Knee Surgery was done on Feb 3 and was a complete success. The surgeon did come in and talk to me afterwards, but I’m not really sure what he said, but he did leave me with some pictures to look at.
The good news is that I’m not in any pain.
T
his picture is from the MRI of my knee, showing the actual tear.
Because there is no blood flow to the meniscus (but lots of nerves!) it won’t heal (but lots of hurt), so they slice away the rough bits and leave it nice and smooth. I’ll have a bit less shock absorption on that side but otherwise it will be fine. It’s done via keyhole and I’ll walk in and walk out the day of surgery with no crutches required. Rest over the weekend and back to work on Monday.
Surgery in 2 weeks on the 3rd of February at Epworth Hospital in Richmond. I’ll take advice from the surgeon when I see him on the 20th of February and work with Ross from Freedom Sports Medicine for rehab. Likely 6-8 weeks off running, probably lots of bike and swimming.
I’ve been having some issues with my right knee for about the last 3 weeks, and was finally able to get in and see the physio last week. Ross agreed that it wasn’t good and sent me off for an MRI. It turns out that I have a small tear in the cartilage, causing pain when I pivot right or apply any sideways movement on the lower leg.
I’m living with it ok, and will be seeing a surgeon on the 20th Jan. He will probably just want to go in and clean it up a bit, but it’s a pretty simple operation.
I’m not having a lot of luck with cartilage at the moment, after 2 bouts of cauliflower ear. [icon image=”fa fa-frown-o” size=”tiny” url=””] [/icon]
A bit over 6 years ago, I went and spoke to my doctor to “see if there is something that can be done to help me cope better with life, especially the kids and my work load.” I was prescribed Lexapro, an anti-depressant at 10mg. They were a game changer for me in many ways, helping me cope better with the goings on of life, but also opening up about how I was truly feeling. Over the years I progressed to 20mg a day (which is ironically about 5% dearer than the 10mg) when things were really difficult between Bern and I. Over the last 7 months, I’ve slowly weaned myself off them completely, first half a 20mg tablet, then after a few months, half a 10mg tablet, then every second day, then every third, then “I’m not sure when I took one last, so I’m going to stop”. This literally took the better part of 5 months, making sure each step of the way that I was coping okay and not going to be a burden on my family in any way.
What does it mean now? I’m not 100% sure, but then, when is anything in life 100% sure? I’m happy, I’m coping, I’m fitter and healthier than I’ve been in 20 years, which I’m sure is helping, and I have the love and support of my family, which is the main thing.
For now, it’s one less bundle of chemicals in my body, I’m $1 a day richer and life is going well.
I hope it is the same for you.
Love & Hugs,
Mark
After completing the Run Melbourne 10Km in July, I set some new goals, including running the Sandy Point 10Km in under 1 hour.
Last Sunday I achieved that goal, with a finish time of 59:30.5!
It’s amazing what a healthy body can do, especially as I only took up running 3 short months ago.
I’m so loving the new me I’m creating.
I was told by one of my trainers the other day that some work on my running technique we can shave another 5 minutes off that time, and I believe it. At the moment I’m just putting one foot in front of the other, so it’s time to develop some technique to get things moving better and at the same time reduce the already short recovery time as well as the chance for injury.
My next goal is to get my Parkrun time down under 25 minutes for 5Km. My PB at the moment is 27:12, and that nearly killed me (the headache took 3 days to go away completely).
Today I ran my first ever 10Km run! I finished in 1:08:11.1.
I had 3 goals going in, the settle for goal was 70 mins, the push goal was 65 minutes and the BHAG was 60 minutes.
Everything went mostly to plan, except that I used up almost all of my phone battery on the train on the way in clearing out my massively overweight inboxes. I was in the process of taking the pre-race selfie when the phone turned off. So I ran with no music/podcasts, no idea of my time/speed and only the flags on the side of the road to tell me how far I’d come.
In other words, I had nothing but my thoughts to run with and no idea of how fast I was going. I paced myself pretty well though, only slowing to a walk twice for a drink. I managed to find a couple of people (one of whom was about 7′ tall) that was running at a good pace for me, so I kept him as my guide most of the way (I think I passed him about 7Km in)
About 1.5Km in my left Achilles started to niggle but it never did any more than niggle all the way. After about 8Km the knees were starting to get a bit tight, but I pushed through that okay too.
Overall, really happy, and cant wait for the next one. Maybe a half marathon….
oh and if you haven’t donated, there is still time: https://runmelbourne2015.everydayhero.com/au/marksnell
Dear readers from around the world,
You see it all the time on these CSI type shows, zoom in on the glasses and enhance it to see the reflection.
It’s real. Sort of. We had this photo taken recently by our friend Luke from Luke Munro Photography, and I noticed a slight reflection on the lens.
So I zoomed in on the lens of Bernie’s glasses and did an simple “Auto-Level” in Paint.NET.
Not only can you see Luke with his camera on the right, but also the couple who had been on the beach and were nice enough to move for the photo.
You won’t be able to identify them in any way, and this is a 10Mb high resolution shot taken with a Canon EOD 5D Mark II. It’s not going to happen with an iPhone photo or a surveillance camera, but I think it’s pretty cool!
Just about to start reading: The Go-giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea really looking forward to it, lots of good recommendations..