During my army service I did a lot of things, and one of the more interesting ones was a housing inspector for post quarters in Fort Richardson, AK. I’d recently been promoted to Sergeant (E-5) and this was a problem for the Battalion S-1 (Personnel office) as they had no slot for me to be assigned into. The Battalion Headquarters & Headquarters Battery (HHB) had a more fluid organization and I was temporarily assigned as an aide to the Battalion Command Sergeant Major (CSM). The CSM is the most senior (Non-Commissioned Officer aka Sergeant) NCO in the battalion. He is the person that makes sure that the desires and directives of the Battalion Commander are carried out. In garrison, one of these tasks was to ensure that the assigned area of post enlisted housing was maintained to standards. While working as his aide, this was my primary duty when we were not deployed.
I think this tasking was one of the turning points in the way I reacted to situations in my life. Up until the time I entered the military, I had always been plagued with self-doubt and a lack of confidence. But as I moved up in the military, I started learning a lot about myself and how I was seen by others in the military. If you have ever had self-confidence issues, you know that every time you something, you have doubts about it. Is this the right decision? Will my boss like this? This kind of thoughts can consume your confidence and paralyze your decision-making processes.
I entered active duty with 6-years’ service credit for my time in the National Guard, and this allowed me to rise up in the active duty enlisted ranks much faster than normal and arriving at Sergeant with only 18 months of active duty time. This speedy rise also afforded me a look at how my chain-of-command looked at my performance and was part of my realization that my personal standards were higher than those I was being evaluated with, and as long as I met my own personal standards, my life in the military would go pretty well.
Anyone who has lived in post housing knows that there are post policies that are to be followed about maintaining the quarters (Mow your grass, trim the shrubs, keep the place neat and tidy). Other regulations have to do with following safety guidelines and even common-sense directives (Don’t have a charcoal grill against the building while having a cookout, etc.). The job is similar to dealing with the management at an apartment complex of condominium. There are also some differences.
Being a very junior NCO, one of the things I had to deal with was more senior NCOs who felt that I could either be intimidated by their rank and experience or they thought that I was naive about how their rank and position applied when I was doing my job. I recall one such interaction pretty vividly.
One major safety issue was the storage of gasoline operated machinery in or near the buildings. In this case, a motorcycle that was parked and tarped on the front porch of the building. The regulation was precise and clear. Each quarters unit had an assigned parking space (only one, parking was at a premium) and if you had a motorcycle, it was to be parked crossways at the front of the space next to the sidewalk allowing you to park your car in the same space. A Staff Sergeant (SSG) lived in these quarters took exception for my giving him a notice that he was in violation of regulations and that he had 24 hours to resolve the issue.
He then proceeded to inform me that I had no authority over him as he out-ranked me and wasn’t in my chain-of-command. I listened patiently to his diatribe and smiled and told him that was fine, he didn’t have to do anything that I said. I also reminded him that I was working on behalf of my Battalion Command Sergeant Major and I was sure he’d enjoy having a discussion with the Staff Sergeant’s CSM later that day and I walked away. Mysteriously, within an hour, the motorcycle had moved to its assigned location, so much for his bluff and bluster.
Since the aide to the Command Sergeant Major was a make-work position that the Battalion created just to slot me somewhere until a TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment) position could be found for me to be formally assigned to fill. I only worked that position for about two months before I was re-assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) 5-327 Infantry as a Sergeant in the Motor Pool. Housing inspector was a fun little job, but I was glad to get back to some real work.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Thursday, July 04, 2019
Dealing with the car
Having the wife’s car totaled and being laid up after a knee replacement is not a fun situation. My wife was lucky and only received minor injuries and some unwanted trauma in her life, how did we know replacing the car would be more traumatic?
Once we were informed the car was totaled, we made what we thought was a good decision and went back to our dealer to get a replacement. I mean we’d just bought a car there six months ago so this one should be a breeze, right? Well, not so much. I think a lot of this started off with some poor assumptions on my part (I’ll admit, I doubt I was thinking super clear as I was still pretty uncomfortable from the knee replacement.) and there were miscommunications with the dealership too. This should have been pretty easy. It turned out to be: Complicated.
