2019 Life Logs, Day 75: Spoke Too Soon
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2019
Weather: Sunny, Windy, Continued Warmth; High 52, Low 40 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Last night when I wrote my log, I spoke too soon. I wrote that I heard “thunder in the distance, but no significant amount of rain thus far”. Well, that changed quickly. As soon as I shut down my computer, the thunder and lightning show got serious and close-by. And a while after that, there was driving rain. I honestly don’t remember when I have experienced a storm this fierce. I went to bed and tried to read my mystery novel, but unfortunately I was at a spot in the book where a person was murdered during a séance. Too scary for me, so I just went to sleep. The storm during the night, the storm worked itself out and this morning dawned with bright sunshine. There was still some wind, but it was a beautiful day. Yesterday was my first trip to grocery store and today was my first outdoor walk. Heather called to invite me to go for a nature walk with them in the afternoon. When the time came, however, Jonah and Ollie were so completely into playing backyard baseball that there was no way to get them into the van to drive somewhere to take a walk. So, we ended up just walking in the neighborhood and it felt great to be out walking again. I made it for the half-mile with an uphill bit just fine. And I now feel confident that I can go out walking on my own without fear of falling. Every day my knee gets a little better and the signs of spring are popping up everywhere. The crocus in Heather’s front flowerbed showed their first blooms today and the daffodils are ready to bloom. The crocus blooms appeared on March 2 last year, so even though it has been a mild winter, the cold spell that started the end of February delayed those little purple blossoms by a couple of weeks. So exciting to see them this afternoon.

2019 Life Logs, Day 74: March Winds
Date: Friday, March 15, 2019
Weather: Overcast, Warm and Windy; High 59, Low 40 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The March winds are a blowin’. It was a warm and windy day and tonight I keep hearing thunder in the distance, but no significant amount of rain thus far. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and windy, but wind and the month of March do go together. I made my first major trip to the grocery store this afternoon and found walking from one end of the store to the other a couple of times exhausting. So obviously, I need to get out and do more walking. Otherwise, nothing new is happening here.

2019 Life Logs, Day 73:  Celebrations and a Little Learning
Date:  Thursday, March 14, 2019
Weather:  Overcast; High 48, Low 35 degrees
Location:  At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

There was not a lot of time for exercise and rest today as it was full of celebrations and a little learning.  There was a St. Patrick’s Day luncheon at Liam Maguire’s Irish Pub at 11:30 am hosted by the Newcomers, a 3 pm Technology Class, and then a Pi Day celebratory dinner at the Goldstones.  I came home between activities and did a few exercises and put my leg up with a cold pack for a few minutes, but probably not long enough.  I’ll try to do better tomorrow.  But today was fun.  The invitation to Heather’s for dinner was a last-minute affair, but I really enjoyed eating ‘pies’ to celebrate ‘pi’.  We had a meat pie as our entrée and chocolate and pumpkin pie for dessert.  Pi is celebrated on March 14 as 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits in pi.  And eating lots of pie has become the way of celebrating this mathematical concept.

2019 Life Logs, Day 72: All Bands Night at Falmouth High School
Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Weather: Sunny, Turning Cloudy Late Afternoon; High 43, Low 25 degrees
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

