Cabernet and Carboplatin

Step by Step. After being sidelined for about a month, I am finally back at physical therapy. And it's hard. I have lost some ground and definitely lost some strength. My physical therapist is warning me not to try to get it back all at once. And I'm listening to her. The walk I usually take in PT ended with me being in a lot of pain. A lot of soreness, but it's all muscle, not bone. So that means it can and will get better. I just have to pace myself. I saw my plastic surgeon last Monday and he okayed me to start wearing my prosthesis again, and maybe I overdid it a little. But I did have two days on my own and I did learn that I can, indeed, take care of myself. Saturday evening, Jerry got back from doing some flight instruction, and he was not feeling well. Our neighbor Ray took him to the Hopkins ED the next day. Initially they thought it might be his appendix, but it turned out to be a kidney stone, and they admitted him until he passed it. Ray's wife, Irene,...

I've just come off nine of the most boring, annoying,and excruciating days of my life. And necessary. I am fortunate to have a really good plastic surgeon to work with, and he may have solved the issues with the aperture around my osseointegration implant. And for that I am grateful. It took three surgeries: two to debride the "exuberant" (surgeon's word, I swear) granulation around the implant, and one to cut a swath of skin from my hip and graft it around the implant to keep the granulation from coming back. But nine days in the hospital is a really long time, especially because I wasn't sick. Things got better after I moved rooms and didn't have a whackadoodle roommate any more. But it was boring, and being woken up several times a night doesn't do much for anyone's mood. Visitors can be a double-edged sword. My fear was I would have to entertain them and with nothing going on in my life that would have been difficult. But I am thankful to say...

Or should I say wheelchair. I arrived at Johns Hopkins Bayview on Wednesday to have the first of what is turning out to be three surgeries. On Wednesday the team debrided the hypergranulation around my aperture and attached a wound vac. The tissue has been cultured, and up to today it showed no sign of infection, but today it started growing something, so surgery number two was today to do some more cleaning and attach another wound vac. On Sunday the plastic surgeon will take a small amount of skin, likely from my thigh, and apply a skin graft. I had been dreading the need for a skin graft because it will keep me in the hospital longer and off my prosthesis for at least two weeks. But I am trying to look at it differently. One of the biggest risks of osseonintegrarion is infection. The plastic surgeon here at Hopkins spoke to my surgeon at HSS in New York, and he thought the skin graft was a great idea. And while it will keep me in the hospital longer and off my prosthesis, I am s...