Good-bye to an Old Friend

Ding dong, the CPM is dead! Or to tweak Al Pacino’s famous quote from Scarface, “Say good-bye to my little friend!” Real quick: have you ever seen an athlete’s or rapper’s house on MTV’s Cribz without a Scarface poster? Yeah, me neither.

Over the past 8 weeks, I spent more time with this machine than with my wife or kids. 6-8 hours/day. Brutal. I didn’t want to return the CPM; I wanted to blow it up. Anyway, I no longer needed the CPM once my knee reached a certain flexion. Here's a picture of my leg in the CPM.

My quest for normalcy continues to creep along. With Christina’s blessing, I graduated from Driver’s Ed and got my license last week. I’m back on the roads with no restrictions. So far, I haven’t run over any cats like my friend, Lori, did. I also started taking showers standing up. I’m much cleaner now. I kinda miss my shower seat, however. There’s something comforting about sitting down in the shower. Try it some time. I guess I’ve got something to look forward to when I hit 90.

I’m still wearing the knee brace. I meet again with my surgeon in 2 weeks. Hopefully it’ll come off. But as I’ve learned the hard way already, I’m not counting on it. I think my knee’s ready to handle it; I’m just waiting on the osteotomy to fully heal. Frankly, that’s a bit frustrating because I’ve got no control over how the bone heals. You can’t rehab a bone wedge.

The Simple Things in Life

The expression, “sometimes it’s the little things that matter most,” is particularly true when it comes to recovering from ACI surgery. After spending most of the initial recovery period completely dependent on others, I savored the chance to do normal stuff on my own again. Over the past week, I accomplished several things functioning adults might snicker at, but to me rank right up there with the birth of my children. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I am extremely proud of what I did this past week.

• For the first time in 6 ½ weeks, I actually walked without crutches. I only made it a few steps, but it felt great to walk on my own. My knee tired quickly, and remains somewhat unstable, so I need to keep the crutches nearby. But I hope to be walking on my own within the next week, once I regain a little more quad strength. However, I’ll likely have to use the crutches again, at least for a few days, once the brace comes off in 3 weeks. Patients apparently struggle with their balance while adjusting to life without the brace. At that point, I really won’t care about any balance issues; I’ll just be stoked to be out of the brace.

• I put on my own socks and sneakers. Yup, you read that right. Now that I can bend my knee, I can dress myself. I’m starting to feel like a grown-up again.

• I went to the gym for the first time this year. I rode the exercise bike for about 20 minutes, and then did my leg raises in the stretching area. I was only there for 30 minutes, but it felt nice to be back at the gym. I’m a creature of habit, so regular trips to the gym should help me regain some of the normalcy I lost during my recovery.

• I showered by myself. I still need Christina’s help getting the brace back on afterwards, but I no longer need her to remain outside the shower to help out. It would’ve been more fun if she could’ve joined me inside the shower, but the shower chair isn’t sturdy enough for two people. Heheheheh…

Finally, some quick political commentary. Obama’s crew made the talk show rounds this weekend, trumpeting the success of the “bi-partisan” stimulus bill. Really? Convincing 3 Senators and 0, repeat, zero, Congressman now counts as bi-partisan? Frankly, I'm no economic genius, soI have no insight on whether the Republican suggestions should've been included in the bill. I was just disappointed to see Obama’s team adopt the Baghdad Bob spin playbook. Please, Obama, stop peddling this “bi-partisan” crap to the public. You’re supposed to be better than this. Just state the facts, your best argument, and move on. Claiming 3/200 Republican votes counts as “bi-partisan” is sure-fire way to damage your credibility. Remember, when you insist on spinning something not even Hollywood PR folks can do with a straight face, all that trust built up over the past 2 years will disappear faster than Rush Limbaugh’s OxyContin pills.

Random Musings

I’ve got a couple of un-related things to share. Actually, they’re all related to my bum knee, but that’s pretty obvious at this point. I just can’t combine them in the same neat, packaged story as my previous posts, and alone they aren’t worthy of “feature” status as a stand-alone blog entry. But they’re still important enough (relatively, of course; “everything in life is relative” is one of my favorite expressions) that I wanted to share them.

• Fierce independence – On Thursday I continued my series of “firsts.” I got in and out of the bed on my own for the first time. I brushed my teeth in my own sink for the first time (previously Christina had brought a toothbrush and cup of water to bed). I used the grown-up potty for the first time (though I missed my urinal bottle, which is frightening). Later that day, I used the Cadillac of toilet seat risers for my first poop. I’m not sure which was odder – dumping on an elderly crapper without incident, or going 8 days between poops. And, drumroll please, I showered for the first time. Major adventure. I had to disrobe before crutching from the bed to the shower. There’s nothing more humiliating than naked crutching. We inserted a shower seat in the middle of the shower, held down by special adhesive bubbling. The seat is basically a white, plastic bench about as tall as a desk chair. There’s a red handle on the side furthest away from the shower head. I sat on the seat facing the shower door, with my left side closest to the shower head, using my right hand to grip the handle and leverage my bum knee. Getting into the shower was difficult. The doorway is fairly narrow, there’s a slight step up into the shower, and the shower seat is 1 foot away from the shower entrance. The placement alone is difficult to maneuver to, but then I’ve got to do it going sideways and backwards, on a potentially slippery surface, while keeping my right leg – which is encased in a multiple hefty bags to keep dry – elevated, and avoid banging it against things. This easily could be an Olympic sport. The shower itself was uneventful, though I felt bad for Christina because she had to sit just outside the shower, holding my right leg just off the ground. I did the best job possible. I still stink, but I’ll no longer turn heads. I figure I did no worse cleaning myself than little kids.

• Recurrence of shin pain. For the first time since Day 2, my osteotomy hurt. Perhaps the pain was a gentle reminder that I pushed myself too much during the day. Whatever the reason, I realized that life really sucks when your shin throbs uncontrollably.

• Home PT. With Christina’s help, I completed my first round of home exercises. After postponing the start of PT an hour or so because my shin hurt, we removed the knee brace on our own for the first time. Christina was more nervous handling my heavily bandaged knee than holding our oldest child as a newborn. We should’ve stuck on my leg a large “FRAGILE” sticker.