I’m sort of coping with the slow recovery from septic arthritis in my left knee, I can put a little weight on it if absolutely necessary as I learned today. I had a box of recycling to take out to the wheelie bin, so I balanced it precariously on the rollator walker. It got away from me while negotiating the short ramp at the front door. I was left standing on the doorstep with a box of rubbish on the ramp and the walker two metres away lying on its side on the footpath. I shuffled sideways down the ramp until I could grasp the grab handle on the porch post with both hands. Next I stepped down (sideways again) and managed to grab one of the rear wheels of the walker and set it upright again. There is one other activity I just can’t do yet: move a heavy rubbish bin 50 metres out to the road. Lighter loads are workable, I can carefully hoist the bin onto a rack on the back of the mobility scooter and transport it that way.
@variablepulserate For the last three weeks in hospital I wasn't exactly inactive. Two 40-minute physiotherapy gym sessions each weekday and one such session daily on weekends. For various reasons, usually pain-related I missed/skipped 5 of these 36 sessions. For the first two weeks the gym was 80 metres away from the bed. On the last day in that room, I waled (with my rollator walker) the full 80m for the trip back. Granted, it did take about 20 minutes and needed 5 stops on the way, but I did it.
For the last week, I was in a different ward and attended a smaller gym that was just 25m from the bed.
While it's nice to be home, the assistive services to which I have been referred to ease my recovery at home are yet to be done as the assessment people haven't yet appeared. I do have a list of 28 exercises which I'm expected to perform at least once daily (pain permitting) plus an hourly deep breathing routine.
Making about 4 litres of real soup, using lamb shanks, black turtle beans, various lentils, white beans, split yellow and green peas, pearled barley and a premixed and chopped 500 gram bag of mixed vegetables and garnishes. This will be a very fine concoction.
Placed an order for a Midnight M3 MacBook Air with 512 GB of storage, 16 GB memory and the optional 70W charger. Saturday afternoon here, delivery Tuesday at the earliest.
In about 12 hours I should be back home. One day short of seven long hard weeks in three hospitals battling the combined effects of osteoarthritis, gout, pseudo gout and septic arthritis in my left knee. The latter is an odd term meaning infection in a joint.
Today I suddenly changed the way I use the rollator walker. Instead of shove it forward with the brakes on and shuffle towards it I can now walk continuously (albeit slowly) and reach my destination in far less time. Still restricted by the distance I can go, though.
Still in the rehab hospital but I’ve been moved to a single room as renovations have made the other section too noisy and unsafe.
Frightened. 20 minutes ago the night nurse offered me the use of a nebuliser for 15 minutes to counter a persistent cough. It didn’t work because I couldn’t use it for more than two minutes. The whole thing felt WRONG, almost like I was drowning. This triggered a panic attack, I couldn’t remove that evil mask quickly enough.
Plus twice in the night the emergency whoop-whoop siren went off with emergency vehicles in the driveway. At least one was a fire truck.The first instance of the siren was accompanied by a loud recorded announcement replayed every 15 seconds saying “Evacuate as directed, evacuate as directed.”
There were no such directions. Now I can’t sleep because of a stinking headache.