Glad your getting better Mike. A lady in our church once said, God made us get old over time cause if it happened overnight, It would kill you !
Printable View
Glad your getting better Mike. A lady in our church once said, God made us get old over time cause if it happened overnight, It would kill you !
Went to the physical therapist last week and am making some progress. Right hand is at about 75% of the flexibility of the left but only about 25% of the strength.
As long as I wear the wrist brace at least I can drive the 57 and Ram 50 with the manual transmissions a little. I don't have a problem shifting but both have manual steering and that can a bit of a pain. It did feel good to get the 57 out yesterday though.
.
Glad to hear it's healing up well, Mike. Think of all the money you'll save by not working in the garage for a few months. Of course your wife is probably used to having you out there so she may boot you out of the house and make you find something to do out there if you start getting on her nerves.;)
I drove 53 miles this morning to a VA center in Tuskegee.
I'll be getting a TEMs unit and a heating pad, and was given a list of stretches.
What's the difference between a doctor and a physical therapist?
Patient:"it hurts when I do this "
Doctor: "don't do that"
Physical therapist: "we'll be doing that a lot."
"........Patient:"it hurts when I do this ......"
"........Physical therapist: "we'll be doing that a lot. ......"
Your therapist went to the same school mine did :( :LOL::LOL:
.
yeah but you'll be glad when it don't hurt, therapy is the best thing. A lot like missing the chisel and hitting your hand.
I have never used a VA hospital and never will. I've seen and heard of too much pain and suffering and inept doctors. A buddy in Phoenix, Glen Neyenhuis, had been dosed with Agent Orange in Vietnam while on river boat duty. Glen was barely 60 and complained of leg pain, not to the point he could not get around, just some pain.
In those days, all of us would gather around a large table outside one of our friend's buildings on a commercial lot. Glen went to the VA one day and they administered an epidural steroid injection that afternoon. The next morning, we found him face down on the table with a spilled cup of coffee. He was dead as a doornail. No VA for me.
.
The VA is the template for the future of American healthcare.
Single payer system, with equal access for all.
Under funded and over scheduled, with no means to eliminate or remove ineptitude.
In fact, ineptitude will be present by design, reducing the work load by eliminating a percentage of the more critical and delicate patients.
BUT those in charge will get rich beyond avarice.
Back to PT. It's definately worth it no pain no gain. My Physical therapist offers free use of his facility for 50 dollars a month. So once you finish PT you can continue to use same equipment on your own and get free advice. Pretty good deal.
I agree with you Tech. I had one brother and next door neighbor
die at VA Hosp Nashville, and my other brother almost died there.
He was in the VA 38 days and almost died too, then someone discovered
he only had a case of gout.
Hope they can get thing straightened out.
Poor terminology on my part. You can go in everyday day and use his facility(which is like a gym) at whatever time you want ie free use of facility, not fee free. But when you figure insurance billing is charging me 20 dollar copay for one day of therapy and I was going 2 days a week, 50 bucks for thirty days is a fantastic deal, especially since it has the specific equipment I need to strengthen my knee, and other stuff I could benefit from for the upper body(not part of my knee-PT therapy)
Hopefully that makes more sense? I was tired when I wrote that and didn't want to grind out the details! :0
Therapy is great and needs to be taken serious ANY time you can get it at that kind of rate is great. I was lucky when they replaced my knee. They (insurance) paid for all of it the therapy before surgery and then again after. It makes a difference
I had my last physical therapy appointment in Tucson (VA) on Monday and last follow up with the surgeon yesterday. Both seem to be happy with the progress.
I’ll still be doing PT at home, and the hand is stiff in the morning till I start using it a little but I can use it for light/medium work now……and no I’m not pushing too hard (tempting as it sometimes is). The Dr says it will probably still be a couple of months until it’s healed enough to go back to anything real strenuous.
Overall the surgery was worth it, I’m not in constant pain and I should be able to get back to doing most of the stuff I used to .
.
Progress is a good thing.....…….and eliminating the pain as well.
Ditto! My right knee is responding as well to The "experimental" PRP treatment (Platelet Rich Plasma) injection. This is where they draw blood from you and spin it down to platelets and plasma. This is then re-injected into your knee hip or whatever, where the natural healing process is magnified for old farts like us! ;) I went from taking elevators to avoid stairs because of the osteoarthritis pain, to using stairs again and being able to hike on my days off when I want to relatively pain free. Anything that brings mobility and pain control naturally or surgically I am in favor of. The day I can't walk is the start to the end!
Thanks everybody. Overall I'm pretty happy with the recovery although it gets a bit aggravating not being at 100% yet, but only time and not overdoing it will eventually take care of that.
Out of everything the thing that bothers me the most is not being able to shake hands. I made the mistake of taking an offered hand a few weeks ago and it damn near dropped me to my knees. It just goes against the grain not to shake someones hand when it's offered and then have to explain why you can't. We shake hands without thinking about it and until now I never realized just how often we do that.
.
When we were younger studs we probably used to mentally roll our eyes as the "old folks" talked about ailments and doctor trips. Now that we're the ol' goats, it's us. Almost as many threads about repairs to our bodies as our cars... ..Mike, Steve, Me... .who'd I miss?:LOL:
So very, very true, Uncle Bob! I also think back to a couple of my wrecks in go karts, then later in race cars. Dad was always there to tell me that I'd pay for that one later in life. At the time I thought he was just some clueless old man, but as some of the misuse and abuse I've done to my body over the years I now have to admit that he sure was right!
Dave too ;)
Crikey but I hear you on that!
Forty years or more ago I dropped a gearbox on my right knee while I was lying underneath the machine. I managed somehow to extricate myself, then got from my workshop to home by using a shovel as a crutch.
Now, if I have to stand for too long my right knee will suddenly just give out.
If I'm fortunate I can save myself by grabbing something, but if not...I'm base over apex onto my nose or backside.
Not a pretty sight.