Are we there yet?

I do a hell of a job sliding the crutches ahead of me up or down the stairs. This morning I even got the newspaper on the front steps with a perfect manoeuvering of my right crutch. Still, I'm ready to go on to the next thing now. There's no one around to see my well rehearsed "brave invalid" look and there's not enough drama in the story to interest even me. Enough of this gig!

I had secretly hoped that I'd be making plans to go back to work in a record breaking time. However, I don't think that's going to happen, so I might as well stop moping. I'm enjoying the US Figure Skating Championship events this weekend and I've had just about enough skating, just in time for the Vikings-Saints game.

I wrapped my leg last night in a giant Ace bandage and was able to sleep quite a bit better with the knee nicely protected. I strapped the right leg into the CPM (continuous passive motion or movement, I forget which) machine early this morning, and fired it up for a couple of hours. I think the machine is helping -- the knee has lost some of its stiffness and seemed to be "good to go" when I got out of bed. While I can't take a shower yet, I've gotten fairly adept at the "sponge bath". The first couple of days, Bob helpd me wash my hair but I'm fine doing it myself, and glad that I don't get dizzy.

Today was the big "first post-op outing". We went to Burger King, where my brand new Disabled Parking tag gave us a premium spot near the door. Then we headed down to visit my deer at Fort Snelling State Park. The deer were plentiful, but the real thrill was hearing, and then seeing, a yellow-bellied sapsucker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-bellied_Sapsucker . I'm quite sure that I saw one in the same spot last
year, perhaps a little later in the season.

We drove by the snow sculptures at the State Fairgrounds, but by then I was getting tired and it was time to end the outing. Trudy's tater tot casserole is smelling mighty good as it heats up in the oven and I'm looking forward to the kickoff. http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/tag/_/name/vikings-saints-012410