Things seem a bit empty...

I haven't been on Facebook much lately, but I should have said, part of my bedroom is now empty because they came and took the ROMTech bike away the day before yesterday. That part of my therapy is now over. It's been a big part of my day for three months now, so it's weird. But I have more floorspace. 😀

Just how bad they were and how much better they are now

I got my images of my knees today on a disc. I compared them to the ones I had from last year. It's like night and day. No wonder they feel so much better. The ones at the top are after the surgery, the ones at the bottom show the pre-surgery arthritis. It was definitely time. There was no cartilage at all. Since I'm a month out from surgery today, physical therapy was mostly functional testing today, so I'm hurting a bit, maybe a 4/10, but lately I've been a 0 or a 1, 2 tops, even with the range-of-motion bike, which is pretty amazing, especially since I was regularly an 8. Whoo-hoo!

Slow it down, Lisa

Got back on the bike today and took it really easy, and there was no bleeding and the pain only increased a little. I think I got used to being able to do more with the other leg and forgot how it was when I first had my surgery, and since it was going so swimmingly, I overdid it. So I'm going to take it slower. PT says I'm on the walker for at least for another week, and I agree, given the circumstances. I can do dishes and laundry. Getting up from sitting is a little hard right now, but not as bad as it was. Here's to going slower.

Today

So this time I started 'cruising' around the furniture a little earlier, meaning if I have something to hold on to, I feel pretty good about not having the walker, at least in my bedroom, where the bookshelves are three feet from the bedrail or desk, for example. I am being careful otherwise, particularly of the dog gates. I wouldn't go across the kitchen or living room in the more open areas. But the house is fairly small, so there aren't spacious areas, anyway. The bathroom is too narrow for the walker, so I keep my normal collapsible cane there as it is light and won't hurt the tile if it knocks over. It easily fits between the sinks, which fit together and are on pedestals, not with vanities. The steel cane is reserved for the stairs, which I'm taking it easy on as I've switched 'good' vs. 'bad' legs and muscle memory changes hard, but so far, so good.

I'm doing pretty well. The pain with the nerve block hasn't been over a 4, maybe a 5, for a minute or two.. My flexion is down from what it was right after surgery, but that's because of swelling, although there is nowhere near the swelling there was last time. The extension is 1° [they want 0°] and flexion 74° [90° at 3 weeks, so not bad] (both a little better than the same time with the left knee). While I've always considered my left knee my 'worst' knee, and yes, it was, Dr. Talwalkar said that with the exception of the grooved patella they had to put the button behind, both were in terrible shape, and the right was about as bad. The surgery was definitely needed. if not overdue.

The only issue I'm having is with the nerve block. I didn't have any issue before, but this one may have been tugged slightly and bled. With me being on aspirin, it probably looks worse than it is. It may have mixed with some fluid that wasn't absorbed by the nerve, so we've shut the machine off for an hour to see if that'll give it a chance to take up the bolus of rhindrocaine. I've only got a few hours left, maybe 10? of the solution, I'd like to not have to take it out, as it's really helpful, especially in terms of moving around and doing the ROMTech bike, or for that matter this afternoon I straightened up my room on my own, which gave me the feeling of a little independence and gave my roommate a little break. After all the stuff going around the surgery, etc., and taking care of me, I think he needs and deserves one.

I'm not up to doing chores yet, probably, but I can get my own water (I have a cupholder on the bag on my walker) or ice. And the dogs seem to be doing pretty well. I had to go outside my room without notifying him, and they were fine, so we tested them at dinner, and they did well. They just have to be reminded to not sniff me or get too near occasionally, but generally, they leave me alone, and they're very wary of the walker, so I mainly keep my leg surrounded by that. It seems to be working. They'd pretty much been trained to stay off me with the left leg already. But I'm still keeping track of where they are at all times, just in case.

Okay

The ROMTech rep came mostly without a hitch [although she did accidentally bring another bike], with the excption of the escape artist dog, who managed to get through a mostly closed door (which goes in, so in theory, barricaded them in), plus a dog gate, just as she was coming through the door to greet her, but fortunately she was nonplussed by him, as he is very friendly and I kept him from jumping up more than the one attempt. She reset the program, and we talked a bit, and then she left. The nice thing is that now I don't have to get on the bike again until Friday.

