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Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Show-off at Physical Therapy

Me - the author of this blog, Grateful Grammy
Oh, hi there!  Come on in and have a seat. I'm working on my menu plans for next week -- we usually do the grocery shopping on Fridays and I'm a little behind in getting this done.  But oh well.  I always have the time to visit with my friends!

How is Beloved?  Take a look for yourself.  These days he is either doing his physical therapy, both here and at the PT office, or corresponding with one of our 3 cubs via email, or he's gently snoring in his recliner.  That's pretty much what his days look like right now.

Beloved is very devoted to his physical therapy.
He will be wearing his bandaid until this Sunday.
As you can see, he's lifting a weight with his foot, trying to build up strength in the leg that had the total knee replacement.  It's been 4 weeks now and he's thinking he's ready to be all done with this stuff.  However, when we saw his physician's assistant today for a recheck on the infection in his incision, he was told he may not feel completely back to normal for as long as a year after the surgery.  

The good news, however, is that the infection is clearing up nicely.  Apparently part of the problem is that one of the sutures (stitches) that was sewn into a layer of tissue under the outer skin has been trying to work itself up to the surface and out (whaaaat?!).  But all is well and it's going to be okay.  

Tomorrow we will be going in for more physical therapy. I say "we" but of course all I do is sit in the waiting area and hold Beloved's wallet and iPod while he follows quite a lengthy routine that takes him a little over an hour.  

I have to tell you, there is one guy who is always there when we are, and he's quite the character. Earlier this week I sneakily took some snapshots of him with Beloved's iPod camera.



I apologize that these snapshots are so small -- you're gonna have to squint to see what I'm talking about.  Do you see that yellow band thing around his ankles?  He walks with that thing!  First from left to right, then from right to left, and then forward, sort of like a duck!  I think he's trying to show off for me!


He rides this exercyle, too, right there in plain sight of where I am sitting.  One day I needed to run an errand at the grocery store next door, so I walked outside past those big windows in front of him.  He actually waved and gave me a big grin when I happened to glance his way.  


I guess he got tired of trying to get my attention after a while.  He didn't even look my way when I took this shot of his legs propped up.


Beloved told me I should feel sorry for the guy. The last thing they do to the patients is to treat them with "fire and ice", as Beloved likes to call it.  First they stick electrodes to the leg for some hot stimulation....


... and then they pile ice packs on top of the electrodes.  I guess that's so the patients won't go up in smoke?!!

I'm very proud of Beloved for all the hard work he is putting into his recovery.  It was so good of you to stop by to visit.  Please come again!

There is more information about our adventure with my husband's total knee replacement if you will look to the "cloud" in the right-hand column and click on the words KNEE REPLACEMENT.  That will give you all the posts I've written on this subject in descending order (most recent at the top and keep scrolling down for the older ones. 

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