..read more

As of the writing of this blog entry I am now four weeks post-op (and one day). I have taken a picture each of the past Mondays and sent that to my surgeon and his Team just to update them on my progress. According to them I am on track for healing. My actual knee joint feels great! I do still have pain and tightness in all the tissue around the surgery site. Knee scar Week 2 Knee scar Week 3 The skin glue is starting to sluff off. Knee scar Week 4 All the skin glue is off now (and I shaved my legs). I've started massaging the site with Vit E oil to soften the scar and facilitate release ..read more

Dedicated to My Beloved Gryphon - the bestest dog and all around Good Girl! We really don't deserve dogs!  There!  I said it!  I am forever grateful that our distant ancestors let some more brave (or was it just hungry) wolves hang around the periphery of the campsite, and eventually invited them in, tamed them further, and bred them into so many useful purposes to our lives. So many of them have jobs, herding or protecting our livestock, keeping the farmyard free of vermin, getting "advanced degrees" and being the eyes and noses and reach for people with disabilities, or se ..read more

At one week I was to take my wound bandage off. I couldn't wait any longer on Sunday night, one day shy of the week goal. The whole thing just felt . . . wet. It was, with my own wound secretions. I ended up pulling out some of my 2-weeks of growth leg hairs on the bottom and around the edges of the side as the adhesive had just melted into a very sticky mess. It feels good to have it off.  Now I can just keep it clean with changeable sterile dressings.   The whole process of removing that first dressing reignited my leg pain. I went to bed by 6 pm and slept all night with my l ..read more

On Thursday, February 22 I tried out my shower chair, surgery leg extended outside the shower. It felt good to wash my hair and get clean, and my wound stayed dry, but I still managed to get the floor all wet ..read more

As I work on this posting, I am Day 2 post-op, at home, fairly pain free, and just a bit groggy from one of two narcotics I'm allowed during the acute recovery phase from my surgery. Today is technically the first day of my 12-week leave, although for the first week I have to take P-Time.  I'm on a schedule of Tylenol every 6 hours, and generic Celebrex, which is a prescription-strength NSAID, my favorite pain drug of choice pre-surgery. It works the best for arthritis. I am also on a twice daily low-dose aspirin for blood thinning, to reduce the possibility of blood clots in my legs ..read more

On Monday, February 19, I go "under the knife"! I have been having left knee pain for longer than I can recall. I'm not sure exactly, don't remember, when it was first diagnosed, but I know it wasn't a problem before I came to Minnesota, so has to be post 2010. I don't even recall it being an issue for the first 5 years as I was working at Winona. I think it has come on since my time at Mayo, so post 2015. I measure time according to WHERE I work. It is usually the easiest measure to mark time for me.  When I first received the diagnosis of advanced arthritis, I recall being surprise ..read more

  I made the decision, and she was in agreement, for my falconry bird, Seneca, to go and stay with my friend Foxfeather for awhile. I have been out of the field fairly fast this season. I'm hoping to find a solution to my knee. As of this writing, I have an appointment tomorrow morning with Orthopedic Surgery. Maybe a new knee will return me to normal ambulation. Fox runs a foundation, as well as a wildlife rescue. Seneca was moved into her empty falconry mew. She will try to reclaim her for flying this season. My girl is definitely no longer at flight weight, and Fox will need to estab ..read more

So my knee saga continues, but hopefully in a more positive direction. I have come to believe that all this was kicked off by my receiving my fifth Covid-19 vaccination, with the difference being this year I received the Moderna version. All the times before it has been the Pfizer-BioNTech. I will state clearly that I am not "anti-vax" in any way, shape or form! All I know is that for me, in this particular situation, my extreme reaction happened after I received my booster this year. It almost feels and appears to me that I was stimulated into an auto-immune reaction, which targeted my weake ..read more

Let's get this list started, as I am "grounded" and not doing any falconry (see previous post). I will add as the birds get their breeding schedules going.  Of course, it all starts with Eagles down in Florida. WindowToWildlife - Captiva Eagles ..read more