I'd already made coffee and fed the animals, made my bed,  made my to-do list, gotten dressed, etc. I was hurting a bit, so I took my morning meds, including the Tylenol. I've already attempted to wake my roommate once, but it looks like I'll have to do it again. We need to do some bills before I go tomorrow. I need to do some laundry today: my clothes, my bedclothes, and anything he might have. I have PT as well. I'll need to water the plants. I didn't manage to do that last time, and they languished another week and a half while I recovered to the point I could. I need to get the walker out to a more accessible place. I called about a debt, and I need to update that file and print it for my friend so he has all the necessary contact numbers and information in case anything happens to me. Again, just being practical. Then that'll be done.

I'm feeling pretty rested. I'm not experiencing many tics. I don't feel very anxious, as confirmed by my watch. I think I've got this.

That was serendipitous

The ROMTech rep called to make an appointment tomorrow to drop off a device since the surgery is Wednesday, and I explained I had one and just needed a new patient number and program downloaded. She couldn't do it today, of course, due to the holiday, but we settled on 8 am, because I can get up early, close my roommate's door (he sleeps with all the animals), and let her in, and he's fine with not waking up so early, and it won't interfere with my afternoon PT. So I've have that taken care of that. I think we're mostly ready for surgery, then. I just have to practice on the stairs some more. 😊 Mischief managed. 

Staying busy, although I slept in today

Two days till surgery and two days from five weeks since the last. I've officially shed all the water weight I had from swelling after the surgery... I'm down to 213 lbs from an original 328 3-4 years ago, so I've lost a total of 115 lbs. The incision is healing really well. Halfway through my leave, and I am not bored but am rested. Yesterday, I made time to study Latin both from my Wheelock text and from Mango via my library card. I am very rusty, and I used to be pretty proficient. I've done things I never make the time for, like that. A lot has been appointments and that range of motion bike, and we watch 'Desperate Housewives' at dinner every night but Friday (there's always some show; this is just the current one, because we'd been watching another Marc Cherry show prior, and I really enjoyed it, so I said I'd give it a try). Last night I was up to 3 AM updating the 'what to do if anything happens to me' document, not to be morbid, but to be practical, and I didn't manage to before the first surgery. With the exception of one piece of information I need to call on tomorrow, I'm finished. I'm also going to call the ROMTech rep back who left me a message during PT on Friday, as she thought she was delivering a device and I just need a new patient number and know how to put it in, since I already have one, from what I've been told. I did call Saturday and left a message, but I want to make sure she got it since the surgery is the next day. Not being able to do business today is making it harder... I had no clue about the holiday until it was mentioned at PT. My days all run together. But for those of you who have been working hard, enjoy your time off!!!

T - 4 days and I'm stressed out

My stress level is not anywhere near where I was in July, where I literally did not sleep more than three or four hours for four days before the surgery, and then the night before got one hour of sleep. I was so worked up that I couldn't text anyone because the myoclonic tics/spasms I get from stress and lack of sleep were so bad I was double-tapping the phone, and I couldn't text for about four days. Since my roommate had called and not gotten through to people (well, once he got voicemail, and he doesn't leave voicemails--I really should put my friend Brenda in charge of updates), no one knew how I was doing for days.

However, according to my roommate, I'm stressed; he can tell. And my watch yesterday said my stress was moderate to high at times. My tics are back, too, not as severe as they were by any means, but they're there, and I have had very few in the month since the last surgery, where I've been off work and much more relaxed.

I know what to expect. I know it'll most likely be fine. They do a lot of these surgeries, and even though it's a fairly big one, it's become commonplace. But my anxiety is still rearing its big, ugly head. My roommate and I talked a little bit about it over dinner last night, and I do feel better. I promised not to go into 'try to control everyone's actions around me' mode again, because I will get booted to a rehab facility at best or the street at worst if that happens again, he has assured me. I promise nothing under the influence of medication, but I promised to be a model patient otherwise. Last time, while I didn't mean to, I wouldn't listen to people and kept trying to do things my own way, or at least that's how he took it. Actually, it's just that I'm incredibly bad at asking fo help, because in the past I've done so and been made to feel stupid, so I don't want to feel stupid, and so the consequence is I go boldly forward with my own idea and...wind up doing something stupid, because I don't have the information I need, like the aide needs to turn the alarm off the bed before I reach for something at the foot of it, for example. Anyway, my goal is to get through this one smoother in terms of interactions with my friend, who was quite wroth with me last time over that (but who still took very excellent care of me, having been a professional CNA back in the day). Hopefully, the surgery will go well, and the recovery will go just as well on the right as on the left.

