Personal Life

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My First Post on My Grandpa’s Blog

This post will be about the pros and cons of Electronic Devices.

Electronic devices have advantages but disadvantages too.  To be honest, I don’t like electronics, but thats my opinion.  Not yours? Well, maybe?  Now lets read!

To start off with, new technology is accessible in our homes.  Computers, phones and tablets are visible everywhere I go.  According to the source, “Are Electronic Devices Good for us? Plugged In” suggests, the  heavy media users actually spent more time in physical activity than light media users.  For instance, I learned much faster when I started using my I-pad for my homework.  There are some apps that help students learn.  Teachers even let their students use the apps.  Nooks are meant to have a lot to books to read.  “Using interactive media can give kids good structure for learning as claimed in, “Are Electronic Devices Good for us? Plugged In.”  These devices will help my community by making them active and allowing them fun times along with giving them new information.

Furthermore, technology is taking over all the peoples time.  Young people use electronic devices more than an hour per day, and that’s including me.  According to “Are Electronic Devices Good for us? Tuned Out” 7 out of 10 kids have cell phones.  In short, phones, I-pads and computers don’t help kids a lot with learning.  Kids are playing with friends they already have.  Hence “Tuned Out” expresses that people say that electronics help kids make friends but the kids are only playing with friends they already have.  One time my mom thought I make a new friend but I didn’t.  My electronics keep me up at night because all that I saw before I go to sleep becomes stuck in my head and won’t let fall asleep.

In conclusion, those are most of the pros and cons of electronics ending with the main reason I don’t like them.

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Advice on knee surgery (or any joint surgery in general)

Since a colleague has undergone knee surgery recently and others have come to my attention, it seems a good time to throw out some advice.

First, get at least two ice packs and two full bags of ice from any of the stores. The pain medications they give you are will keep the pain away on the day of the surgery. The pain prescriptions they give you are great for after you have passed the major pain “wall” but will not touch the pain that you will get the next morning after the surgery when the heavy meds from the surgery itself wear off. The ice is the only thing that will help during that time that you hit the “wall”. They tell you that you should have the ice on for only 15 minutes and then do without for 15 minutes. Forget that and just leave it on all the time. As long as you are not developing frostbite then you are better off (or at least I was).

Second, get a bucket and a small ice chest to set beside you so you can dump out the meltwater from the ice packs and refill them with ice without depending on someone else who may be busy or not near. When you need more ice for the pain, you don’t want to wait around for someone else to get it for you. Don’t let your ice run low either. Have someone get more as soon as you start into the second bag of ice. If you have an ice machine at home, I’ll tell you now it will not keep up with your needs. You will need a constant supply of ice so get the bags of ice from the store and keep stocked.

The pain pills didn’t help me much when I kept to the schedule that was prescribed. Instead of every 4 to 6 hours, I was better off at every 3 hours. It was more effective to keep the pain from rising than it was to try to tamp it back down after the pills had worn off.

Ask your doctor for the paperwork for a handicapped placard for your car. They have them for “Permanent” (blue) and for “Temporary” (red) disabilities. If your situation is only for the duration of the surgery then the “Temporary” one will come in handy during your recovery period. They are only 3 dollars and change and you get them at the same place you register your car tags.

Consider a walker instead of crutches to keep the weight off your leg. It is more stable and more comfortable than the crutches.

That’s it for now.

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Well, had the second knee done too. This one caused more problems than the first.

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What my knees look like now.


This is what my knees look like now. You can see how they drilled into the knees to anchor the metal pieces. Lovely isn’t it. Well, at least the major portion is over. Here I had the right knee done in March and the left in May. Now in September I am riding my bicycle regularly again. So far I do the almost 6 miles from work to home without any real trouble. I will be extending that slowly so that I can get back up to the 70 mile rides in the Keys again. Now that the bad part is over I can feel that it was well worth it. I no longer have the pain that was limiting what I could do. The whole process was scary but it was so necessary to get me active again.

I’m going to test my new knees out on the tennis courts soon so I can gauge the progress. I actually spent a good portion of this past Friday night chasing my grandson around and having a blast. I could not have done this without the surgery as the previous pain was just too much to bear for long. I have no difficulty with walking anymore and just need to get my endurance and strength back up. I could even see myself running if I really wanted to but I don’t want to wear them out too soon. Besides, I always hated running anyways.

I really should have done this years ago but was too scared of the impending pain. It was only when the pain of the bone-on-bone scraping became too much to take and it started to interfere with what I could do that I finally took the plunge. I have to admit that there was no way that I could do both knees at once as I have heard of some others doing. I had enough trouble dealing with one at a time.

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Changes in Plans

I thought that I would get a chance to relax for a couple of days and over the weekend before starting back at work along with cranking up my physical therapy.  HA,HA,HA….FOOLISH MORTAL!

Instead, my wife wakes up on Saturday morning with excruciating pain in her left side and back.  I have my son take her to the hospital emergency room since the Urgent Cares are not open yet.  They decide to keep her overnight for observation and a CAT scan.  This shows that she has 7-8 kidney stones with one as big as 6.6 mm.  This was much too big to pass by itself.  She is scheduled for surgery on Monday and there goes the whole week.  Fortunately, with family helping out, I was able to make sure she was comfortable while they helped me at home with my knee replacement.