My first failed assumption was; Hey, I’m an existing customer, you should have all my information and realize I’m not some yahoo off the street. Seems between the time we bought the last car and this attempt; they had changed over to a fully computerized system and all the paper records were in archives somewhere away from the dealership. The original purchase had gone well with the exception of my Report of Military Service (DD214). They needed a copy of the document and I don’t carry a DD214 copy on me, so I needed to email it to them. It took about a week back and forth because, I don’t know, and when they finally got the email, they said the scan was too faint to read. We finally just hand carried a copy to them.
I had also purchased a prepaid maintenance plan with the car. Again, making the assumption that this could just be transferred to the new car seemed logical, and the Sales Manager at the moment told me it would be no problem. My failure was to get that in writing. That came up a bit later.
My last screw up was not insisting on being assisted by an experienced salesman. Ali, the kid we ended up with was all enthusiasm, but he had no experience with how the processes worked so he was as much in the dark about the processes at the dealership as we were. Things were complicated by the fact that there was not a car on the lot that met our needs. This meant one on the incoming cars would be tagged for us and that was fine. We couldn’t buy the new car until we had the insurance payment and we expected that to take a couple of weeks. We didn’t need the car immediately as I wasn’t going back to work for a month anyway. That first day, we spent about 2 hours trying to get everything front loaded so when the car arrived, it would be simple. Again, great concept, but it didn’t execute well.
We were given expectation of 3 to 4 weeks for the car to arrive (It was in shipment from Korea) and we were fine with that. Someone at the dealership apparently was a bit more antsy about getting me a new car and they found another Sonata hybrid at a sister dealership and had it driven in to Round Rock. We got a call after 10 days saying your car is her, come and get it. Having learned a long time ago, that you often cannot get things done over the phone, we agreed to come in that afternoon to talk about it. I had made it clear early in the process that nothing was going to happen before I had the insurance money in hand, but that doesn’t stop some sales managers.
Ali, the salesman, had full confidence in us coming in to buy, but apparently the sales manager on duty was concerned as we had nothing in writing on this new car. We show up that afternoon and look at the car, and we agree that it will do. This is when Ali asks us for a post-dated check to hold the car. I’m already irritated with having been called in early when we’d agreed to 3 or 4 weeks (which would have given us time to collect on the other car) and this really put me off. I told Ali to get the sales manager. The Sales Manager comes trotting out (not the same one I’d talked to 10 days ago of course) and starts giving all kinds of excuses as to why they need some monetary tool (post-dated check, credit card etc.) to hold this car until we can buy it. I told him, he was free to sell the one they had and we could order another and then he goes on about how they’d busted tail to get this one there. At this point, I just sat back and said: “Get me the General Manager.” He seemed taken a bit aback and trotted off to the office. Apparently, somewhere in the office a bit of clarity emerged and all of a sudden holding this car for a week or two was no problem. Leaving that afternoon, Anna and I discussed going through another dealer, but we decided that we were likely over most of the bumps in the process. Alas, we were not.
While the dealership was a pain in this process, USAA (My auto insurance provider) was such a divergent difference. The day after I had the discussion with the Hyundai dealer, they messaged me that the payoff balance had been transmitted to my bank. Knowing that even an electronically transmitted draft is not immediately accessible, I patiently waited until I could confirm with my bank that the draft had cleared and I had the money available in my checking account. It also worked out that my eldest son and his wife flew in to visit and help with my spirits and this was a nice distraction. Based on our schedule for visiting and such, we setup with the dealer to pick up the car on Thursday.
