7th Week Notes

I am afraid there just isn't as much to compare and contrast on recuperation as there was at first. It's tempting to talk instead about the chipmunk that got trapped in the Torrey house for days or maybe weeks, dined on chocolate, slept on the feather pillows, chewed up a third or more of the window screens and apparently tunneled out by chewing through a wood window and squeezing through a quarter inch slot of aluminum. Or maybe something about the strange late summer flower bloom in Torrey. Or something about my first piano lesson. Or the new camera lenses I picked up, or the amazing $20 Galileo telescope developed by the IYA2009 Cornerstone Project (see https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/), or my other 2 telescopes, or even coping with the vigorous diet I'm trying to hold to while being dazzled by the ever more exquisite (cuz I'm hungry?) cooking of K. That would be more interesting, but this blog is not about that.

Speaking of Torrey, however, coming down here yesterday about 18 days after leaving here does profile some progress. I take all the stairs one at a time, that is normally, even with a load of luggage in my hands. The low couches aren't quite as low. I am faster in and out of bed. I am not using a toilet riser. I feel again that another disclaimer is needed. I am not writing this because it is so damned fascinating, but just to keep track of how recuperation goes. Anyway.

I have yet to be able to sleep as well as before the operation. After 10 minutes or so of trying to sleep on my side, and I can lay on either side now, an ache builds up to the point that if I have fallen asleep it wakes me up. But that is getting better slowly. On the upside, on Friday in the gym, with Kirsten and Brian there to keep tabs on me, I let it rip on the elliptical machine to get my heart up near its max of 170. I did that several times. On the downside, the last time I quit because my hip was aching too much and it continued to ache like that for a day and a half. I think I ended up stronger. Tomorrow we want to do a 17 mile bike loop around Torrey that has some pretty good hills. I don't think that will be hard on my hip. It feels like I am getting past the point of tending to the healing cuts and getting to the point of buidling muscle and regaining some flexibility. I am not as flexible as before the surgery yet, but getting close.

My nurse points out that while my pain level hasn't changed a lot lately, my pain management regimen has changed. I am not taking any prescription meds and not even ibuprofen or Tylenol some days. They were getting hard on my stomach and I generally feel better without them. Onward!