I will say that Baptist and Dr. Talwalkar's office has been wonderful. Their protocols did so much for my recovery. The nerve block pump, for example, that I went home with and kept for five days, had me up and moving quicker, so I didn't care that I was on that ROMTech bike three times a day or going to PT the day after being released from the hospital and moving that knee around that much. I just wasn't in a super amount of pain. My pain never exceeded a 7 or maybe an 8 at the worst, which was where I was before the surgery, all the time, pretty much, and mostly stayed about a 5. Recently, it's been a 1-2. I did have an increase in pain when the ROMTech bike started increasing resistance by one minute, and it really made it more difficult for my knee. They videoed in yesterday and asked me how it was going, and I told them I was struggling and was just honest that I was only doing it twice a day and it was hurting. They changed the treatment plan, knocking off two minutes of resistance, saying it was better to do the exercise three times a day at a lower amount of resistance because, while they want to build up strength, moving the knee as much as possible is more important. Next week, the plan will change again; they're going to send me a new code and download a new plan for the post-surgery treatment for the right knee, but he's aware of this, and he said that it would still give me the ability to get more sessions in than I would have been otherwise.

Meanwhile, I'm practising (both in PT and at home), taking stairs on the opposite feet as normal. You know how you go up on your good foot and down on your bad? Well, all my life, my good one has been my right, my bad has been my left. That is about to switch. I have discovered that going up on my left is a matter of strength, and we've been doing strengthening exercises that have helped, and they seem to be working. Going down is another matter. I have trouble with control and making sure I don't fall, and it's harder. So I really need to practice with my quad cane more. I've got a few days here, plus one more PT appointment, before I come home from surgery.

So I'm doing all I can do to be prepared. I've got this. No need to worry, right?

I've been busy cleaning house today

and decided I really needed to get on the ROMTech bike, and surprise, they added an extra minute to the resistance section, which doesn't seem like much, but I wasn't sure I was going to finish. So it's four minutes passive, four minutes active, six minutes resistance, and one minute active. I had it on pedal radius 3 out of 6. Maybe I need to drop down to 2, because it was a lot. I went from a one pain level to a three in 15 minutes, which doesn't seem like much, but it seemed a lot at the time. I'd like to take a nap, but I'm babysitting the animals while my roommate is over at a friend's house. He left at 9 am on the bus, and so I've been out here with the dogs (and cat) all day, letting them out, etc.  I made him coffee on the stove before he left and woke him up, of course.  After he left, I: 

1. Fed the animals.
2. Let the dogs out throughout the day.
3. Called ROMTech and gave them a heads-up about the upcoming surgery.
4. Laundered my clothes.
5. Laundered the dog blankets.
6. Swept the house.
7. Mopped the tile in the bathroom and kitchen.
8. Put the toaster I used for my breakfast bagel this morning away.
9. Cleaned the bathroom.
10. Laundered the towels, cleaning cloths, and mop head.
11. Washed dishes from today.
12. Filled up the hand soap and dish soap.

Among all the other little things I did today. I am tired. I'm still going to fold my laundry and put it away, as well as some I did midweek that's in a hamper already folded. Tomorrow I'll gather the trash from the bathroom and bedrooms together for him to take out, maybe.  That's his chore; I'm not allowed to do since I fell off the porch, but on the other hand, he can't carry anything outside on the sabbath. So today is not the day. He already did the rest of the trash and the cat little yesterday, I think it was. I've put the dog blankets back down. I might wash his bedding if he'd like.  And I should maybe do some dusting.  But I think that's all the normal chores short of the normal dishes. So I'm back to doing things around the house, at least for now, as long as I don't really lift or stand for long periods of time. If only my car were running so I could drive! But of course, in 11 days I'm having another big surgery. In 6 I'll have to start prepping with the special antibiotic showers. This is really coming up fast. One of the things I have to do while my friend is here is practice going up the stairs on my left leg. It's always been weaker. You know how you go 'up' on the stronger, 'down' on the weaker? Well, when I have my surgery, mine are going to flip, but the 'stronger' leg will have just had surgery, so in PT we're trying to strengthen both legs as quickly as possible, the left so it can carry the weight for the right, and the right to recover quicker. We'll see. And the resistance on the ROMTech is probably helping, too.