We arrived at the dealer at the appointed time (10 AM) and figured we should be out in an hour or so and head to lunch. Boy, I was an optimist. This is when I learned that we were essentially starting from scratch. Everything was all computer driven and of course all our information was transferred into the system in the change-over. Being computerized, it was supposed to be faster, I would debate that. This was when I also learned that the pre-paid maintenance couldn’t be transferred, it had to be refunded. The refund had to come from corporate and so we’d have to buy it again on this car and wait for the check. This is also the point where I am again asked for my DD214, even though I have the disabled veteran plates in hand to put on the car. The finance manager was trying to be helpful but he’d been sandbagged by all the previous crap and I was losing patience.
There were some bright spots in the process, we actually got a better financing rate (it is amazing what you can do with an 857 FICO score) and the computerized paperwork process was kinda neat (touch screen LCD built into his desk) and so we got through endless paperwork electronically. Then were ran into the mailing address quagmire. It seems their system had no option for a mailing address different from the street address. This was problematic for us as our mail goes to a PO box and any postal mail sent to my street address, by post office policy, was returned to sender. We explained this in detail to the finance manager who told me they, by law, must write up everything to the physical address. We ended up with an empty assurance from the finance manager that he’ll make sure that the mailing address for everything is updated (especially with the finance company) to avoid any problems. Finally, at 1 PM, Anna drove off in her new car.
I got an email from Ali about needing another copy of the DD214, and I dutifully replied almost immediately with a very clear copy of the document that I’d printed off during the 1st encounter with the dealership. I had assumed this was a done deal until a couple of weeks later when the dealership office was again calling for the missing document. I returned to work by this time and I confirmed that I’d sent the email and it had not been rejected by the email server for the dealer. This left Ali as the glitch in the matrix. Ali had left car sales for greener pastures and of course no one had access to his dealership email. Anna said screw it and just drove over with a copy. A couple days later I got a check from the dealership and expected it to be the refund for the maintenance plan. Instead, it was the difference between what they charged and what my vehicle tag transfer fee cost at the clerks’ office. This prompted me to stop by and talk to my favorite finance manager (Cory) and it was at that moment, (while he was looking up the refund check) that I learned about a $50 fee and 13% proration of the refund. This just wasn’t going to fly. Lucky for Cory a senior sales manager was there and calmer heads prevailed, I didn’t get the money back. Instead, I got an upgrade on the service plan worth more than they were screwing me for (They still made a profit, but it was something I could take home to the wife). Another issue was the mailing address. We hadn’t received anything from the lender about the new auto loan. We’d gotten two copies of the payoff of the previous loan, but nothing on the new one (the same company was used). Anna got proactive and called them and of course they had our street address listed as our mailing address. (I wonder why the mail kept coming back?) She had updated the address information and I had an agreement to check with Cory in a week or so.
Seventeen days elapsed and I was so unsurprised that I hadn’t heard squat from Cory. I sent him an email and ask “What the F***” (WTF)? I also made a reminder with myself to stop by his office after work. Cory called me around noon, and let me know he’d gotten the email and was looking into where the check was at. I told him that was fine and I’d be there about 4:30 and we could talk. (This was about June 7th or so.) I arrived and he was busy on the phone, so I amused myself for the next 40 minutes or so getting popcorn, using the bathroom and getting a bottle of water from their fridge. Finally, he came looking for me and we scurried off to his office. The phone calls he had been making were about my refund check. It seemed that the check had been mailed May 30th, to the lender. The last information the dealer had was that there was an active lien against the car so any refunds were sent to the lender. Apparently, my presenting them with a totaled statement from my insurance company didn’t trigger them to ask if I’d paid off the loan. Cory had also called the lender and determined that they would either send us a check or apply the check from the dealer to the outstanding balance, and that would be our choice. He also learned that we had already updated the mailing address. I did manage to leave with the paperwork validating the service plan was updated and at this point I declared the new car purchase process complete. The refund check from the lender did arrive four days later.
