Knee Update

Right, so I realise it's been a while since I've done a update on my knee so here goes. In summary - all is going alright. Not fantastic but good.

There is still quite a bit of fluid which is limits my range of motion. I'm allowed to take my brace off when I'm at home or just around the office but still have to wear it in public or when I sleep. But I've become more ruthless with my physio as I'm past the point of caring and just want it to get better.

My physio is limited to 6 different exercises focusing on muscle strength in my quad and hamstring, but the thing that is really limiting me is the range of motion (hence the new approach). I can tell my physio isn't too happy about the lack of progress, so am taking the approach that as long as it doesn't hurt after I do the physio it should be all right.

I'm seeing the physio once a week and will see the surgeon next week - so hopefully I'll hear that all is going well.

On the work front things have been busy, busy, busy with me doing the work of a couple people until a new team member joins me. But I'm doing some really cool stuff which is exciting.

There are a couple other updates - Spain and Aroma festival on the weekend - but am completely knackered so will blog about those later.

Quick Trip to Melbourne

As a reward for a good year my team was flown to Melbourne for a day of some business and lots of play. After an early flight 6:20 AM we made our way to central Melbourne and a conference centre at Federation Square (think Trafalgar Square but in Melbourne).

During the day we were able to hear from the curator of the Tim Burton exhibit which is in town from the MOD in NY. After the talk we were allowed to go visit the exhibit which included many drawings, models, pieces and film strips from his variety of movies. While that type of thing is typically just up my alley - it's winter holidays for the schools so the exhibit was packed with kids and I was more afraid of getting a good bump and being knocked over. (My brace makes it easy to walk straight but any kind of sideways movement is increasingly more difficult.)

Later in the day we had an even more fascinating talk from Professor Mark Barry who is the architect working to finish the Sagrada de Familia in Barcelona. Now to provide the back story - I loved, LOVED this building and this architect when I was in Barcelona. He thinks so off the wall and creates things which you will never see anywhere else. Professor Barry spoke about how he is trying to work to determine what the original plan was for the building and then spoke about how they are going about putting that into place. With some of the modeling they are doing they are actually using aeronautical engineering programs.

The current schedule is for the Pope to officially open the main space of the church in November of this year, however there is a large central spire which isn't completed so the full building won't be completed until 2016 or so...

An inside picture of the church

After the day we had a great night out on the town only to realise that we were staying in one of the best hotels in the city. While we were sharing, the rooms were still absolutely amazing. We had a large bathtub which had a TV and windows to the outside. If only we weren't sharing rooms it would have been a great way to end a drunken night. :)

The Park Hyatt in Melbourne

I am now trying to figure out when I might be able to do another short trip. I'm trying to crunch the financials to see if I can make it to Spain for the holidays... but right now the potential outlook of being out of a large part of my debt by then is very appealing. Hopefully I'll be able to find a way to pinch some cash somewhere to make it happen.

After coming back yesterday I've had a relaxing and productive weekend. I finally bough a deck brush to clean the balcony - which was looking more like part of the bird's home than mine. I've also bought some paints and finally have an idea of what I want to paint for my living room and potentially my bedroom. :) Tonight I'm going to dinner at my friend Gloria's place, so will be trekking back to Kingsford - then it's back to work I go.

The Drama that is My Life

Oh where to start. I guess my knee is an obvious place to start.

Things with my knee are going well - my surgeon was happy with progress and said he'd didn't need to see me for another month and that I'm in the hands of my physio. This was good news to my physio who was bit daunted by the initial list of very prescriptive directions my surgeon provided. I'm still doing the initial set of lying down exercises but have started doing a series of lunges and other exercises to start getting the strength back in my muscle.

I'm no longer using my crutches and am able to walk around home without my brace on - which is awesome!! I can't wait to have the brace off. My new nickname at work varies between Robo Cop and the Bionic Woman depending on who it is (personally I prefer bionic woman). Oh well - at least I'm making progress and slowly getting back to it. Now I just can't wait for the wounds to heal so that I can get back into the pool - or once I have 100 degrees of bend and can ride a stationary bike.

