Knee Surgery, 14

Not a day of setbacks, but no big milestones like yesterday (Friday), either. I managed two walks outdoors with Susan and Bella, but both shorter and slower than yesterday’s walk: two individual walks of one block each (about 600m circumference). After yesterday, I was a little too sore and stiff to go further. But still, it’s better to be outdoors than inside. Being able to get outside was a real accomplishment. Distance and speed will come later. Might try a trip to the local Canadian Tire store next week. I’m not sure I’m quite up to shopping but the store has wide aisles to make it easy for me to get around. And I’ll need to go somewhere to pick up wine, too.

Sunday, I managed another 800m/two-block walk. I didn’t go out the second time with Susan and Bella because I felt a bit stiff and sore, and might have been overdoing it a bit in my rush to recover. It’s difficult to know when I’m pushing it too far and when I should keep pushing.

I also managed a short trip to Canadian Tire as I hoped, with Susan driving. Mostly to practice getting in and out of the car, which remain somewhat challenging. The bend in my knee required to do both is a tad painful, still. Walking around the store wasn’t challenging, but I need to pay more attention to my cane. A couple of times I caught the end on a display when I was looking elsewhere, and could have stumbled. A fall right now would likely be a setback.

Sleeping on my side remains a problem. I can manage two to three hours at most before my leg aches and wakes me up. I take an ibuprofen before bed to relieve the pain, but don’t want to take more until the next day. I’m trying to keep them down to one a day, at night.  And I don’t take the narcotics prescribed for post-surgery recovery for many reasons, including my concern over addiction. I’ll keep trying to find a comfortable position, but I think until the swelling abates more it won’t be possible to stay on my side for longer.

Tomorrow evening, after we pick up a few items from a grocery store, I will make dinner for both of us. There are some things I’ll need a little help with (like carrying a filled pot of water to the stove), but it’s time for me to start doing more around the house. Susan has been a real titan doing all the housework for both of us, but I want to step up and share some of the load.

Other than that, nothing is new on the medical front. Exercises continue, and I am still eschewing the use of the walker, aside from a single step-up/step-down exercise. I continue to work towards normality. My next physio appointment is tomorrow, during which I hope my progress will show improvements.

The movie I watched Friday-Saturday was Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is not as good as either the BBC TV series or the book(s). I watched it several years ago and picked it up at a local thrift shop to try again. Despite a remarkably good cast, it just seems forced and flat. It feels wildly overdone for the original content and the dry humour in Adams’ dialogue doesn’t come through nearly as well as in the TV series. Watching my films helps take my mind off the doom-and-gloom of today’s news. I spend far too many hours of the day doomscrolling news and videos about the destruction of American democracy and the country’s descent into fascism under the dictator Trump. And fretting about Canada’s own rage-farming Trump mimic Pierre PoiLIEvre and the conspiracy-addled MAGA-loving traitor Danielle Smith. But I digress.

And once viewed, this DVD will be donated back to the shop for others to try. I usually pick up one or three DVDs there, almost all of which get returned as donations. Ditto with DVDs I picked up at the Mother of All Yard Sales in May: most get watched once, then donated. The very few exceptions include the set of Hazel TV shows, and Mister Roberts. I actually have a very large collection of movies on DVD and Blu-Ray, many of them classics from about 1930 to 1960 (including a lot of B films…). I enjoy watching them, although Susan isn’t a big fan, especially of the older scifi and monster films. And I generally enjoy watching films more than once.

Tonight I’ll start watching Mysterious Island, a 1961 film featuring the stop-motion animation of the master of that art, Ray Harryhausen.

I have not bought many new books in the past few months, but one I recently received is Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth, by philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns. Limiting the wealth and grasp of the greedy oligarchs has always been something I support. As the blurb on the Penguin website notes,

In place of our current system, Robeyns offers a breathtakingly clear alternative: limitarianism. The answer to so many of the problems posed by neoliberal capitalism – and the opportunity for a vastly better world – lies in placing a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate. Because nobody deserves to be a millionaire. Not even you.

Unfortunately, no government has the spine to redress the growing income inequality, particularly conservative governments, because they always pander to the wealthy in order to enrich themselves at the expense of others. And the US government is owned and run by the oligarchs, as they push to implement their vile libertarian vision. Bring back tumbrels and guillotines!

Words: 951