Once we were informed the car was totaled, we made what we thought was a good decision and went back to our dealer to get a replacement. I mean we’d just bought a car there six months ago so this one should be a breeze, right? Well, not so much. I think a lot of this started off with some poor assumptions on my part (I’ll admit, I doubt I was thinking super clear as I was still pretty uncomfortable from the knee replacement.) and there were miscommunications with the dealership too. This should have been pretty easy. It turned out to be: Complicated.
My first failed assumption was; Hey, I’m an existing customer, you should have all my information and realize I’m not some yahoo off the street. Seems between the time we bought the last car and this attempt; they had changed over to a fully computerized system and all the paper records were in archives somewhere away from the dealership. The original purchase had gone well with the exception of my Report of Military Service (DD214). They needed a copy of the document and I don’t carry a DD214 copy on me, so I needed to email it to them. It took about a week back and forth because, I don’t know, and when they finally got the email, they said the scan was too faint to read. We finally just hand carried a copy to them.
I had also purchased a prepaid maintenance plan with the car. Again, making the assumption that this could just be transferred to the new car seemed logical, and the Sales Manager at the moment told me it would be no problem. My failure was to get that in writing. That came up a bit later.
My last screw up was not insisting on being assisted by an experienced salesman. Ali, the kid we ended up with was all enthusiasm, but he had no experience with how the processes worked so he was as much in the dark about the processes at the dealership as we were. Things were complicated by the fact that there was not a car on the lot that met our needs. This meant one on the incoming cars would be tagged for us and that was fine. We couldn’t buy the new car until we had the insurance payment and we expected that to take a couple of weeks. We didn’t need the car immediately as I wasn’t going back to work for a month anyway. That first day, we spent about 2 hours trying to get everything front loaded so when the car arrived, it would be simple. Again, great concept, but it didn’t execute well.
We were given expectation of 3 to 4 weeks for the car to arrive (It was in shipment from Korea) and we were fine with that. Someone at the dealership apparently was a bit more antsy about getting me a new car and they found another Sonata hybrid at a sister dealership and had it driven in to Round Rock. We got a call after 10 days saying your car is her, come and get it. Having learned a long time ago, that you often cannot get things done over the phone, we agreed to come in that afternoon to talk about it. I had made it clear early in the process that nothing was going to happen before I had the insurance money in hand, but that doesn’t stop some sales managers.
Ali, the salesman, had full confidence in us coming in to buy, but apparently the sales manager on duty was concerned as we had nothing in writing on this new car. We show up that afternoon and look at the car, and we agree that it will do. This is when Ali asks us for a post-dated check to hold the car. I’m already irritated with having been called in early when we’d agreed to 3 or 4 weeks (which would have given us time to collect on the other car) and this really put me off. I told Ali to get the sales manager. The Sales Manager comes trotting out (not the same one I’d talked to 10 days ago of course) and starts giving all kinds of excuses as to why they need some monetary tool (post-dated check, credit card etc.) to hold this car until we can buy it. I told him, he was free to sell the one they had and we could order another and then he goes on about how they’d busted tail to get this one there. At this point, I just sat back and said: “Get me the General Manager.” He seemed taken a bit aback and trotted off to the office. Apparently, somewhere in the office a bit of clarity emerged and all of a sudden holding this car for a week or two was no problem. Leaving that afternoon, Anna and I discussed going through another dealer, but we decided that we were likely over most of the bumps in the process. Alas, we were not.
While the dealership was a pain in this process, USAA (My auto insurance provider) was such a divergent difference. The day after I had the discussion with the Hyundai dealer, they messaged me that the payoff balance had been transmitted to my bank. Knowing that even an electronically transmitted draft is not immediately accessible, I patiently waited until I could confirm with my bank that the draft had cleared and I had the money available in my checking account. It also worked out that my eldest son and his wife flew in to visit and help with my spirits and this was a nice distraction. Based on our schedule for visiting and such, we setup with the dealer to pick up the car on Thursday.
