What's new 2008
April 9, 2008—Marc’s return, surgery &
another new toy
Marc returned from
Clovis just in time to make the first round of his pre-surgery appointments in
Bend on March 12th.
After leaving New Mexico
and making a way-lay to do a deposition in Scottsdale he stopped by to check in
with our Yuma neighbors and handle some stuff on our lot. He made arrangements
for the rest of the gravel to be laid and for the privacy wall to finally be
stuccoed. That was just completed and we are absolutely thrilled with the
results. We have lights to install on the end posts and the antique leaded glass
window to place in the hole in the wall but it looks 100% better than it did
before.
Once the doctor appointments were out of the way in Bend we made a quick trip to Coos Bay for a few days to pack for the hospital. We arrived separately in Bend on the 17th and Marc was scheduled for his knee replacement at 10 a.m. on the 18th. He was pretty nervous but things went well with the surgery. His knee was one of the worst the doctor had ever worked on and required an additional 45 minutes of time to remove huge pieces of cartilage which had grown as a result of bone rubbing bone trauma for so many years. You can see these floating wayward pieces as the lumps in the “before surgery” photo. This link will take you to a separate page for surgical photos if you want to see what a knee replacement looks like but they are too graphic to post here.
I spent much of every day with Marc in the hospital helping him get out of bed and arranging the ice packs. He was in moderate amounts of pain but actually up and walking on the second day once the bulk of his anesthesia wore off. By Friday morning he was very ready for his release from the hospital. We decided to stay another week at my parent’s home since it is handicap-modified throughout and Marc had difficulty with lots of swelling and pain if his knee wasn’t kept prone; the thought of a 235 mile drive didn’t sit well at that point. He also had use of an exercise machine which kept the knee from freezing up with scar tissue or leg blood clots and this required him to lie in bed.
Finally on March 28th after seeing the doctor’s assistant for removal of the staples, we headed for home and faced the long drive to Coos Bay over very snowy roads in some white-out conditions. It was wonderful to get back and Marc has since settled into a routine of thrice weekly physical therapy sessions and walking all that is possible to build up strength in the leg muscles. The joint itself no longer exhibits any pain so Marc is well on his way to a pain free knee soon. Unfortunately for him, the left knee also will need replaced but that’s for another time.
As everyone is well aware the fuel situation has become a real hardship lately. Very recently, diesel has gone to $4.25/gal here and it seems to increase in cost every day. This town is small and the one we expect to work in next is also small so we gave thought again to getting back to using scooters for transportation around town and for errands and possibly for Marc to commute on. Our first day out looking we came across one that the Honda dealer had in for an estimate on repairs as it had been wrecked by the elderly lady who owned it (since new). How embarrassing that she crashed it in the DMV parking lot running into a curb trying for her motorcycle license! A dropped bike is an automatic failure of course so she figured she wasn’t cut out to be a bike rider. It is a 2006 Honda Reflex 250 and will carry two up at freeway speeds with an estimated 70 mpg. Once the owner found the estimated repair was $2000 in plastic parts alone he was anxious to accept our low-ball offer, as is. Marc figures with aftermarket parts he may spend another $400 getting it fixed up enough for the cosmetics to pass. As it is, it handles fine and is great mechanically with only 1100 miles on it so we figure we got quite a deal. Here I am on my first ride. Obviously, it’s not the Wing but we figure it will be fine for Marc for its intended purpose and great for me to run down to the harbor to do my daily walking. Later, as Marc gets released to ride we may bring over our other scooter, the Honda Elite 80 cc which makes a whopping 90 mpg for me to get around on. And it goes without saying the Wing will be brought back here as well so we can finally do some long distance traveling.
We will remain in Coos
Bay until Marc’s release from disability when we expect to hear where our next
project location will be. All indications so far still point to the Pacific
Northwest so we’re very pleased with that as it leaves us within one day’s
travel of our family and elderly parents. For now, it’s just nice to have so
much time together after being apart for the past year plus the coastal weather
is slowly improving. Picnics on the beach and the crabs are calling!