She was very worried on Monday when she went into surgery but she came out without issue.  The doctor was able to break up the stones and remove some along with placing a stint in her ureter to more easily pass the remaining stones.  She passed some pieces about the size of coarse sand and all went smoothly.  I was able to get to my first session of physical therapy before she went into surgery and was able to be with her the rest of that time.  She came home about 8 that night and was able to sleep in her own bed.  That seemed to make her feel so much better than staying in the hospital did.

Here we are now on Wednesday and she had the stint removed.  She is feeling so much better and like her normal self.   She is heading back to work tomorrow afternoon and I am going back to work tomorrow morning.  This will be a good test of how much both of us have recuperated.

I need to thank all of my family and friends for their help and sacrifice.

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Hospital stay and Inpatient Rehab

Well, I have to say that a full knee replacement is definitely something to do unless you absolutely, positively have tried everything else first.  I would not have changed my mind and am glad I did it but it is not something an elderly person should have to experience.  It just takes too much out of you.  I probably should have done this a year ago when I was in better shape.  I let it get to the point that my general health was being affected and that was too long.

Let’s talk about my hospital stay so far. First, I stayed up late (after midnight) on the night before helping my father-in-law with his computer issues. Not a good idea as I had to get up at 4 am to be at the hospital by 5:45 am. Draggingggg!!! Interestingly, I have found that I keep getting asked many of the same questions over and over that were answered in my initial registration. Specifically, about my flu shot and pneumonia shot. Apparently, even though you answered the question in registration, the system keeps prompting the nurses to ask. No big deal but I seems rather inefficient and does start to irritate a bit after so many repeats. (YES!! I RECEIVED MY FLU SHOT IN OCTOBER!!!!!!!)

My stay has been okay so far. I came in Monday, 3 March and here we are on Friday. I have noticed a tendency of mine to develop a mild fever every evening. It really started on Tuesday night and has been consistent every night since. I start to get very cold and need to wrap up about 6 pm and go to sleep early about 10 pm. Round about 4 am I wake up in a sweat and need to take the covers off. By morning, I feel fine again. I’ve been up every morning by 5:30 am.

A little side story. They have a “torture” device that they brought up to my room on Wednesday night. Your leg is mounted in it while you are laying in bed. It then moves and bends the leg for you. The tech set it at 40% which is the minimum (or so he thought). He turns it on. 40, 45, 50, 55. It isn’t stopping! 60, 65. IT ISN’T STOPPING! 70, 75. IT…ISN’T…STOPPING!!!!!!

Well, he got it to stop and brought it back down. THREE TIMES WE DID THIS FARCE! Finally, he called in someone who actually knew what they were doing and we got it working right.

I was supposed to start my rehab on Friday but they were concerned about the swelling in my knee (I think from the passive movement machine fiasco) so I was delayed a day so they could check me for blood clots first. I was cleared of that and started my rehab on Saturday instead.

The rehab was big on Saturday with eval of how straight and how much I could bend. Minor rehab on Sunday. Heavy on Monday and Tuesday with my exit on Wednesday.

I am now home and ready to start my out-patient rehab on Monday morning.

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Recollections of New Orleans from my childhood

I recently saw something that reminded me of a book that I had lost to the fog of memory.  The book I was reminded of was one that my father’s aunt in New Orleans had in her house.  It was a children’s book of a type I had never run across before or since. It must have been the early or mid 60’s when I saw this book.  I don’t remember much about it but one thing stood out in my memory.  One of the illustrated stories in it was called either “The Ten Little Colored Boys” or “The Ten Little Pickaninnies”.  I remember that the story was about all the dangerous things the boys did and how one after another they died and went to heaven until there was only one good one left.  It amazes how normal that was thought to be at the time.  I don’t know how racist the intent was as really it could have been any group of boys.  Looking back on it now from a distance, I realize how racist the drawings of the boys were even though their actions and consequences were not.  Thinking back on that time, I remember she even had a little black jockey statue in her yard but I can’t remember if it was in her back or front yard.  I don’t recall her or anyone else using derogatory language about any group but those artifacts that I remember from her home do tell a story in and of themselves.

I also remember her having a View-Master with reels of Disneyland rides. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world that it showed things in 3-D so they looked as if you could grab them. One of the reels was a variation of the story of Jack the Giant Killer with Mickey Mouse as Jack. In this story, Jack was a tailor and used his sewing skills to bind up the giant. Her house is the first time that I remember playing with dominoes.

One of the other things I remember from that time was the smell of beignets and coffee in the French Quarter. I remember walking around with my dad on what I assume was Bourbon Street. I think it was because I recall walking along the sidewalk and there were open doors with music inside, a man outside each door calling for people to come in and I actually a glimpse of a, to me, naked woman dancing inside but I now know that she actually had bikini bottoms and pasties since that is what they are allowed in New Orleans.

Enough for now. Next post will be an update on my knee replacement stay.