SFO.

Enough for now - I'm off back to watch the golf from Dubai again.

Thursday

Jo was heading to the hairdresser's first thing so we had to get up and get me ready before she went out. I had thought it was time for me to venture out again and I thought I would take this chance to go along and get my morning paper whilst Jo was at the hairdresser, but I was very swiftly put in my place and told I wouldn't be going out at all.

My compensation came from Dick Taylor, who very kindly brought along a latte and empire biscuit for me.

Apart from doing my exercises, all I've done today is snooze in front of the fire and try and read a chapter of my book - I failed, but at least I'm showing some interest again - last week I couldn't be bothered with anything.

I also took a cold call today and, for once, agreed to see the rep "who just happened to be in our area today". It was Penicuik Windows and Doors and it was a timely call as we had been discussing doing something about the doors and windows in our house that haven't been replaced/upgraded in the 30 years since we moved in. So we've now ordered new front, back and garage doors and new windows for the kitchen and the downstairs study (formerly Ross' room). This probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been at home recuperating.

No more news for now.

New regime

The visit to the physio yesterday certainly gave me a jolt and I'm trying hard to do the exercises she recommended - all 10 of them. It's tough - the swelling round my knee is still restricting movement and when I try to stretch the knee bend in particular, the whole joint heats up dramatically and, as a side issue, it makes me feel sick and queasy.

We're trying to get ice on the joint as often as possible to aid the process. This morning, Jo and I did my exercises in bed together after breakfast and drugs. Jo must be knackered running around after me - she's tending to my every need, but I do need to try and do some things myself or I won't progress.

Gary and Luca came around yesterday afternoon - Gary's off all week and Luca was on an In-Service Day. I think Gary had plans to take me down to Tease for a coffee, but he caught me in one of my down moments and I just wasn't up to accepting his offer. We had scrambled eggs on toast instead. When they were gone after dinner, I had my first bath, which felt pretty pleasant - and I discovered that the bath is not too bad a place to be doing exercises.

Jo changed my dressing after the bath. This was how the leg looked last night - a lot better than the previous photo taken in the hospital over a week ago:

You can still see the blood blister from the first theatre dressing.

So that's it for today. No walking again - perhaps tomorrow. The Banchory physio reckoned it wasn't important anyway at this stage - she felt if I could walk 100 yards that was more than enough.

Jo's at swimming for a couple of hours - she needs the break.

NHS or private?

Last night wasn't too bad. I managed to stay in bed until 6:30 am, albeit still waking every hour to check the clock. The fresh supply of Tramadol must have helped.

Colin came round to see me this morning, after which I headed off for my first physio appointment with the local NHS Practice in Banchory. I could tell immediately that she wasn't too impressed - particularly with the lack of knee bend I have. She measured it at roughly 50° and said that normally they wouldn't release folk from hospital until they had at least 70°. I seem to recall that the physio at Albyn had said I was virtually at 70° - although it didn't seem that much to me at the time.

The Banchory physio understood that the swelling was restricting my movement and said that I should ditch the cool water knee collar that the surgeon preferred and instead revert to the good old-fashioned frozen peas treatment.

I have to do my exercises every day half an hour after taking my meds - that way I should be able to force more bend in my knee, which seemed to be causing her some concern. She thought that, 11 days after the op, I should have a lot more flex by now. She suggested sitting on the side of the bed (or a suitable chair) and pushing the right leg back using the left ankle and heel to force it. (This was what Scott had said too). She warned it would be very painful but I needed to get on with it - now.

An alternative way of doing it would be lying in bed and using the wall instead:

She also said that, as an alternative to using the sliding board that the hospital had shown me to slide my knee up and down, the same effect could be achieved in bed by using a cheap supermarket plastic bag on my heel.

She wasn't too impressed either with the shaped handles on the walking sticks I had got at Albyn and asked me to try out more conventional curved handles - and she was right.

On reflection, I'm glad I arranged this NHS appointment. If I hadn't, it would have been another week before I went back to see the Albyn physio.

I have arranged 2 more appointments with the NHS physio next Tuesday and Friday.

Monday knee report

I think I'm losing the plot - it appears I didn't post a blog yesterday - and when I wrote this one, it disappeared completely, so I've had to start all over again!

Yesterday was going well until about lunchtime when I took the last of the Tramadol. After that, it was a bit of a struggle - I was never settled and despite it being Super Sunday with a triple header of decent matches on TV, I felt things were going backwards again.

Eventually went upstairs at 9 pm. We watched Homeland and then I fell asleep for an hour or so, but, by midnight, I knew I needed extra painkillers - and all we had was Paracetamol. It was a long night after that, but eventually morning came and we had to get up and get dressed as today was the day the theatre dressing was coming off.

The nurse removed the dressing and cleaned up what she could, but she said a lot of the sticky stuff wouldn't come off properly until I'd had a bath - and she suggested leaving that until tomorrow. So, for now, I've got a slightly smaller, more temporary dressing on - and she supplied us with additional supplies as well.

More importantly, she prescribed more Tramadol and so I popped a couple when we got home and then sat in the front room with the sun streaming in behind me and the fire on in front of me:

As a result of my appointment with the Nurse, we missed our daily FaceTime call with Kelly. Hopefully tomorrow.

This afternoon, we've started watching the box set of the first series of Breaking Bad - I know it's 5 years old and the rest of the world has already seen it, but we thought it was time we did some catch up here. I'm also trying to write another episode of Renshaw's Chronicles whilst I'm holed up at home.