We arrived at the dealer at the appointed time (10 AM) and figured we should be out in an hour or so and head to lunch. Boy, I was an optimist. This is when I learned that we were essentially starting from scratch. Everything was all computer driven and of course all our information was transferred into the system in the change-over. Being computerized, it was supposed to be faster, I would debate that. This was when I also learned that the pre-paid maintenance couldn’t be transferred, it had to be refunded. The refund had to come from corporate and so we’d have to buy it again on this car and wait for the check. This is also the point where I am again asked for my DD214, even though I have the disabled veteran plates in hand to put on the car. The finance manager was trying to be helpful but he’d been sandbagged by all the previous crap and I was losing patience.
There were some bright spots in the process, we actually got a better financing rate (it is amazing what you can do with an 857 FICO score) and the computerized paperwork process was kinda neat (touch screen LCD built into his desk) and so we got through endless paperwork electronically. Then were ran into the mailing address quagmire. It seems their system had no option for a mailing address different from the street address. This was problematic for us as our mail goes to a PO box and any postal mail sent to my street address, by post office policy, was returned to sender. We explained this in detail to the finance manager who told me they, by law, must write up everything to the physical address. We ended up with an empty assurance from the finance manager that he’ll make sure that the mailing address for everything is updated (especially with the finance company) to avoid any problems. Finally, at 1 PM, Anna drove off in her new car.
I got an email from Ali about needing another copy of the DD214, and I dutifully replied almost immediately with a very clear copy of the document that I’d printed off during the 1st encounter with the dealership. I had assumed this was a done deal until a couple of weeks later when the dealership office was again calling for the missing document. I returned to work by this time and I confirmed that I’d sent the email and it had not been rejected by the email server for the dealer. This left Ali as the glitch in the matrix. Ali had left car sales for greener pastures and of course no one had access to his dealership email. Anna said screw it and just drove over with a copy. A couple days later I got a check from the dealership and expected it to be the refund for the maintenance plan. Instead, it was the difference between what they charged and what my vehicle tag transfer fee cost at the clerks’ office. This prompted me to stop by and talk to my favorite finance manager (Cory) and it was at that moment, (while he was looking up the refund check) that I learned about a $50 fee and 13% proration of the refund. This just wasn’t going to fly. Lucky for Cory a senior sales manager was there and calmer heads prevailed, I didn’t get the money back. Instead, I got an upgrade on the service plan worth more than they were screwing me for (They still made a profit, but it was something I could take home to the wife). Another issue was the mailing address. We hadn’t received anything from the lender about the new auto loan. We’d gotten two copies of the payoff of the previous loan, but nothing on the new one (the same company was used). Anna got proactive and called them and of course they had our street address listed as our mailing address. (I wonder why the mail kept coming back?) She had updated the address information and I had an agreement to check with Cory in a week or so.
Seventeen days elapsed and I was so unsurprised that I hadn’t heard squat from Cory. I sent him an email and ask “What the F***” (WTF)? I also made a reminder with myself to stop by his office after work. Cory called me around noon, and let me know he’d gotten the email and was looking into where the check was at. I told him that was fine and I’d be there about 4:30 and we could talk. (This was about June 7th or so.) I arrived and he was busy on the phone, so I amused myself for the next 40 minutes or so getting popcorn, using the bathroom and getting a bottle of water from their fridge. Finally, he came looking for me and we scurried off to his office. The phone calls he had been making were about my refund check. It seemed that the check had been mailed May 30th, to the lender. The last information the dealer had was that there was an active lien against the car so any refunds were sent to the lender. Apparently, my presenting them with a totaled statement from my insurance company didn’t trigger them to ask if I’d paid off the loan. Cory had also called the lender and determined that they would either send us a check or apply the check from the dealer to the outstanding balance, and that would be our choice. He also learned that we had already updated the mailing address. I did manage to leave with the paperwork validating the service plan was updated and at this point I declared the new car purchase process complete. The refund check from the lender did arrive four days later.
