Things to be grateful for

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Like the T Shirt says “Get off the couch”. My new goal in life

Tomorrow morning it will be four weeks since my accident.  Four weeks spent living on the couch.

In that time what was first thought to be a twisted knee developed into a fractured knee with serious soft tissue damage, complicated by a blood clot in my right calf.  If that wasn’t bad enough, two weeks after the injury I also developed a ripped tenon in my left knee which landed me in emergency on Saturday, and on Tuesday this week my doctor was talking about reversing my blood thinning medicine and rushing me into surgery on both my knees the next day.

Touch wood, since then things have slowly started turning my way, the rip in my tendon wasn’t as bad as feared and my doctor is hopeful that given time and rest it will heal itself.
 
So today, rather than focus on the negative, I’d like to highlight some small things to be grateful for:

1. Just so long as I am sensible, I will walk again, and I will do so on my own knees.  As my surgeon said when giving me the news, he’d seen two people that week, both younger than me, who would never walk on their knee’s again, whereas in a year or two I’ll be back to where I was before the fall.

2. I finished my self-administered Clexane injections on Wednesday morning after my INR (International Normalised Ratio) reached 2.6 this week.  It had to get over 2.0

3. A medical system which despite the delays, bad advice, high costs and endless frustrations does exist.  Yes, I may have blown well over a $1000 on tests, wasted countless hours because of bad advice, but at least I’ve got access to a proper medical system.

4. Family and friends who have gone above and beyond to keep me company and look after me.  Especially my aunt who came and did my dishes and cleaning every morning, and my mum who has cooked, cleaned and transported me around.

5. A boss, no two bosses, who have been just brilliantly supportive through this, including allowing me to work from home rather than deplete my rapidly vanishing sick leave balance, and not placing any pressure on me to get back to work too early.

Of course it’s not all good news.  I’ve been told to cancel my planned European holiday in May, because it will probably be June-July before I can even get back onto an exercise bike and it will be September before I’ll likely be back out on the road, and that’s all assuming no further complications.

My surgeon’s encouraged me to get into the pool, so I’m hoping to get some good swimming sessions in over the coming months, and rather than my aim of doing a half iron-man this year, I’m now seriously considering aiming towards doing the Murray River Marathon (or at least half-marathon) at the end of this year.  This is a bucket list item for me, and doesn’t seem incompatible with damaged legs.

I’m also now thinking of where I can go to now that my European holiday is no more.  Winter is my preferred holiday period, but I’m thinking that maybe I could take a couple of weeks in December or January, maybe head to Africa or something.

Dreaming is always fun.

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