Seventeen Days

I'm just making up the day numbers now.

February 23 I had a GREAT ski before we drive south to the Hartford airport.  No pain.   Then February 24 we flew to Tallahassee for a MFA film school interview.  That made me nervous since I knew that the student's average age was 25 and even with perfect knees I was giving something up being 55.  My strategy was to not use my crutches and not mention my new knee with the interviewers.  If for some reason they asked why I was limping I would just say that I sprained my knee skateboarding.

While in Northampton I had my teeth cleaned at my real dentist's office.  They all knew about the what they consider arrogant orthopedic surgeons vs. the dental profession (I knew they would) and assured me that a cleaning 19 days before surgery was OK.

Before we flew out on Sunday, February 26 I rode the stationary bike with both legs for 35 minutes.  Seemed good.  I was able to retain my exit row seats by convincing the flight attendants I was just transporting the crutches.  Bear in mind that I was fully capable of assisting with the exit in case of an emergency and I wasn't endangering everyone else on the flight just so I could have more leg room.

Twenty-Nine Days

Twenty-nine days seems so many fewer than thirty. 

Skate skied 2:45.  I was tired but my knee felt great the whole time.  I got my pulse up.  Feel like my quads got some exercise so they maybe they won't be so pathetic when I try to recover from the surgery.
Slept without taking a 5/325 vicoden like I have been.  Was uncomfortable and took forever to get to sleep since pain is more obvious at night.  Will probably take one tonight.

Friday I drive my rental car to the airport (90 minutes to Burlington) and fly to NYC.  Pretty ambitious. I'm a little anxious but my knee has been so good...

Thirty-Six Days

Weird.  I skied 2:10 on the flats, did 10 minutes of upper body rowing and have pretty much no pain.  I think skiing on powder is good and skiing on frozen granular is bad.  Whatever it is, I'm not complaining.  Skiing on the flats like I've been doing won't increase my fitness.  I doubt I'm even maintaining but being out does wonders for me mentally and since I'm sentenced to the couch most of the time, getting out is HUGE.

Even with a pill, it was hard to get comfortable enough to sleep last night.  Although I have very little pain right now, I'll probably take one before I hit the sack tonight since the pain is more obvious when I'm in bed.

I find myself getting cocky and walking without crutches when the pain isn't bad and it ALWAYS sets me back.  It's usually the next day or later in the day when I ski that I am kicking myself.   I should always use my crutches to keep weight off my right leg/knee.  The knee is always swollen and even when it isn't hurting, it is too swollen to straighten...another reason it's hard to walk and crutches are good.  It's swollen hard.  It used to be swollen and more liquidy soft and spongy.  The baker cyst isn't bothering as much as earlier in the winter. 

I'm babbling.

Forty-One Days

Less than 6 weeks !  yay.   Six more weeks of my legs continuing to atrophy.

There used to me a muscle there on the outside.

So Saturday I got rescued by a snowmobile and today I skied 2:20...most of it, north of here in the hills.  I was never anywhere I could've gotten stranded.

No pain to speak of and just 1/2 of a meloxicam.  Who knows?  I have a theory.  My knee has been swollen so long and so hard that it seems like things are getting used to being stretched...therefore it's not as painful.

Got a hydrocodone refill (5/325s).  Think I'll try just taking one before bed if I need it....none during the day unless I have an explosion.  I seem to be able to ski with the meloxicam.  I dread going to bed.  Tossing and turning like I do makes the nights so long.

My rented Ford Focus got stuck at the end of the driveway  today with me in it.  I put all of the groceries in my backpack and crutched up the driveway, traded one crutch for a snow shovel, got some ashes and crutched/snowshoveled back to the car.  A few ashes and what seemed like enough shoveling did nothing.  I was sure I'd drive right out.  Finally the neighbors that were watching through their window 10 feet away came out to help and a half hour later I was driving out of the hole we'd dug.  (Thank you neighbors!)  

THEN my knee hurt.