Okay, back to folding clothes. I want to finish this to-do list. I want to keep the house in shape up to the time of my surgery so I'm in good shape going into the time I can't do much.

How I spend my time these days

I really thought I'd be bored while I was off, but that hasn't been the case. Okay, all of this may seem boring. Each day I write out a to-do list of what I need to get done, need to remember to do, or actually do that day that I want 'credit' for. This is a look at my activities over the last few days, from Wednesday through Sunday. I had them on to-do lists on my Kindle Scribe. Each day, I write out the agenda to keep my day in some semblance of order and then tick off the tasks as I do them. Remarkably, Amazon's algorithm can (mostly) read my handwriting and transcribe it into text; I just had to clean it up a little. So I'm keeping busy with a lot of little stuff, plus some posting to Facebook and blogging here. That bike is taking a lot of it, and appointments, plus resting afterwards. I haven't spent all that much time doomscrolling. You'd be surprised at some of the things I'm doing at two weeks out from surgery, probably. I think I did dishes at week one. It is one of my main chores for ages (my roommate cooks, I clean up, for example) and my roommate was so overwhelmed by taking care of me, the animals, and everything else that once he and a friend got the dishwasher working again and he got the backlog taken care of, I was able to do the regular dishes again. If there are more than I can do in just a quick washup and I want to use the dishwasher, I just sit in a chair and do unload/load it. He'd be happy to do it, but it's taken a load off of him, as he's suddenly been having to do everything else of late. I cleaned the bathroom the other day and surprised him. As long as I don't have to stand too long (and I didn't scrub the tub or shower or anything, just hit the important things), I'm fine. Anyway, here we go, plus a page of my handwriting. I think Amazon did a pretty decent job of transcription. I'm mostly staying in my room in the air conditioning (I'm the only one in the house with it, and have been all summer--long story, although there are some pretty high-velocity fans).

Wednesday

• wake up at 7 am
• get dressed, get ready
• telehealth with Kelley
• water plants
• make bed
• update Google Calendar
• update wall calendar
• go to PT
• ROMTech #1
• ROMTech #2
• put on duvet cover
• pack return
• drop return @ post office
• text with K
• post PT update on Facebook
• puzzle |
• watch 'Desperate housewives'@ dinner
• take morning meds
• take eve meds
• take thyroid medicine
• rest as needed |||
• ice as needed |||
• take Tylenol as needed |||
• keep eye on blood sugar
• take insulin if needed
• do finances/balance ledger
• drink water |||| ||||
• wake D
• read email
• do PT exercises

Thursday

• wake up 7:30 am
• get water ||||/ ||||/ |
• take thyroid medicine
• take Tylenol |||
• email Dr Newland
• make bed
• clean bathroom
• wash dishes
• get dressed
• eat breakfast( banana)
• take morning meds
• keep eye on blood sugar
• take insulin if needed (not needed)
• take evening meds
• watch 'Desperate Housewives' @ dinner
• work on blog backlog
• ROMTech # 1
• ROMTech # 2
• ROMTech # 3
• rest as needed |
• ice as needed |
• update tomorrow PT time on calendars
• clean up 'landing area' in room
• take Maunjaro (ER had asked me to delay it till now)
• puzzle ||||
• turn on/off plant light
• listen to music (Shinedown, Ella Fitzgerald, Rag'n'Bone Man station)
• word game |||
• fix aromatherapy diffuser/run it
• do PT exercises
• read email

Friday

• wake up 7 am 
• get water ||||
• put up bags (plastic)
• put up salt + pepper
• put up cup
• put up bags (reusable)
• put up dish items
• put up toilet paper
• put up paper towels
• cut up damaged apples (bad cat!)
• make coffee
• wake roommate
• get dressed
• turn plant light on/off
• run aromatherapy diffuser
• make bed
• listen to music
• take thyroid medicine
• take Tylenol |||
• take morning meds
• keep an eye on blood glucose
• more items from walker to purse
• blog
• put Tylenol from store run away
• go to PT which = ROMTech #1
• turn off battery pack for white rose garland on bed
• read email
• ROMTech #2
• text with J
• care about driving YES!!!
• Call Br
• care Bo
• start car-oil light on
• order pizza
• can Br again
• call Bo again
• have Shabbos dinner
• unload dishwasher
• put away dishes
• load dishwasher
• run dishwasher
• do other dishes (very few)
• take evening meds
• put on new phone case
• put new charger together/try out