Now to the drama with my now old flatmate... So I thought everything was all good with my flatmate, however things got a bit weird. Following a couple of small things that just didn't sit right he told me on a Tuesday night that he had just signed a new lease and would be moving out on Saturday (4 days!). He then proceeded to demand his full bond in return, regardless of if I was able to find someone to move in following his timeline. After telling him in so many words that he wasn't getting his full bond back and wouldn't be getting a penny till I received the bond from the new flatmate - he proceeded to take the keys hostage after he moved out.

I've now changed the locks and now have a new flatmate who has just moved in today. She is really nice and I think will be a much better fit.

This has all be going on while I've been completely drained with my first week back to work, so I've been exhausted on all fronts. Hopefully things will settle down a bit in the next couple weeks and I can focus on getting my knee back to normal. Fingers crossed!!

Progress is Slow but it's still Progress

It is now Day 5 after my surgery and progress is slow but somewhat steady. The swelling continues to go down, however my knee is still quite large. The oh so important range of motion is getting a bit better. I have a couple exercises to work on this but what I can do is mainly move my leg as far as I can until the swelling makes it uncomfortable.

The maximum I can do for my exercise to pull my heel up as far as I can along the floor

The weather has been amazing (60 degrees and cloudless skies) so we've been trying to get out to the local park when we can to soak up a bit of vitamin D. When we're not doing that we're confined to my flat and have been playing a number of games - Uno, Scrabble, and Battleship have been the main games so far.

One thing I find a bit weird is that I was prescribed more anti-inflammatory drugs than pain killers... so when I go to the doctor next week I'm going to have to ask about that. Its not that the pain has been all that bad during the day, but at night it's a killer as I have a whole 3 or 4 positions I can sleep in since I have to wear my brace, so the pain just compounds the uncomfortable factor.

From the surgeons instructions it looks like I'll be in the brace for at least 6 more weeks and potentially with the crutches for nearly as long. I'm not too excited about the prospect of this, but it is what it is and I guess all I can do is be a good little patient and try to beat the odds and get better quickly.

First Full Day back from Surgery

The surgery went well. I was ve ry impressed at the efficiency and care that the hospital had. Granted I was the first surgery of the day for my surgeon, but I 'check in' at noon and by 12:30 I had already met with the anesthesiologist and nurse and was being taken back to put my gown on. Once back in the 'sterile area' my knee was given a Betadine bath and my surgeon came and said hello. Then within 15 minutes I was wheeled to the prep area to have my IVs and initial dose of drugs. The last thing I remember was being wheeled into the theater and asked to shimmy across to the surgical table.

I woke up later with a brace on my leg and it would have been about 3 hours later. The surgery only took about 30 minutes but for some reason that's how long it took me to come to. Once I was awake and alright I was taken to my room in the main hospital area where my mom was able to come see me again.

The pain was pretty intense but I was given a morphine drip with a lovely little button I could push every 5-10 minutes to get another hit. The nurses were recording how much I was taking of the morphine and I think the first hour I pushed the button 16 times but only got 11 pushes of drugs.

Shortly after arriving in the room it was dinner time, to which I was treated a dinner of veal, cooked carrots, green beans, mashed potatoes, a cup of soup, a roll, and a strudel dessert. I was only able to have a couple bites as I was pretty loopy with all the drugs, but I must admit I was pretty impressed with the food.

As I was so exciting and was pretty much just awake for my blood pressure to be taken mom went back to the hotel fairly early and I attempted to sleep. The night was ok aside from being woken up every hour for my blood pressure and the constant beeping of my IV machine.

The other traumatic experience was trying to pee in a bed pan. Now I've debated on whether this should be censored from the blog, however as it was such a weird experience I will leave out the gorey details and stick to the main bit. The main point is that I was unable to get out of bed, but was also told if I didn't pee I would be given a catheter. Now I DID need to pee, but peeing in a bed pan is not exactly comfortable.

Having never been in the hospital I always wondered how the whole bed pan thing works - well essentially the scooted a pan under my bum and then sat me up in the bed and I was expected to pee... while in bed... in a pan. Fortunately for me, after a couple tries, I was able to go because the doctor was about to come in and give me no choice. It is however an experience I don't want to repeat, so am glad to be home and able to hobble to the bathroom when I please.

