Tree Houses

When I was a kid I soooo wanted a tree house. I'd seen them on TV and read about them in books, and oh how I dreamed of having one. Unfortunately, there was only a small dogwood in our backyard. Pretty though it was, it was about 8' tall at best and had branches that were no more than 3" thick. No, not a good tree house tree at all...

Like lots of childhood dreams, that one faded with time and was pretty much forgotten. However, it seems that doesn't happen for everyone and when those kids grow into adults, and have the means to do it, they build themselves some damned fine tree houses.

Popular Mechanics has an article on ten pretty sweet tree houses. Oh, so cool...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/workshop/4291691.html?page=1

New Brace!

It may be a week late, but I finally received my "functional" brace today. I can now walk w/o the straight-leg gait that I had with the immobilizer brace. Also, I can go up stairs a heck of a lot faster now. Last, but certainly not least, I can finally drive w/o fear of screwing up my new ligaments.

Many thanks to Mom, Alisa and Lawrence, all of whom have chauffeured me around for the past month.



The thing is big, but very light. I barely notice it when I'm wearing it, except the bit of pressure on the sides of my knee from the hinges. I'll be wearing this thing for the next 4-6 months, and then every time I do anything seriously sporting for probably the rest of my life. Believe me, after crutches and that damned immobilizer, I can certainly live with this thing.

Oh, and I'm also 4 weeks post surgery today. As you can see the swelling is still there, but it's definitely reduced. The various scars are healing well, and are barely visible. Pain-wise I'm not really feeling any except when I'm trying to get those last 10-degrees of flexion during physical therapy.




Here's the brace under my pants. You can see the bulge from all of the straps below my knee, but it's still pretty discrete. I've not attempted to put jeans on yet, but I have a feeling that I won't be able to get them over the brace. Ah well, I may just have to dress a bit more formally for a while...

Update: Hey, I can wear jeans with the brace.

Update: No, I am not naked in those first two pictures.

Quote of the Day

"Given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one."

Valerie Jarrett, Co-Chair of President-Elect Obama's Transition Team
______________________

A telling choice of words isn't it? Most Presidents "govern", but President Obama will "rule".

Unfortunately, it probably is Obama's plan to rule over us. Leftists feel that their morals, values, ideas, etc. are superior to those of the non-elite, hoi-polloi, bitter clingers. It's up to them to tell us how to eat (by banning trans-fats), think (through the political correctness, the "Fairness" Doctrine,etc. ) and how to spend our money (by stealing our money through exhorbitant taxes and "spreading the wealth").

ACL X-Ray

As promised, here's the X-ray of my new knee hardware.



That screw is a lot larger than I expected. Hopefully it won't set off any metal detectors. I'm curious to see if I'll be able to start predicting the weather by the aches in my knee.

On an amusing, but not that amusing, side note: When I went in for the X-ray the tech-girl got everything lined up for the shot and left the room. I though she was going to get the nice lead blanket to shield my family jewels from the radiation, but no, she zapped away w/o taking this precaution. When I asked her what the deal was, and demanded that she give me the blanket for the second x-ray, she made a big deal about it, but reluctanly handed it to me. Hopefully I can still have children that won't come out with excess limbs and eyes...

ACL Pictures

As promised, here are some pictures that the surgeon took while he was digging around inside my knee:


This is the ACL that I was born with and that served me well for over 37 years until I abused it one too many times. As you can see it's kind of all mushy and loose, kind of like a snapped rubber band. It should be nice and tight line the like the new one in the following pictures.

These are two pictures of my new ACL. Originally these were two hamstring tendons from the back and inside of my thigh muscle. The surgeon pulled out about 8" of the tendons the folded them in half and braided them together to make a new 4-strand replacement tendon.


He then drilled a hole through my femur and tibia and threaded the new tendon through the holes. It was then secured in place with a screw and some other sort of thing that I don't know the name of. I have X-rays showing these times and if possible I'll scan and post them later.