Saturday

• wake up 7 am
• take thyroid med
• take Tylenol |||
• put trash bag in container
• launder clothes
• make coffee
• wake roommate
• get dressed
• caffeinate
• listen to Shinedown
• ROMTech# 1
• check email
• check Facebook
• breakfast (apple slices)
• keep an eye on blood sugar
• take morning insulin (both types 20 units)
• turn plant light on/off
• let dogs out/in (carefully)
• rest/elevate leg after exercise
• clean houseeshoes
• run aromatherapy infuser
• take morning meds
• have lunch (baked potato)
• take nap
• read 'Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes'
• ROMTech# 2
• clean out left bedside table drawers
• check Havdalah time.
• ROMTech# 3
• blog Rabbi Kleinbaum's drash
• puzzle
• fold laundry
• put laundry way
• call Chandler pharmacy and cancel insulin autofill
• switch over to Ella Fitzgerald for music
• elevate leg ||
• put on cover screen protector
• do PT exercises
• watch 'Desperate Housewives' @ dinner (sandwich)

Sunday

• wake up 630 am
• take thyroid medicine
• scan news/email/Facebook
• caffeinate
• make coffee
• wake roommate
• listen to Shinedown
• finances
• rest 930-10 an
• turn on/off plant light
• ROMTech #1
• rest/stretch 1030-1230
• take Tylenol
• clean air conditioner filters
• keep an eye on blood sugar
• eat breakfast (banana)
• make bed
• get dressed
• do PT exercises
• ROMTech #2
• take morning meds
• puzzle ||
• ROMtech #3
• listen to audiobook ('Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?')
• ROMTech #4
• eat lunch (sandwich/apple)
• dinner (fish, rice, salad, watermelon)
• watch 'Desperate Housewives' @ dinner
• ROMTech #5
• unload dishwasher
• load dishwasher
• run dishwasher
• wash dishes in sink
• leave pot to soak
• clean stove
• listen to Ella Fitzgerald on speaker via computer
• charge phone, watch, earbuds, speaker
• take eve meds
• take pain med 'cause pain = couldn't sleep

There you go. That's my life in minutiae right now. Is it boring? Oddly, no. Should it be? I'm not sure. I'm starting to have blocks of time I can fill with other things. Audiobooks are looking like a plan. I'm open to other suggestions, as well. :) Today, for example, I have no appointments, and I am only going to do the bike three times, and wait to start until a little later in the day, maybe noon.

Argggh!!!! Oww!

I may have overdone it. I went from a pain of 1 or 2 directly after doing the bike to about a 6 or 7 about an hour or so later. After three and a half hours of lying in bed in pain, unable to sleep, debating, given that I can drive but do not have a working car and do not have prospects for fixing it soon, I finally took something stronger than Tylenol and fell asleep. Now, six hours later, I'm still a little sore, especially in my knees, hips, legs, and buttocks. Five sessions are just too much for me, although I know my roommate was very proud of me for hitting the magic number. I'll stick with my normal three; it seems to work well, four if I'm really feeling it. Peter, my physical therapist, said to count PT as a session, so definitely no more than three those days.

PS, I have also made peace with the fact that I cannot adjust the pedals all the way. There are six settings outward. I can do four and still pedal. I have made it to five briefly on passive, but cannot pedal actively and certainly not on resistance with it. I have not even tried six. I am 5'3". My knees only go so far. It occurred to me that this machine is built for people of all sizes, and I am on the lower end. I must make peace with that.

Yipee!!!!!

I finished right before midnight but I got all five, count them, five sessions of the ROMTech bike in today! Finally! Go me!

ROMTech is my master...