After a day of more of the same—exercise, rest and elevate knee, read (more on that a little later)—I went with Heather and boys to Falmouth High School this evening for All Bands Night. This is an evening when all of the school bands in the district come together on the floor the high school gymnasium to showcase their musical talents. And WOW—very impressive. All 5th and 6th graders in Falmouth go to Morse Pond School and there is a 5th grade band, a 6th grade band, and a jazz band. Sam plays percussion in the 6th grade band and the jazz band. All 7th and 8th graders go to Lawrence Junior High School and they have a band with strings and a jazz band. And then there is the high school marching band, the high school band with strings, and the high school jazz band. The high school marching band opened the evening with the Star Spangled Banner and the Falmouth High School Song. Then the band presentations began, with each band playing one song, and then going back and each playing a second song. It is so interesting to listen to the progression from 5th grade to high school, but I was really impressed with the musical expertise of each. The band directors do a fabulous job. Unlike the earlier elementary grade performances which are sometimes a little difficult to listen to, all of the bands tonight were enjoyable. After each band played two songs, the jazz band players came forward. The first was the Morse Pond Jazz Band playing ‘My Girl’ with Sam on drums. It was almost enough to burst my heart open with joy to sit and watch him. He was the only one on drums, keeping the beat throughout the song, and he did a fabulous job. Playing in front of so many people must be overwhelming for a 12 year-old. He handled it just fine, but I was a little teary-eyed. I just can’t believe my oldest grandchild is almost a teenager, and a talented one at that . . . so proud of him. This evening was a wonderful opportunity for the younger students to be exposed to the progression they will experience through high school and at the end of the evening, all of the bands played ‘America the Beautiful’ together, leaving Oma with glistening eyes once again.

I finished another great book today, ‘Unsheltered’ by Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my favorite authors and I really enjoyed this book. But it ended way too soon. Surely there will be a sequel as there is so much more to the story that I want to read. I have now finished both books I got from Heather for my birthday, so I’ll go back to reading my Inspector Gamache mystery series by Louise Penny.

2019 Life Logs, Day 71: Out and About
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 44, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Good news. The physical therapist, Annie, came today and declared that I am ready to be released. She will come on Thursday or Friday to finalize, but it is now up to me to keep up the exercise until I start with the outpatient physical therapy next week. After that I visited with Shirley and Doris next door and then went to pick up Jonah and Ollie after school. It was good to be out and about in the sunshine.

2019 Life Logs, Day 70: Sunshine is Back
Date: Monday, March 11, 2019
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 48, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Whew! The dreariness of yesterday went away overnight. For the next ten days it looks like we will have mostly sunny days with high temps in the 40’s with lows in the 20’s and 30’s F. The only exception is this Friday with a high in the 50’s but rain. One rainy day out of ten is not bad. I’ll take it. My life continues to deal with just the basics–get up, exercise, shower, eat, ice knee while resting and reading, start over, and then start over again. Then I get to do a bit of cooking for dinner, eat, ice knee while watching cable news and reading. Today I did walk next door to visit by neighbors Shirley and Doris, but only Doris was at home. Shirley was at a meeting of her fellow hookers—rug hookers. Shirley has hooked some beautiful rugs over the years and really enjoys meeting with her group. Tomorrow will be a bit busier as I the physical therapist visits and I will be picking up Ollie and Jonah after school. Plus, I will try to fit in another visit next door so I can see Shirley, as she and Doris leave on Thursday for a few weeks’ stay at Doris’ home in Scituate.

My knee surgery was two weeks ago today and I am pleased with the progress so far. There is still internal swelling, thus the need to keep my leg up with ice on it as much as possible, but the tight feeling caused by the swelling loosens just a little bit more each day. I am so thankful that I can drive now, but I will continue to take things slowly.

2019 Life Logs, Day 69: Drizzly, Dreary Day
Date: Sunday, March 10, 2019
Weather: Skiff of Snow Early, Rain and Wind; High 46, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was drizzly and dreary . . . definitely a good day to curl up with a good book. So, I did. I can’t really ‘curl up’ as my knee needs to be kept straight much of the time, but I did the best I could. I have handled being homebound in stride, but the dreariness today got to me. I had planned to walk across the driveway to visit with my neighbors Shirley and Doris, but I got a call from my friend and their niece Karen telling me that their concrete drive-way pad was very slick and that if I were contemplating a visit, maybe I should wait until tomorrow. I also got an invitation from Heather to join her at Jonah and Ollie’s Cub Scout Pinewood Derby competition. But that was an all afternoon affair, and I decided I needed to stay home to exercise and ice the knee. Thanks to Heather for sending some photos of the event. Otherwise, I did some aquarium cleaning and made a new batch of kombucha. That was it for me today.

