Sweet Sweat Rain

This weekend was marked by several outings: shopping at Weggies and Targét, a failed attempt to go to Stellar Stereo, a delicious dinner at Pangea, and a trip to the pictures. The flip side of these outings is that the muntins of my windows feel more than ever like bars. I want out.

It is always good to have a place to channel aggression somewhere harmless, or even better, somewhere productive. Recall that exercise bike? Well, today I managed 30mins and a good sweat in a 59F room. I broke a sweat on track 7 of the Sex Pistol's "Seventeen". As I enjoyed the feeling I noticed them belting out the lyrics... "I'm a lazy sod". Ha! The youth of 1977 I thought. I, on the other hand am working out and enjoying the sweat as if it were warm summer rain. This is probably more than you wanted to know so I'll put the ice-pack for my knee back in the freezer and take a shower.

Putting on the miles

I've been missing exercise, missing the kind of work that makes one sweat. Now, thanks, to John I can bike to my heart's content (leg willing) in the comfort of my living room.


Jim and Kata helped me set the bike up yesterday. I found that I can't hold my usual road bike posture so we had to turn up the handlebars in just the same way that all the cool kids did at high school (that didn't include me). Looking at the photo I think I should be mindful of my back... looks rather too rounded there. Anyway, did about 15mins both yesterday and today and it feels good. I haven't yet managed to break out into a sweat but I'm not far off.

Sticking my neck out

Hot on the heels of my Monday orthopedic checkup, Tuesday was neuro day. X-rays of my neck in a neutral position, bent forward and bent backward all showed that the chip on C3 moves with the rest of the bone. From this, and the time since injury, it is inferred that the chip is now connected with the main part of the bone which is good. Various other tolerances were checked and are also fine, so I got the go-ahead to ditch the neck brace. Hurrah!

That was two days ago and I am delighted to report that life without a cast or neck brace is better than with. My wrist still feels very weak but is improving. I spent most of yesterday with it out of the soft brace. I'm doing my best to use my right leg at the appropriate weight bearing level as I walk around -- just about to go to the scale to calibrate myself to the feeling of 56lbs for today.

...and the sun is shining.

On to more weighty issues

News from my orthopedic checkup yesterday was good. I have lost the cast on my left forearm (where did I put it...?) and now have just a removable wrist brace. No more plastic bag in the shower, no more stinky dead skin in the cast. I had a long soaking and scrubbing session to clean up the forearm and wrist, and it looks quite respectable now. Instructions are to work on mobility and then strengthen.

For the leg I'm told that all is staying in place nicely and the lack of any pain is a good sign. Instructions are to start at 40lbs and then gradually increase weight bearing to full over the next 4 weeks. By my calculation, this means the following weight bearing schedule:

26Feb   40lbs
27Feb   45lbs
28Feb   50lbs
 1Mar   56lbs
 2Mar   61lbs
 3Mar   66lbs
 4Mar   71lbs
 5Mar   76lbs
 6Mar   81lbs
 7Mar   87lbs
 8Mar   92lbs
 9Mar   97lbs -- Can stand with weight evenly distributed
10Mar  102lbs
11Mar  107lbs
12Mar  113lbs
13Mar  118lbs
14Mar  123lbs
15Mar  128lbs
16Mar  133lbs
17Mar  138lbs
18Mar  144lbs
19Mar  149lbs
20Mar  154lbs
21Mar  159lbs
22Mar  164lbs
23Mar  169lbs
24Mar  175lbs
25Mar  180lbs
26Mar  185lbs

Now all I have to do is adjust my diet so that 185lbs actually is full weight bearing on 26 March. All this sitting about and eating is not good for my waistline.

Quantifiable progress

Maximum right knee bend angle measured at 102 degrees on Monday, 112 degrees today. This is good. Also no pain medications for the past 5 days.

The real question is what news I'll get from my orthopedic appointment on Monday and my neurosurgeon appointment on Tuesday. I'm hoping for removal of hard cast on the wrist, and bone growth in the leg on Monday. On Tuesday it would be good to ditch the neck brace. We shall see.

Sauna expedition

The sight of my sauna, 30 meters away across the snowy garden, has been a little frustrating over the last week. It needs to be used when there is snow about, and the use is better if I am among those sweating. Last night this problem was addressed.

There was, of course, just one small problem: I can't walk over that 30m to get to the sauna as I have a broken leg. I can't even get there with my walker because the ground is uneven and covered in 5 inches of crusty snow. Friends to the rescue! I hobbled outside with the walker (again using the half steps that Polar made), enough to get off the deck to the edge to the snow.

I then lowered myself onto a plastic sled while Leslie held the walker steady to avoid any mishaps. It seemed important to keep the leg in the mending, rather than re-broken, state.

Leslie, Jonas, Laura and Polar then hauled the sled across the garden to the threshold of the sauna. I thank them for not letting go and sending me out-of-control down the driveway, that would have been bad. I then maneuvered myself in and onto the bench, sat and sweated.

Cook until lightly roasted, and reverse. Ahhh!

The phone company loves me

It just so happens that the start of my phone billing cycle was the day before my accident. I just got the bill for the month following and instead of the usual couple of hundred minutes, it seems I was on the phone for 1,905 minutes last month! That is over 31 hours or a little under 5% of the month. Yikes.

One other news... it is warm and sunny here, the ice is melting and the snow sinking away. Noises of snow sloughing off my roof are sometimes quite eerie.