Your Life Safe and Sound

  Saturday, it's been a big day.  I went to the range first thing, only one other shooter there.  Then  I went and got adjusted, boy did my back make some noise!  The best part is that I felt better right away.  My knee has been really stiff for the last few days, and right away it felt better.  I am always amazed how adjusting your back affects all parts of you body.  I have to make that a weekly part of my life, I just do.    I went back to work at LaSalle thursday, mostly testing and paperwork thursday and friday, the outage and the real work starts Monday.  I get to stay on day shift, 7-7 for a week or so.  It sure feels good to be back.  It was still hard to walk a lot, and the stairs are still tough, mostly I think I'm just not used to being active for so long.  I keep telling people that it's a work in progress, I guess that's for me too.  I want to be able to just step back in and do well, but I'm willing to work up to it.  I'm fortunate to be surround

  Wednesday.  Today was the last day of PT, I'm going back to work tomorrow! I am excited, not nervous.  It's a scaffold job at the LaSalle nuclear plant, it typically lasts 6-8 days, so by next weekend I'll probably be laid off.  I figured with all the other people there, and it is a nuke plant, the work won't be that hard, and it should be a good job to go back to work after the surgery.   All the exercises I've been doing have gone up in weight, I feel like I'm stronger, and the bones don't hurt.  I still have some pain/discomfort when I kneel, I definitely don't have the range of motion to comfortably kneel yet.  Going down stairs is still tough, I just don't feel strong, or confident enough at that yet.  I'm anticipating that getting back to work will help restore some of the normal motion and activity range that I am used to.  I really want to get back to living my life, and not always being in pain.  I've been off one more week than

  Tuesday, another cloudy, cold day, but it is another day.  PT yesterday was tough.  They had me doing some new exercises, I thought I was in ballet class.  Walk on just your toes, down and back.  Walk on just your heels, down and back.  The toe part was weird, but ok.  I almost couldn't walk on just my heels, without touching your toes to the ground.  Then the stool scoot.  I still don't know how to do that.  I can't get enough traction it seems like.  I guess I just can't bend my knees enough to get my foot planted enough to get traction.  After all that, man did my feet hurt.    My right knee is still really sore at night.  I stopped taking the prescription pain pills last week, only using Advil and Tylenol, and not very much of that.  I guess I need to take more at night.  I'm thinking about trying the heating pad tonight, maybe that will do it.    I'm trying to sleep without my feet up on a pillow, maybe that's part of it.  I just can't do it for

  Saturday, it snowed last night, and it sure is pretty out there.  Warm, wet, slushy, not fun to shovel snow out there, I'm glad those boys of mine like to shovel snow.   After PT yesterday, I think I ended up measuring 110 degrees of flexion and 4 degrees of extension.  New world record, for me anyway.  For the first time while she was measuring the extension, I could feel my leg actually stretching, straightening out as I tried to get as much as possible.  They had me use the hip machine, and a couple other exercises I haven't done before, today I feel sore in all new places. 

  Thursday.  Wow, it's been 10 days?  I guess the whole 30 days makes a habit doesn't work with me.  The recovery is coming along, I'm trying to not take any prescription pain pills anymore, just using Advil and Tylenol.  Tomorrow will be the first PT day like that, I'm not really sure how that will go.    I start back to work  2 weeks from today, February 6th at LaSalle nuclear station.  There area a few nuclear refuel outages this spring, LaSalle, Byron, Quad, and then Braidwood.  Braidwood ends in early May, and these are not without breaks in between, but pretty close.  I'm thinking these will be the best way to go back to work after surgery.  I haven't called the panel company yet, maybe I should do that for later in the year.  I hear about work at Citgo, and the peaker plant that's being built in Elwood, who knows what will happen next.   My PT progress is going ok according to Jessica, I think the last measurements were 105 and 11 degrees.  That&#

  Monday, stinkin Monday.  There are an awful lot of memes out there about Mondays.  I used some heat packs this morning for the first time today.  I put them in the velcro wrap around my knee for the drive to PT this morning.  My knee felt nice and warm when I arrived, and I got the bike to go around right off the bat.  I did spend a minute back and forth after that just to get moving, but that is the best start so far.    They had me do the testing against the machine, some testing against a computer connected machine to gauge my progress, I did the same testing in the beginning.  I'm not sure how much you really learn from this stuff, there seems to be an awful lot of subjectivity involved.  I know everyone needs some quantifiable way to measure my progress.  Saying that everything is harder or easier doesn't help I guess.   The measurements of flexion and extension are better overall, but I feel like I may have reached the limits, at least until I go back to work and ge

  Sunday   Well, I've sort of let this slip haven't I?  I'm not sure what happened, but here we are.  Physical therapy wise, I think it's been an overall positive week.  I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere, albeit very slowly.  I think the best measurements were on Wednesday, 110 and 4 after warm ups.  Friday was a cold, rainy day, and the changing weather has a real effect on me.  Pain and stiffness keeps much bending from happening.  I think when we measured after a really good stretch and work out, it was about the same.  I can usually get the bike to go around after 4 or 5 minutes of warm up, and I started using the leg extension machine.  Functionally I feel like I'm getting better, but I'm still having a hard time just standing for a long period.  Moving around, walking, stairs, etc is all good, standing still, not so much.  Still working mostly on extension, my hamstrings and all those tendons, etc are really being stubborn.    I think the j