Wednesday, July 03, 2019
90 Days have passed
It has been 90 days since the knee replacement surgery and I have to admit it has been a resounding success. The first two weeks home were challenging as I expected, but with my wife Anna’s support, it all came together. I had planned on 2 weeks in a walker, 2 weeks using a crutch and 2 weeks on a cane, but things progress faster than I anticipated. A lot of that was Anna’s constant encouragement for me to do my Physical Therapy twice a day whether I felt like doing it or not. (I did it.)
Things got a bit more complicated my 6th day home. Anna and I had just returned from Physical Therapy in Temple and we’d just gotten me into the house and comfortable on the couch. Anna decided to take her car to the Post Office just because we hadn’t been driving it much since the surgery and she wanted to exercise it a bit. That didn’t go quite as planned. Two blocks from the Post Office a young man made a left turn across two lanes on Main Street trying to turn into a Shell station when he hit Anna broadside in the driver’s side doors. While the accident was unfortunate, God was smiling upon her as the Coupland Fire & Rescue squad were fueling their truck at the Shell station and she had EMS response in 15 seconds. Anna was shaken up and some glass cuts and bumps and bruises, but she was fairly intact. She texted me to call her and she told me in a halting voice about the accident and that the car was totaled. I made some calls and got ahold of our pastor (Pastor Cela) who followed the ambulance to the hospital and sat with Anna until she was released.
The result was her new Sonata Hybrid (1700 miles, exactly) was totaled and now it was time for “Games with Insurance Companies” while I was recuperating and Anna was stuck with being the only person capable of driving while dealing with car crash trauma. We spent a lot of time the next two weeks dealing with one thing then another with first the insurance companies and then the Hyundai dealer. The car was officially totaled about a week after the accident and once that was setup, we started working with the Dealer for a replacement car. While all this was going on, so was my recuperation. I transitioned from the walker to a crutch the day after the accident. My therapist (Diane) was both surprised and impressed with my progress. When I first started outpatient rehab, she started by telling me to do two laps around the clinic area in my walker to get warmed up. I pointed out that I’d walked in from the parking lot and I thought I was pretty warmed up already. It was at this point where she started smiling every time I came into her clinic.
Knee rehab is hard work. But is just work and you have to just do it if you want to get better. One of my first love/hate relationships in Outpatient Therapy was the Schwinn Aerodyne stationary bicycle. Even with the seat set on the 10th setting, I could not get my left foot over the top of the arc trying to pedal the damn thing. The first couple of days of therapy in the clinic, I’d just rock back and forth, using my good leg to push the pedal first forward then back as far as the left leg knee bend would allow. Finally, the third day, I was able to get the left foot over the top 3 times pedaling backwards. I was grinding my teeth, seeing stars, my knee was on fire and my sciatica was acting up too, but I pushed through it. Two days later, I managed to get it over the top 13 times, and after another two days, 60 full revolutions. This was only one, of about 5 exercises we’d do during an outpatient visit, but is was one I could do solo allowing her time to work with inpatients while I was there. The other exercises were painful and uncomfortable, but you become accustomed to pushing up to the pain point, and then a little further, to make progress in the recovery. About this time, Diane also introduced me to the stairway to the main floor in the back of the clinic. Just more fun.
Very quickly we fell into a routine where I’d come in and get on the Aerodyne and pedal for 15 minutes. The day after I did 60 revolutions backwards, she had me pedal forwards (It is harder, trust me) and she also dropped the seat an inch. I saw stars and it took about 5 minutes to get over the top the first time, but at this point I really started seeing progress in the range of motion of the knee. I graduated from outpatient therapy after only 3 and a half weeks when I had a passive bend (Unassisted) of 110 degrees. By this time, I was also walking with a cane and about a week later I retired the cane to just walk on my own. I still use the cane, but only when playing disc golf and walking across rough terrain.
