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Saturday, December 22, 2007

I'm dreaming of a lame Christmas!

As if things aren't challenging enough doing extensive shopping solo with a bum knee, I got news my father-in-law tore his hamstring earlier this week. He's being taken care of by the same orthopaedic clinic as I am, so that gives me a good feeling having experienced some top-quality care myself from that place. We're gonna be quite a pair of lame guys come Christmas!

Got a letter off to insurance from Dr. K regarding the allograft option, plan to pound on them hard to put it through during the short work week coming up. I suppose I could have kept quiet, but with this kind of expense I wanted to avoid surprise charges after the procedure.

I'm hopeful to be driving within 2 weeks of surgery, but that all comes down to PT and the doc's OK. If I can't, then I may look into working remotely from home or coming up with some kind of taxi arrangement. Fortunately it's a mighty slow time of year, so I don't expect things would back up much if I extended my winter vacation a bit longer.

My wife, God bless her soul, is really having fun playing in the snow with the new snowblower. Still, the sidewalks have a lot of ice on 'em from under the snow, so it's gonna be tricky navigating for a while.


On the surgical front, this is the last 24 hours pre-op I'm allowed to have any kind of blood thinner, such as Tylenol, ibuprofen, or aspirin. Just gotta keep calm the next week and a half, and use ice packs for any headaches!

If I don't post during the upcoming holiday, may all of you reading this enjoy a most peaceful and happy Christmas, a glorious celebration of the lights of Chanukah, an introspective and solemn Ramadan, or a boisterous, festive Kwanzaa.

Whatever your mid-winter celebration, enjoy!

3 comments:

Bob M said...

Hack, I hope I'm wrong, but if it's your right knee that's getting the surgery, then two weeks until driving may be optimistic, since that's the leg you use for driving. You might want to ask your doctor--I'm no expert, you may be fine driving that soon.

Hack Shaft said...

Bob, yes it is my right knee. I'm eternally optimistic until the truth puts me in my place!

Things could be worse--all our cars are manual transmissions, and I could be trying to clutch with a bum left knee. Having experienced that with a sprained left ankle in the past, it's far more effort than goes into accelerating and braking!

The son of friends at church was reportedly driving his manual Porsche 8 days after surgery. As you well know, I'll just have to see exactly what I can trust my body to do.

Blackbeltmama said...

Hi there,

Mine is my left knee. I'm not allowed to drive until I can comfortably get to 90 degrees flexion. I'm almost there (not the comfortable part) and they still told me 1-2 weeks. They told me it would have been 4-6 if it had been my right leg. I'd look into the taxi. ;-)

Also, just so you know, I was allowed to take tylenol up to the day of surgery. Tylenol doesn't thin the blood. Just stay away from ibuprofen and aspirin.