Checksum Arcanius

:-)

Tomorrow: Interview at Google

Wednesday: CSE ABET Lunch (Major Accreditation)

Thursday: Physical Therapy

Friday: Lab Due

Saturday: FIRST Lego League Edmonds Regional

Also, running out of time on the big CSE project and two new BioE projects are just starting…

Knee surgery sucks, but at least this didn’t happen to me:

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Didas, 20, who had brain surgery although his complaint was in the knee, is slowly recovering but he remains partially paralysed.

The rest of the story is that another man who needed brain surgery instead received knee surgery. :-/

We all have much to be thankful for. For starters, could you ask for a more perfect, beautiful autumn day? Wow!

Yesterday I went into work at Microvision for the first time since my surgery. I only remained for a little over two hours, but it felt good to get back into the swing of things.

I can now drive, walk fairly well (I still take crutches along for longer walks), and do most activities without assistance. Stairs are still a little interesting — I still go down with the bad, up with the good — and biking is still out of the question — my right knee doesn’t bend enough to go all the way around yet. I also am having trouble getting my right knee straight, though I have an exercise that I am doing to work on this issue. However, I am thrilled with the progress I have made so far. By next quarter I should be biking, and then its all downhill from there (at least on my way to class)!

I just returned from witnessing the Washington Huskies defeat the California Golden Bears here in Seattle at Husky Stadium. It is the first Husky football win I have ever been to in person — and may this joyous occasion be the first of many more to come!

Final Score: 37-23

The 5mg oxycodone tablets I have are labelled “for breakthrough pain” which I have taken to mean pain that breaks through the background level of 10mg extended release oxycodone pills I have. I have stopped taking the 10mg tablets, and I have found that in my current state, I have to take about one 5mg tablet each night to make it through — or at least to be able to sleep.

On the flip side, I started physical therapy yesterday — I’m going again today, and then on Tuesday, after which I will be seeing Dr. Wahl for a post-surgical evaluation. One of the exercises I was supposed to do for physical therapy was to lift the injured leg, keeping it straight. Well, lifting the leg turned out to be quite an issue since, just as I was told would happen (though I didn’t believe it at the time), my right quad “forgot” how to operate. Or perhaps more precisely, I forgot how to operate my right quad. I could try with all I was worth, but I could not cause it to lift my leg. It was a frustrating, disenchanting, almost out-of-body feeling, not being able to control a leg that was clearly mine. Then I was trying again today, and suddenly, I regained control of the leg and it lifted. I don’t know why the sudden change, but it was not fleeting — the ability to lift the leg stayed with me. It was exhilarating to have the control back — I wanted to dance, but didn’t, because that probably would have been bad.