Doing my bike. I'm supposed to do five sessions a day. I haven't managed to do more than four and average three, but the therapist with ROMTech said that was okay. The only thing required by insurance is to start within 48 hours of being released from the hospital, so that happened. The computer is basically a Samsung Galaxy tablet. It is programmed to take you through about five different types of scenery, alpine village, country woods, primitive woods, desert and paddleboat on the sea. The one below is the country lane through the woods. This is my view while I'm doing my therapy. If you look carefully, you can see there is a paper wasp nest in the window I've been watching. It's small and in between the window and the screen, which was broken years ago by a cat, so we don't open it. I'll include a larger picture of the nest, and also what Google has to say about them. I put it on a group on Facebook and got over 1,4000 reactions and 600 comments, which is the most I've ever gotten for anything. I think you can imagine most of them had to do with getting rid of the wasps. We're going to wait and see. It won't be that long till autumn, and it's pretty small. In the meantime, I'm enjoying watching them. I've had a thing for insects ever since I was a kid. Yes, even the more annoying ones. But they don't get aggressive unless you come after their nest.

Up

at 5:30 am just as my roommate went to bed. Neither of us has the best sleeping ability on a good day, both of us deal with insomnia. My problem, I think, is while I went to bed fairly early, i had quite a bit of pain and had trouble sleeping, so I finally broke down and took some medicine, which messes with my sleep cycle, melatonin or not. Besides, I'm used to getting up between 5:30-6:30 for work still.

So here I am, my light alarm clock just coming on. I should probably get on the bike. But no, that is not happening this early.

Before I went to bed, I made my first actual to-do list since my surgery. It goes something like this:

• do morning PT exercises
• brush teeth/clean up
• get dressed
• take morning meds
• do internet jigsaw puzzle #1 in morning [https://www.jigsawexplorer.com/]
• listen to music
• return a text from a friend in Cicero, Illinois
• ride ROMTech bike #1 (8:00 am)
• read from book about public libraries
• get my friend to take my hamper of dirty clothes out to the washer
• do my laundry
• blog, including back entries where I never mentioned doing this surgery [I am so behind; I haven''t posted since June. I have kept this blog since October of 2001.]
• ice!
• stay ahead of the pain
• remember to use the knee brace on the non-operant (right) knee since I keep forgetting
• ride ROMTech bike #2 (10:30 am)
• set up bill pay to pay rent/grocery fund
• ride ROMTech #3 (1:00 pm)
• do puzzle #2 for the afternoon
• eat lunch
• do midday PT exercises
• return a missed phone call from yesterday
• have friend bring me the clean clothes in a hamper
• fold the clean clothes [these include the linens for Sabbath dinner tomorrow]
• ride ROMTech # 4 (3:30pm)
• do puzzle #3 for the evening
• ride ROMTech # 5 (6:00 pm)
• eat dinner
• watch episodes 1 and 2 of season 2 of 'Desperate Housewives'
• take evening meds
• do nightly PT exercises

It's not what I would call thrilling, but it'll keep me occupied. 🙂 I'm going to try something new tomorrow and cut the time in between the ROMTech sessions from three hours to 1.5 in an effort to get them knocked out in a reasonable time. We'll see. That may be too much at once. But I don't have any appointments tomorrow. If you're wondering why I am doing laundry rather than my roommate, there is a perfectly non-logical story involving oaths to long-dead relatives about that going back over two decades that I won't get into but suffice to say that I am perfectly capable of putting clothes in and out of a washer and dryer, especially if I open the other utility room door (I don't normally bother, I just open the dryer and pull things out by kind of leaning over, but there is a bolt that goes into the floor where the door in front does actually swing fully open so you have full access). I just can't carry at the moment. Actually, my clothes are in a rolling cart, but still....I'll ask him to do it, just to be safe.

Okay, it's 6:30 am. I'm not sure if I'm sleepy or no.t. Maybe I should start my day with a little music. Have a lovely morning.

Finally

Got the first session of the day down. Called the ROMTech rep. Apparently they are open from 8 AM-9 PM. Making a mental note about that. 🙂 They don't do the straps anymore because people were stepping out of the pedals without getting out of them and getting hurt. I can't say anything--it's something I might do. He suggested wearing something with a heavier tread, so I did and it was better. Not perfect, I had to stop a couple of times, but much better. The main thing is I finished, and I increased twice. I did have to resist the urge to pedal with my knees out rather than up. I've done that for years. It hurts and it's bad for them, and the whole point is to get height in angle anyway. So I'm trying to watch my form while making sure the machine doesn't slide forward. I need to brace it with something about a foot long.

