We can rebuild him!

My new knee!

 During lockdown I decided to get fit. We were told we could only go out for exercise for an hour each day. So, for those of us who hardly exercised at all it seemed like a great challenge. For me and Liz it was a walk one day followed by a run the next. Despite the obvious background horror of it all it was lovely getting out in the sunshine in the clear air exploring the countryside around where we lived. Then one day my foot went down a hole I limped a fair bit after that. When my leg got better, I couldn't run without pain and a long period of limping after I tried. Steroid injections didn't seem to make much difference, nor did physiotherapy so following an X-Ray I was sent into an MRI Scanner that's like a very noisy iron lung that gives detailed picture of your insides. When I got my results. it turned out I had arthritis in my right knee. I was offered a new knee. Now my parents in their 80s have 3 new knees so the principle wasn't unfamiliar to me, but I was only 57 and was it that bad really? I could walk for miles. Sometimes my knee hurt but it got better after a few days. In the end I wondered what the state of the NHS might be in a few years and decided to take the opportunity to get it done now when I could. There is so much uncertainty at the moment and with the Perma crisis that we are living in showing no sign of abating then it seemed foolhardy not to take the op.

The operation itself seemed to go well, was very professionally done. I was asked the same questions several times by different people in the same hospital. I was fine with this; they didn't want to make a mistake. and I didn't want them to make a mistake either! I came round was given a very nice cottage pie and the following morning was released with my cocktail of painkillers. So now I have my daily knee exercises and get a bit wiped out by the strong painkillers. I've avoided the bottle of morphine they gave me though I confess I wondered what it would be like taking it. 

So, my hope is that I will end up with a less painful knee and that I will be able to start doing Park runs again. Here's the opening sequence of "The Six Million Dollar Man"