Personal Update-Nothing Will Keep Me Down

 
Hi everyone.

I know I said I'd be back in ten days at the beginning of December and that didn't happen. Unfortunately, I injured my right knee on the 25th of November and had hoped when I wrote my last post that the injury would be short lived and uneventful. It has not. After seeing three doctors, my knee is still giving me trouble and I'm still having to rely on crutches for some movement. On top of that, my insurance carrier declined my doctors' requests for an MRI(they think my meniscus tore) so we could look at my knee and the tissue therein, and instead issued an edict that I must pursue conservative home therapy until after the start of the new year.

This has left me severely immobilized until this week. Once simple tasks, become arduous and time consuming and most of my frequent daily duties forbidden. Stan has had to pick up the slack to keep everything going. Having a house with eight sets of stairs was never a problem before this, but quickly became a challenge. Even sitting for long periods isn't something that is easy. My daily walks and community activities have slowed to a trickle to reduce stress on the knee and to try to give the knee time to heal, if it can(only one third of the meniscus has blood flow and can heal).

Fortunately, this week I have some easy mobility back and that has made doing many things in the house easier. I'm doing strengthening exercises for the knee and leg and I can sit for longer periods without it becoming a problem. It is a fine line between trying to let the leg heal and pushing yourself to make sure it has healed and setting yourself up to use your leg fully. After five weeks my muscles are not where they once were and I can't do any lower body workout. Not pretty when a forty year old man has to stop lower body workout.

After the beginning of the year if the leg seems healed and I can do most activities, I'll be set and will slowly bring back weight and muscle tension into my daily routines. That normally takes four weeks or so. If we get the the turn of the year and I have pinching, stiffness of knee, or other knee liabilities, they doctor will force the insurance company's hand and get an MRI done. That will likely reveal a quick, easy surgery is in order and then four to six weeks of physical therapy to teach my leg to do its' job again.

A future blog post on our medical system, managed care panels, unhelpful protocols, and lack of care for our people, will be forthcoming. More importantly my knee injury has left me with a greater appreciation for what I normally take for granted, what I can do, and who I have around me.

In other news, we finally found a good person for the second apt in Dover. It has been vacant for a few months now, not something you ever want to happen for many reasons. They are a brother and sister and seem thoughtful, responsible, and pretty damn cool. They were looking for a space where they could lease until the end of May, which works well for the apt being available during prime rental time when they leave.

Our Holiday Party was a smash and we both had such a great time. I'm lucky that everything was already decorated, because Stan had to make most of the food this time and do most of the cleaning. Our guests circulated/took care of themselves and seemed rather happy and the end of the night. We had a great surprise at the party; a former national representative(hopefully she will be back in office soon) came by that night. Stan was elated and I was so happy to see her. I feel she is a true advocate for our people and that is rare to find and something our nation, our world desperately needs.

I'm going to sign off for now. I'll be at Out Left, my Twitter account, Google+, and Facebook on and off  until my knee is truly back to normal.



 Have a wonderful new year everyone!