Sorry for the lack of posts but life, you know. We’ve been traveling plenty, but primarily to PT appointments. Three times a week, to be exact. It became much more manageable when Amanda started driving a few weeks ago.
She hit the 90-bend mark with her knee, but it took a while. Going down to 2 days a week with PT appointments but then plateaued so she went back to 3. She gained a maximum bend of 109 last week but hasn’t progressed and has gone backward. Our doctor was pretty happy once she hit 90, but 120 is the minimum needed for normal function. She was very flexible before the injury, touching her heel to her butt. So she’d like to see a range beyond 120.
We’ve been talking about manual manipulation lately but finally brought the question up to the physical therapist. This is where they put you under general anesthesia and manually move your knee to break all the scar tissue up to improve range of motion. It’s as rough as it sounds too! Lots of pain, as you would expect, but nothing like having your leg cut into three separate pieces and hardware hammered on, though!
She returns to the orthopedic surgeon today to sign consents and speak with him about it. He’s the type of doctor that’ll leave this decision in our laps as he did with the replacement itself. I feel we know him well enough to say that. The last time we saw him, he’d said stop PT if you want, and I’ll see you a year out from the replacement.
I’m unsure where we’ll fit this into our busy schedule, though. We have a fundraiser we’ll be hosting next weekend for a family near our hearts that has been going through some challenging medical problems of their own. We’re still trying to finish up the remodel on our house as well. It’s also a full-time job taking care of my mother’s place that we inherited on my father’s passing. He always stayed busy around the place; now I know why. The yard alone is a big undertaking; coming from our yard being mostly dirt and leaves over the years, I just haven’t had much of a green thumb! But I have maintained the inherited lawn well and even established a nice front yard at our place. Excuse me while I dust my shoulders off, maybe dads green thumb somehow passed to me!
Besides the lawn, the structure itself requires much upkeep being a late 1800s rock building. It will be much easier to maintain things when we move close by. Once our remodel is finished and we sell our place, we’ll remodel and move into an adjacent 1940s filling station we’ve been using for storage for the last eight years or so.
Needless to say, there hasn’t been much time or funding for any trips lately! I do have our following few tips planned, though. Late August will be the next Colorado mountains again, Pagosa Springs. It should be lovely that time of year, being the beginning of shoulder season, hopefully the crowds we’ll be thinning. After that, a work conference should carry me to Salt Lake in October. From there I’m hoping to make a giant loop up to the Pacific Northwest, down the western seaboard to the Sacramento/San Francisco area, and then back to Salt Lake to fly out unless Amanda convinces me to drive again! It turns out we know a lot of people throughout that loop. So hopefully, we’re able to bounce around and see you all.
I’ll try and be more diligent in posting updates on Amanda’s progress, especially through the manual manipulation procedure. With a bum knee and tons of my own scar tissue, I cringe every time I think about that process!