New Knee Good to Go (253)

I went to see my Doc pictured here yesterday. He looked me over and said I did not need to return to see him anymore, that my knee was functioning well and with some additional daily, on my own therapy, and bike riding and chasing SP that I was "good to go". I thanked Dr. Daluga for doing an extra special good job for me. He being modest said that he just made the cuts and installed the stuff and that my good therapy was the most of the success. I know it is important but I still think that having a really good surgeon is very very important... While I was there I picked up the mock up of my Stryker Knee he installed for me and took some picture of it and they are here to the right for you to look over. I think they are interesting, especially the precise cuts they have to make on the thigh bone and the leg bone to receive these new knee parts. But those cuts make it fit so tight that it should never budge from where he put it and hey I think that is important. Now I also added a picture I took today of my Indiana Hibiscus flower I purchased at Sams club last spring...it is totally blooming its head off of late...I gave it a good shot of miracle grow a couple weeks back and it sure is showing its appreciation of that.

I will share one therapy exercise he told me about yesterday..He told me to do it every day 10 times on each leg for the rest of my life...I think I just may do it as it is simple and no doubt beneficial. You stand on one leg balancing yourself and do 10 small squats then do the other leg the same. Try it out maybe it will be good for you too...He said it is a great balance exercise as we age and start to loose some of that...

So I have enjoyed sharing my experience of knee replacement here on this site, hope you enjoyed it. Probably will be the wrap up on this endeavor today. Now on with the rest of my life I guess...Looking forward to it all and wishing you all the same, good health to us all....

One Fancy Kentucky Wedding (252)

Went to a fabulous wedding in Lexington Ky last week end. This fine couple Matt and Jill Tutt. Matt is a Surgeon and Jill is a Nurse and no doubt about it this one was made in heaven, maybe prompted by prayer but no doubt made in heaven. More about the wedding but first I had to share this picture my quick camera caught in this impromptu moment when we took some things to the house late that night and Matt said, "Jill come up here so I can carry you in the door"...She did and he did...it was cool...


Jill, as I have stated on some other pages, is the daughter of my gal Susan, author no doubt of the prayer spoken of above here. Susan gave her away walking down a long isle in a huge downtown Lexington church. She did marvelous holding back any tears she feared would flow on this emotional moment. Some of us did tear up a bit but she and Jill held it together, they pulled it off in fine style.

It was the very largest and well planned wedding I guess I have ever attended. Many was heard to say those same words that night. The wedding planner Arni was all over this event making sure everything went like clock work...He did earn his fee relieving a lot of stress for all concerned. Will post a picasa of pictures of the event to the right side here. Oh, the wedding cake, pistachio, man was it good and lucky me still has one large piece in my fridge.... The happy couple are winging there way to a great vacation spot in Greece, they will have a memorable honeymoon for sure. Best of everything to them both...Click on Picasa to the right to enlarge pictures......

Let's raise taxes, yes indeed.(251)

Been thinking about the Bush tax cuts that the Democrats want to let expire...I think it probably is the best thing to do...I think for too long we have had way to much services and benefits that we kid ourselves, wink, look the other way and pass the bill onto our grandchildren...I think it best we bring that to an end as soon as possible. Getting kind of tired of the argument about lower taxes means jobs, I think that reteric is getting a bit tired. I say lets let Reagan rest in peace and proceed from here all by ourselves.

I am convinced that the best way to get this excessive spending to stop is to "pay for it". Pay for it as we go instead of cutting taxes, winking and keep on spending and saying we are shifting the debt to our children. I really believe that to 'pay as we spend', will be the best way to control spending. I guess the best example of that is to look at our own personal experiences about spending. When we whip out the credit card it is so easy to just go ahead and get maybe a few more things we may like. But when we have to produce the cash, we start to weigh things a bit more and conserve as to what we want and what we actually really need. I really believe it could work the same for us as a nation. When we know our taxes are going up we will maybe watch what our leaders are doing, what they are spending money on a lot more than we have in the past.

Because for years now, we cut taxes, go further into debt, wink, smile at each other and say life is good...well it is not good so let us wake up here and face the music.