2019 Life Logs, Day 68:  On the Road Again
Date:  Saturday, March 9, 2019
Weather:  Warming Up a Bit; High 45, Low 23 degrees F
Location:  At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My little Honda Fit is on the road again with me behind the wheel.  I have many miles to go to get this left knee fully rehabilitated, but since it is my left leg, driving is fine.  I didn’t go far today, just to Heather’s to do laundry, but it felt freeing to be able to drive on my own again.  And it was a good day to be out and about as the weather was mild.  The high today was in the mid 40’s allowing the boys to play outside in shorts and light jackets.  Maybe spring is just around the corner.  At least we are going to spring forward tonight as we move our clocks an hour forward.

2019 Life Logs, Day 67: Reading
Date: Friday, March 8, 2019
Weather: Still Sunny and Cold; High 35, Low 26 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Reading has filled my days since the knee surgery. I immersed myself into the world of Inspector Gamache in Louise Penny’s mystery novels until today. I still have five books in that series to finish, but today I decided to read one of the books Heather gave me for my birthday, ‘Educated’, a memoir written by Tara Westover. Tara, the youngest of seven children in a survivalist family, was born in 1986 in Idaho. She had no schooling, not even homeschooling, but at age seventeen she managed to self-teach herself enough to pass the ACT. That got her admitted to Brigham Young University where she stepped into a classroom for the first time in her life. It is quite a story and I managed to read almost half the book today. I could get used to this lifestyle of exercising a little, reading a little, and repeating that all day long. But it is time for me to start getting out and about a bit more. I still need to keep my leg elevated for periods of each day and I need to keep it iced as much as possible. But slowly, very slowly, I will begin reentrey into the real world. In the morning, Jed leaves town for six days, so I’m sure I can find a way to help Heather by doing afterschool pick-up this week. I’ll try driving for the first tomorrow and see how that goes. It has been chilly ever since my surgery making it a good time to be homebound. But it looks like the coldest days are behind us, at least for the next few days. Sunday looks rainy, but most days look partly sunny with daytime temps in the upper 30’s and 40’s, rather than in the low 20’s. Most accommodating.

2019 Life Logs, Day 66: Over the First Hump
Date: Thursday, March 7, 2019
Weather: Still Sunny and Cold; High 28, Low 15 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I wish I thought knee replacement recovery would be a one “hump” affair, but I’m not sure that will be the case. Today is day ten after the surgery and I did feel like I made it over the first hump. I’m down to taking Tylenol three times a day or every 8 hours and any pain or tightness I have is manageable with exercise and ice. I feel like I am getting my energy level back and it is much easier to get around and to do the prescribed exercises. The visiting nurse that came today was the ‘real’ nurse who has been on vacation in Florida. Evidently, I have had substitutes. Today’s nurse said if things continue as they are now, I will be released next Wednesday—ready for outpatient physical therapy. She said I could start driving as soon as I feel up to it, just as long I don’t have to revert to taking stronger pain medication. She said as soon as the snow and ice is completely melted, I can start taking walks outside. And she said I can reduce the time that I have my feet elevated to a couple of hours during the day. She also talked to me about nutrition and recommended that I keep track of how much protein I am taking in each day. She says as long as the body is healing from a wound, it needs 75 grams of protein daily. If you don’t eat that much, your body will ‘steal’ it from somewhere and that robbery can lead to tiredness. According to her, protein during the wound healing process equals energy. I had Heather go to the store to buy some Kefir, cottage cheese, and yogurt for me. Heather added protein powder to that list. I don’t normally eat dairy, but I will add it for now. The nurse also said to eat eggs daily as the albumin in eggs aids in wound healing. Her suggestions check out with what the National Institutes for Health say about wound healing, so my focus tomorrow will be figuring out how to get those 75 grams of protein while eating boiled eggs for snacks!