I was not able to write yesterday since it was not a good day. I woke up at 4:30 with my knees hurting. I am trying not to take very much of the pain meds, so I had not taken a pain pill before bedtime. That may have been a mistake. There was no way to get comfortable. Ice packs sprung a leak and water was everywhere. Decided to use gallon ziplock bags for ice packs, but the humidity is so high that the bags sweated. Even wrapped in dish towels, there was too much water. Amy found some ice packs that strapped on knees, so we ordered 2 of them and they arrived today.
Yesterday was a setback. Pain, swelling, and generally felt lousy. The highlight of the day was a visit from one of my Texas cousins, Jay Lewis. His wife has relatives in Huntsville and they were visiting them. Since he was so close, about 2.5 hours away, he decided to come for a visit. On his way he stopped to visit my sister, who is in a hospital in Birmingham. If anyone is reading this blog, please stop reading and say a prayer for both my sister, Lela, and my brother, Lewis, who are both battling different kinds of cancer. Pray that Lela regains her strength and will receive a miracle healing. Pray that Lewis's cancer continues to remain dormant or goes into remission. Both have inoperable types of cancer. Thank you for your prayers.
Jay picked up mom and they brought lunch out to our house. It was a great time of remembering past visits and old times and our Monroeville relatives. Like I said, it was the highlight of the day. As soon as they left, I waddled back to the bedroom for a nap and generally felt blah the rest of the day.
Today was much better, even though I woke up at 3:30 am, took a pain pill and waited for it to kick in. I watched television until 6:30 and decided that today I need to move more. All the time that exercise bike was at the back of my mind. I needed to make the seat a little higher and so I decided that today I would get on it one way or the other. I lengthen the shaft by cutting a piece of electrical conduit and inserted it in the existing shaft. Of course I had to walk a lot outside to find my hacksaw and as usual the first piece I cut was too short. So I just cut another piece. I have a lot of this conduit since I use it in my garden for trellises. Of course now I need a step stool just to get on the bike. Anyway, with the seat raised, I climbed on the bike and started to pedal. Not. I kept remembering the pain I had the first time I tried this so I slowly started pedaling forward and then back never making a complete revolution. My right knee has more flexibility at this point in my recovery and I could do a complete revolution with that leg alone. The left is a little different story. I was content to just to rock back and forth, but pedaling backwards I accidentally went all the way around, but not without pain. I decided to try pedaling forward and made about 20 revolutions. Since I still have swelling under the knees I though that I had better quit while I was ahead. Major obstacle accomplished for today. One last thing, I walked outside one more time to fill up my bird feeders. With that accomplished, I have been sitting with the new ice packs on my knees. Hopefully the swelling will go down each day. More to come tomorrow.
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