Alas, I am now home and the swelling in my knee is starting to go down. Here are a couple pictures which taken from my new nesting point to help you get an idea of how big my knee is.

My swollen knee last night
My knee this morning - it's hard to tel but it's not AS swollen
Then there is the massive brace I have to wear when I sleep or walk... I know you're jealous! :)

Picking up the Pen... er the keyboard

My sincere apologies as I realise it has been over a month since my last post. The last month has been a bit of a blur - with taking 2 weeks off to go to my nephew's graduation and now having knee surgery and trying to fit some work in around those two vacations.

For the first two weeks of June I was in the states as my nephew graduated from good old Richland High School - yay Tyler! Tyler is now awaiting further information on when he will begin boot camp and then enter into the air force.

The trip was very relaxing and great as I was able to see friends and family which I literally haven't seen in years. The one thing which is probably blog worthy is the fact that I think I discovered I may be allergic to vodka. This was discovered as two days in a row I turned bright red and splotchy after drinking vodka - with the second day it beginning to travel down my throat. After taking a Benedril and switching to water the red went away... I'm not completely convinced so am planning an at home experiment once I'm off my pain medications to see if it is in fact a vodka allergy. I'll keep you posted. As I'm typically a Jack Daniels or rum girl I'm not too stressed about it, but it is a bit of a bummer.

The only other potential thing to mention is the fact that I had the worst hair cut I've ever had. The girl was trying to give me some extra layers and texture... however she also almost cut me with her scissors - literally! While she was working on the bottom bit of my neck line she somehow managed to snag some skin in her scissors! I was a bit shocked, but she became very flustered and apparently rushed through the rest of the cut as she was so distraught... this ended up with one side of my haircut being an inch longer than the other and there being areas of completely random layers throughout my cut.

Needless to say i went back to have it fixed, however my cut is now a good 4 inches shorter than it originally was. I'm not too stressed because at the end of the day it's hair and will grow back, but am not all that impressed overall and my mother is no longer having her cut her hair.

Today I go into surgery to fix my torn ACL. I 'check in' at the hospital at noon, which means I had to get up at 530 to have my last bits of fluids and food before I start my fast (it's 7:15 and I'm already hungry again). So over the next two weeks I'll have much more time on my hands and will be able to post more updates. My mother has come to Australia to take care of me so it's great to have her here. When I leave the hospital on Thursday I go straight to the physical therapist to get my exercises I'm supposed to do and then the real pain and work begins.

So look forward to more updates over the next couple days as I try to keep myself and my mother busy and entertained.

Beautiful Autumn Days!!

Firstly, let me just clarify - it's not Fall it's Autumn here. This is another one of those words you learn not to mention as it invites all sorts of harassment by anyone willing to give you a jab.

Call it what you want, the weather has been fantastic! This weekend I've been taking my time to do random returns and errands around Sydney. Yesterday I took the train out to Rhodes (aka the home of Ikea) to return some things I decided not to use. But today was the topper. I had to go to Manly to sign a new contract for my appliances and so decided to make a day of it. While Manly beach is known for it's surfing and long sandy beach - it is it's sleepy sibling do the South which I was more interested in. Shelly beach is about 1K south of Manly and is sheltered so there are no waves. But this isn't why I wanted to go to this beach. This is the home to a very nice aquatic reserve which has thousands of fish.

The beach had a bit more people than this but you get the idea :)

Given the swim I did earlier in the year was a dark and stormy day and we weren't able to see anything I wanted to give it another go on a nice day and see how it is. It was AMAZING!!! There were so many fish! Plus the water wasn't too cold.

Initially I started out doing a proper swim until I realised just how many fish there were around me. At which point I slowed down to enjoy a bit more of the scenery... which this was great the cold eventually got to me so I had to get out but it was a fantastic overall. I must admit I will give it another go next weekend if the weather holds up and the water isn't too cold.

Here are a couple of the fish I think I saw...

I think I saw a small Blue Groper

There were literally schools of these swimming around

Here is a picture of the schools and how they'd literally swim right past you

There were some of these too

It is days like this which make it fairly easy for me to say I won't be moving back to the states for a bit longer. :)