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UPDATE:

I wound up back in the hospital for overnight observation again this past Thursday night (the 16th of May) and was discharged Friday afternoon. You see, my bandages and the spot where the hose of my vacuum drain goes through my skin into my knee both started leaking. My home health nurse took some pics and sent them to my surgeon, who then ordered me to go to the Emergency Room immediately and get it treated. That's how I wound up being admitted overnight.

Anyway, they took out my vacuum drain hose and re-bandaged my surgical wounds, then sent me home Friday. I'm just now settling in to home life once again. However, guess what's happening again? Yep! My bandages are leaking. Again.

Aaughh.

I called my home health nurse on-call service Saturday night and reported the leaking. We did a "Facetime"-like call, where I showed the nurse my leaking wound via my phone. In the end, she made arrangements for another nurse to come out first thing Sunday morning and re-re-wrap my surgical wound. Again.

This is getting really old, folks. Unfortunately, I've got no way around it. All I can do is put up with it and hope it heals. Please, wish me luck - I need every bit of it I can get. Thank you.
 

I had my hematoma surgery Tuesday. Waiting was hell. I was NPO from midnight until 3:30 PM, when I woke up. They finally put me under and worked on me, scraping out the hematoma and other gunk as promised, and installed a drain on the leg to keep it from swelling up again. I'm on the same pain management dose and timing I was on before the surgery, so someone forgot something in the promises department. Urgh.

Well...ahem. My surgery didn't go exactly as planned. It's Sunday, May 5th, and I'm still in the damned hospital, thanks to what they think is a hematoma in my left knee. They got the idea a couple of days ago when my knee popped open and started bleeding during a Physical Therapy walk. Not just a blood drop down my leg, mind you - this formed a puddle beneath my calf. Needless to say, the Physical Therapy walk came to a screeching halt. We motored back to my room, where they re-wrapped my leg (for a second time - it came unwrapped on an earlier walk as well, but didn't bleed). 

The doctors are planning to keep me here until Monday, possibly even Tuesday if they need to reopen my knee and operate on the hematoma. All I know is that they keep extending my time here while reducing the frequency of my Dilaudid doses. Come on, folks, that's not fair! You should at least wait until you figure out if you're going to let me go before you do that - I'm still in pain here! ;) 

It's finally about to begin. Tomorrow, April 30th, at 5:30am, is when I check in to the hospital for major knee surgery. They'll be removing scar tissue and inserting "shims" in order to keep the joint from wobbling side-to-side. I'll be staying the night, so I'll be out of touch until I get home if not longer. Wish me luck, please.

My left knee surgery has been scheduled at last for April 30th, and it's a damned good thing, too - just a few minutes ago, I had to ditch my cane in favor of my old walker (Zimmer frame, I think they call it in the UK). The pain in the outer side of my left knee has steadily been getting worse all night long, and it finally blew the lid open on my tolerance while I was shuttling things back and forth from the kitchen. I just took my pain pills about 15 minutes earlier, so they haven't kicked in yet to help. Dear Lord, I hate this.

Did some cooking last night. Made Japanese curry. My son was over, so he helped. My wife helped cut some of the carrots as well. My main jobs were to dissect the three very nice New York Strips I'd bought from Walmart (surprising place for them!), to get everything together (except for the koshihikari rice - that was my son's job), and do the main cooking duties.

We used Vermont Curry Hot roux, in the large size. We normally use S&B, but I wanted to try Vermont for once. It's nice, but it's got no heat to it. I like S&B better for that reason alone.

All in all, it came out great. The koshihikari rice is definitely worth the money and the hype. It's fantastic stuff. Can't wait to try it with just some goma shio furikake on it. I *almost* messed up the meat by overcooking it, but I rescued it at the last second and instead just got a wonderful fond that left a great flavor behind in the pot.

One downer is that I got a bit ill toward the end of cooking and had to let my son take over for a few minutes. He pronounced it finished, and my wife brought me a bowl. I ate several bites, then had to surrender to whatever was making me feel sick. All that work, and then I couldn't even finish a bowl. Bummer. At least my wife and my son went back for seconds.

I take solace in the knowledge that the flavors in my bowl (which is in the fridge, under plastic wrap) will have commingled and will be even better when I'm finally able to get to them.

Now that you've read that, go read this: https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/2024/04/at-last-bruckner-symphony-no-6-is-finished/