On Friday, May 3rd, I saw my orthopedist (Dr. Graham) for my final visit and release to return to work. He was both impressed with the progress I was making in therapy (I walked up 5 flights of stairs to the clinic) and the incision had healed nicely. In his opinion I was at 6 weeks where most people were at about 9 or 10 and I was happy with his appreciation of my hard work. I returned to work on May 6th (the anniversary of the explosion of the Hindenburg Zeppelin in 1937) which seemed appropriate to me. My boss was surprised because he was thinking I’d be out for another week. My return to work was otherwise uneventful and I soon fell back into my morning swim workout routine and in the afternoons, if I wasn’t playing disc golf, I was at the gym on the stationary bicycle for 30 minutes on my way home.
The most satisfying part of the knee rehab is when you start to do things you couldn’t do before the surgery, or couldn’t do without thought and preparation. Sitting on the pot for example. The last year before the surgery, most days, just sitting on the toilet took some planning. I needed room to stretch out my left leg (minimal knee bend) and I needed a counter or a hand rail to hold on to while lowering myself down. Getting up was the reverse. At work, it could be a real challenge in a regular stall just sitting and standing. I was at about 7 weeks post op, when I realized I was pretty much just sitting down now without much thought. (Angels sing.) It is little things. Getting up in the morning and being halfway across the house when you realize that you hadn’t thought about the left knee, you just walked across the house. Mowing the grass, getting up and down off the floor, getting into bed even, all are so much better. I can get up late and still get out of the house in 30 minutes if I really need to get moving. I’d say most days now, I spend less than 10% of the day having any notice of the knee, and that is nice.
The knee doesn’t feel “normal” per se. But it feels like my “new normal”. It is hard to describe clearly, but an artificial knee doesn’t feel exactly like a natural knee and I’m not sure if it ever will. It doesn’t hurt generally (there is still plenty of natural tissue around the knee) and I learned that it isn’t “bullet proof” by straining a ligament or two. What I can say is the intense burning fire pain I had endured, especially after exercise, is gone. Now that most the swelling has gone down; the kneecap is more mobile and I continue to gain a degree or two range of motion every week. Sometimes the knee has an audible click and sometimes I notice a motion in the knee that doesn’t match the other. All that is minor stuff and as I continue on my rehab, they seem to get better and I continue to adjust to my “New Normal”.
It is time to get up and go do my morning swim. I’ll try and post soon more about fun with insurance and car dealers.
Things got a bit more complicated my 6th day home. Anna and I had just returned from Physical Therapy in Temple and we’d just gotten me into the house and comfortable on the couch. Anna decided to take her car to the Post Office just because we hadn’t been driving it much since the surgery and she wanted to exercise it a bit. That didn’t go quite as planned. Two blocks from the Post Office a young man made a left turn across two lanes on Main Street trying to turn into a Shell station when he hit Anna broadside in the driver’s side doors. While the accident was unfortunate, God was smiling upon her as the Coupland Fire & Rescue squad were fueling their truck at the Shell station and she had EMS response in 15 seconds. Anna was shaken up and some glass cuts and bumps and bruises, but she was fairly intact. She texted me to call her and she told me in a halting voice about the accident and that the car was totaled. I made some calls and got ahold of our pastor (Pastor Cela) who followed the ambulance to the hospital and sat with Anna until she was released.
The result was her new Sonata Hybrid (1700 miles, exactly) was totaled and now it was time for “Games with Insurance Companies” while I was recuperating and Anna was stuck with being the only person capable of driving while dealing with car crash trauma. We spent a lot of time the next two weeks dealing with one thing then another with first the insurance companies and then the Hyundai dealer. The car was officially totaled about a week after the accident and once that was setup, we started working with the Dealer for a replacement car. While all this was going on, so was my recuperation. I transitioned from the walker to a crutch the day after the accident. My therapist (Diane) was both surprised and impressed with my progress. When I first started outpatient rehab, she started by telling me to do two laps around the clinic area in my walker to get warmed up. I pointed out that I’d walked in from the parking lot and I thought I was pretty warmed up already. It was at this point where she started smiling every time I came into her clinic.