County Fair Week in Indiana (250)

Probably the biggest funnest week of the summer except for maybe the family vacation, Fair week is happening in many counties across the land. Tippecanoe County is no exception this week and I spent a portion of two days hanging there watching grand kids show goats and pigs. Now comes the hard part and that is parting with the animals on Friday night at the auction..Pay day for the grandkids but some take this pretty hard giving up these pets and knowing what lies ahead for them...In the old days of my farm kid life we never gave it much thought..Because we seen hundreds of chickens pigs cattle all go to market that is how our parents got paid for the hard work...it was smiles when the truck rolled out the gate, but for these small suburbanite country kids it's understandable a little different, they get attached to these critters...



Goats have gotten really popular in our county...when I was in 4-H there may have been a half dozen goats if there was any...now they showed goats all morning long. I know there are more goats in Tippecanoe county than current Obama supporters, without a doubt...Especially with the white house currently caught up in trying to decide who is and what is racial these day and trying to lay it at the door of the T-party movement. So goats prevail here for sure...they are cute, my son's two daughter each had one this year...they followed them around the yard when they would go into their play house the goats would just jump through the windows to join them. They are very cute and they do kind of grow on you...as a kid I was under the impression goats were dirty and stinky and who in their right mind would ever even want one...Now they are everywhere and as mentioned even more prolific than Obama democrats for sure.

So good luck to Caulin Post and Brook and Haylee Lahrman hope you get lots of money for your animals and the so long's are manageable...Next year will roll around and you can do it all again...

For me my therapy went well today..My knee is just getting sexier every day that goes buy...The swelling is almost gone...completely gone when I wake up in the morning...why they look almost alike but then as the day wears on the wounded knee starts to get a little fatter and looses the nice looks it had when I rolled out of bed...ice helps but I am usually too busy or too lazy to apply it...I am headed for a 7 mile bike ride as soon as I hit he Publish Post button here, maybe when I get back I will have the wisdom to ice it down...

Tomorrow we roll for Lexington and the Social Event of the season...well maybe not come to think of it my grand son Clinton had a great wedding just a couple months back...maybe that was the social event of my season...I will decide later I guess...well one thing for sure this will be the social event of my new knee's season.....Where's my bike its time to "Saddle Up"......

Jill's big Wedding and Starfruit (249)

Jill Sims seen to the right here reminded us today on facebook that there is only 8 more days till her big wedding date July 24th...Seen in this picture at a recent shower in her honor in Lexington where the wedding will be held....Jill will be beautiful bride...Marrying Mathew Tutt a handsome practicing Doctor in Lexington as well...Or at least will be when they return from a great honeymoon east of the Atlantic Ocean. It should be at least for me the "social event of the season", no doubt the largest wedding I may ever attend...
Off to the left of the picture is her mother otherwise known in these pages as 'sweet pea', now you know where Miss Sims gets here gorgeous good looks, and what keeps this old horsey at least 'trotting'....oh by the way the wedding reception is being held at the race track there in Lexington...should be quite a day...They are a very attractive couple and I know Susan is planning on them being fabulous parents some day ahead. Click on the title so go to their personal website.....

Off to the far right you will see a picture of the starfruit I grew this past year on my little 35 foot wide piece of Florida sand...Now today I received this picture from George Main my neighbor across the street...George also has a even larger Carambola tree which is the real name for starfruit...Anyway I am not going to spend a lot of ink on this as I see not too long ago I did a story about it and maybe used the same picture...this is what happens as people age, so get used to it...


And as an update for those of you following my rehab about my new knee...
Yesterday I road my bike on a 7 mile loop and did real well...should have iced it when I got home but I forgot....next time I will, again this is what happens as we age...but went to rehab today, my man John told me I was doing well...I did have to beg off on some of the one leg lifts he tried to get me to do...I should never have told him I was 65, sometimes lying can come back to haunt you...

Visiting Yesterday (248)

I am involved in organizing a Marine Reunion in our nations capitol next month and today sending out a final letter about it to the surviving Marines of my old platoon seen to the right. It all happened 54 years ago this summer in San Diego California.