Also, I am itching where my nerve catheter was and trying so hard to resist scratching. I'm hoping it'll settle down once I get a shower. Roommate's not up yet so that's for later. One productive thing I did manage to do earlier today was water all the plants. IT was going on three weeks and they hadn't been watered by surgery day, and I was worried some might die. One was very peaked--it's a peperomia that acts a canary in a coal mine. Anyway, I got everyone taken care of.

I think I will rest a little now and listen to some music, maybe make a list for the day. I do better with lists, but I'm a bit tired. That machine takes '12' minutes' but it's really something like 45, and then about another half-hour or 45 minutes of plotzing. Then it's time for the next one, it seems.

A-hah!

Well, that took care of part of the problem...since there are the two stop signs, I suspect she pointed to the other one and I thought she meant the physical one for both. Also, mine did not come with straps. Maybe I could get them sent to me? Thank you, VALOR Medical Solutions. 🙂

Frustration

It's been really dreary outside, and I've been listening to Ella Fitzgerald on Pandora, so I haven't done much more than my regular PT exercises, taken my meds (well, I'm working on that right now), dealt with the pump (only because it was necessary) and ate a banana. I'm ready to crawl back into bed. I have not done the ROMTech after the frustration of last night. I did not finish my fourth session or attempt my fifth one...instead I need to see if they're open on Sundays and they can help as my feet keep falling out of the pedals whenever we increase the pedal radius. I kept hitting the stop button but it would reset the session and I would lose my progress instead of starting back up so I know I'm doing something wrong. Unfortunately there is nothing on the machine or the website that is the same as the setup instructions given by the rep, just a specifications document on the machine and a brochure for why you have your doctor prescribe it. I may just Google it for YouTube or such rather than rely on the company, but really, not all of us process auditorily well. Why not just give a stupid information sheet, either on paper or online? Have they never heard of a FAQ? But I do want the acetaminophen to kick in before I start that, so maybe 10?

Oy vey

3rd session - forest. Last time I stayed awake afterwards but supine. This time I'm going to try to sit up. Next time is 8 PM.

Desert!

Just did my second session on the the range of motion machine this time the background was a desert scene rather than the Alpine village from this morning. I used to really bike through the desert when I lived in the Mojave. So it was nice. It's a 12-minute workout, 10 passive, 2 active. The first one put me out for most of the next three hours with some ice and a little pain increase. But I'm hoping to do better the second time. But I do have to lie down and elevate and ice my leg. I plan to hey back up and do things. Really. I did eat some cottage cheese and challah afterwards. That's in top of my banana breakfast. I don't reach much when I'm at home, don't get very hungry,

Also, Itook my next dose of Mounjaro to get back on track after surgery. I had to stop mine a week ahead. I stopped it 2 weeks out. IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP FOR USERS OF GLP-1 DRUGS such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, please realise that these medications work by slowing the emptying of the stomach, and therefore if your are sedated for any reason, you can aspirate and choke to death or get a form of pneumonia, either of which can kill you. As a result hospitals and other centres that sedate will not do so if you've taken one within one week. I knew this, but forgot before my colonoscopy and was given the option to reschedule and redo the prep or do it unsedated. I chose the latter. A surgery would have had to be rescheduled completely, though, so yes, I went two weeks out.😊

Three days till surgery

This deserves the full-screen treatment, not merely a widget. Sigh. I'm not sleeping. There seems to be so much to do, even with all the prep, and I'm overwhelmed, and I know that's just my mind talking, because actually, I'm in decent shape. I fell asleep at 4 am, though. I wish I'd taken Monday and Tuesday off, but I didn't. I work up to 4 pm on Tuesday. The only reason I'm leaving a half hour earlier than normal is that they're delivering a range of motion machine that Dr Talwalkar prescribed at 5 PM, and I have to be there because they need to do a teaching demo for the daily therapy sessions online. I've been doing all the laundry this weekend except my bedding, which I'll do Tuesday, so I'll go straight into clean bedding from the cleansing you do the night before surgery. Otherwise, I'm gonna to do some practising with the stairs and my bed, my PT exercises, get my room in order, test or ask the assistive aids and the cold therapy machine. I also want to get a haircut today and return my old phone (I upgraded from my Samsung Galaxy Flip4 to a Flip7 for the cost of taxes and activation fee with half a terabyte of storage... I couldn't pass it up.) And of course, there's my Sunday chores, which I won't be doing for a while. That's enough for today, isn't it?