Knee rehab is hard work. But is just work and you have to just do it if you want to get better. One of my first love/hate relationships in Outpatient Therapy was the Schwinn Aerodyne stationary bicycle. Even with the seat set on the 10th setting, I could not get my left foot over the top of the arc trying to pedal the damn thing. The first couple of days of therapy in the clinic, I’d just rock back and forth, using my good leg to push the pedal first forward then back as far as the left leg knee bend would allow. Finally, the third day, I was able to get the left foot over the top 3 times pedaling backwards. I was grinding my teeth, seeing stars, my knee was on fire and my sciatica was acting up too, but I pushed through it. Two days later, I managed to get it over the top 13 times, and after another two days, 60 full revolutions. This was only one, of about 5 exercises we’d do during an outpatient visit, but is was one I could do solo allowing her time to work with inpatients while I was there. The other exercises were painful and uncomfortable, but you become accustomed to pushing up to the pain point, and then a little further, to make progress in the recovery. About this time, Diane also introduced me to the stairway to the main floor in the back of the clinic. Just more fun.
Very quickly we fell into a routine where I’d come in and get on the Aerodyne and pedal for 15 minutes. The day after I did 60 revolutions backwards, she had me pedal forwards (It is harder, trust me) and she also dropped the seat an inch. I saw stars and it took about 5 minutes to get over the top the first time, but at this point I really started seeing progress in the range of motion of the knee. I graduated from outpatient therapy after only 3 and a half weeks when I had a passive bend (Unassisted) of 110 degrees. By this time, I was also walking with a cane and about a week later I retired the cane to just walk on my own. I still use the cane, but only when playing disc golf and walking across rough terrain.
On Friday, May 3rd, I saw my orthopedist (Dr. Graham) for my final visit and release to return to work. He was both impressed with the progress I was making in therapy (I walked up 5 flights of stairs to the clinic) and the incision had healed nicely. In his opinion I was at 6 weeks where most people were at about 9 or 10 and I was happy with his appreciation of my hard work. I returned to work on May 6th (the anniversary of the explosion of the Hindenburg Zeppelin in 1937) which seemed appropriate to me. My boss was surprised because he was thinking I’d be out for another week. My return to work was otherwise uneventful and I soon fell back into my morning swim workout routine and in the afternoons, if I wasn’t playing disc golf, I was at the gym on the stationary bicycle for 30 minutes on my way home.
The most satisfying part of the knee rehab is when you start to do things you couldn’t do before the surgery, or couldn’t do without thought and preparation. Sitting on the pot for example. The last year before the surgery, most days, just sitting on the toilet took some planning. I needed room to stretch out my left leg (minimal knee bend) and I needed a counter or a hand rail to hold on to while lowering myself down. Getting up was the reverse. At work, it could be a real challenge in a regular stall just sitting and standing. I was at about 7 weeks post op, when I realized I was pretty much just sitting down now without much thought. (Angels sing.) It is little things. Getting up in the morning and being halfway across the house when you realize that you hadn’t thought about the left knee, you just walked across the house. Mowing the grass, getting up and down off the floor, getting into bed even, all are so much better. I can get up late and still get out of the house in 30 minutes if I really need to get moving. I’d say most days now, I spend less than 10% of the day having any notice of the knee, and that is nice.
The knee doesn’t feel “normal” per se. But it feels like my “new normal”. It is hard to describe clearly, but an artificial knee doesn’t feel exactly like a natural knee and I’m not sure if it ever will. It doesn’t hurt generally (there is still plenty of natural tissue around the knee) and I learned that it isn’t “bullet proof” by straining a ligament or two. What I can say is the intense burning fire pain I had endured, especially after exercise, is gone. Now that most the swelling has gone down; the kneecap is more mobile and I continue to gain a degree or two range of motion every week. Sometimes the knee has an audible click and sometimes I notice a motion in the knee that doesn’t match the other. All that is minor stuff and as I continue on my rehab, they seem to get better and I continue to adjust to my “New Normal”.
It is time to get up and go do my morning swim. I’ll try and post soon more about fun with insurance and car dealers.
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