Of the 75 in our platoon about 15 have died, about 10 could not be found but about 50 are still kicking and some of us will gather and visit the sites of DC, Two Marine Corps bases, one at Quantico Virgina just south of DC and the oldest Marine Base of all located very close to the Capitol building called "8th and I"...it is a small base just blocks from the main part of DC...The Marine Corps Commandant lives on the base in the oldest government residence in DC. It was built in 1801 at the request of our 3rd President Thomas Jefferson who helped lay it all out, and remains and is the home of the Presidents own Marine Band and two crack rifle companies of 400 US Marines that handle all kinds of stuff from service at the White House to burial details at Arlington Cemetery to possible riot control in DC should it ever be necessary and let us hope it does not. They also do a great parade on Friday nights during the summer at the base and we will be in attendance on the last parade of the summer of 2010. It is held after Sunset and rightfully called the "The Evening Parade". Click on my title here for link to the Parade.


We will stay in the Hotel on the base at Quantico and be witness to all kinds of training happening on that base, probably be the last gathering of our platoon. It will be fun to once again touch the roots of our past, see Marines do what Marines do so well and what bonds us together..Oh single picture of me here is the very best "john wayne" imitation I could muster....Gee I may even get motivated to do a blog story about this reunion some day, ya think?

Semper Fi.!

P.S. I see here below an add for Stryker Knee Replacement, the kind I have and find it funny that when I visit a friend this afternoon at Clarian Hospital that he was lying in a Stryker Hospital bed....guess you had to be there...

Lafayette Rehab Services (247)

If you click on the title it will take you too Lafayette Rehab's website. The place where this patient is getting what I feel is good guidance to get me back healthy again as far as my new knee is concerned.

More later will have a picasso of pictures to the right but right now I have a happy hour I need to be enroute too....

Happy Hour was at the Nursing home I resided in a couple weeks back after the surgery, so not totally exciting but it is unique in that a nursing home would have a happy hour every Friday and actually offer beer and wine to the residents...Anyway the day they had it my doctor said he would prefer I not partake being on heavy pain pills...So I did not but did promise them, I shall return when I am walking good and able to drink a beer with you all...By the way I was impressed as after 3 weeks most of the help called me by name...

OK back to the topic of the day my rehab center I am currently attending twice a week. And my therapy guy who I feel is one of Lafayette's best, John Edwards....In the photo here you will see us both...Interesting as I had this same Mr. Edwards when I did therapy two years ago at the same location after my orthoscopic surgery on the same knee...Doc told me then that the next step when I decided would be replacement, he was right, bone on bone can only be tolerated for a while....
But anyway I like their therapy I am receiving there and I like the fully equipped with lots of devices to challenge one in many ways...The weight machine where I lie on my back and push out is one I like the least well actually it is not so back until he tells me to put my good leg down and only now use my recently operated on leg to do it all...That does hurt and I think causes some swelling each time afterward...especially yesterday...we may have to negotiate the amount of weight next week maybe...But unlike the nursing homes rehab center which essentially had practically no equipment this one has it all and thus I feel like maybe I am getting better therapy...

All in all with a little over a month now behind me I am getting along pretty well. As you can see in the picasso of pictures to the right if the one of my knee that it is looking a lot better...less swollen and scar not nearly as noticable. I see my Doctor again on the 27th and I hope by then I am nearing the end of the therapy...Probably will always be needed in a small amounts but sure will be good to get back to close to normal...it is getting a tad boring and I see how some could get into trouble thinking you were maybe "good enough" and just slack off a lot and not do it...

About three days ago I started to want to nap a lot and seemed to have lost my energy level...I told sweet pea about it and right away she asked me about my Hemoglobin levels...I had a blood test a couple weeks ago so I had that and it was somewhat low..I guess being married to a Doctor and working for him in the office has made her aware of symptoms and she advised me to call my Doctor and relay to him that I was pretty tired and lost my pep...I did and he told me to pick up overcounter some Ferrous Sulfate 325mg tablets...I did that and I think after taking the second one today that I am less tired and a little more peppy....Its I guess an iron supplement and seems to have put a little spark back into me....

Well that's it for another week the patient is progressing and progressing well...thank you....