A Little Bit of a Break

Here is the story, as you may know I have been down and out with a total knee replacement. This has restricted our ability to get out and explore since about July 17th, the day of the surgery. As the healing process advanced and the rehabilitation of the knee progressed, my mental state grew a bit weary. It is hard to spend five weeks around the house with your leg propped up, you tend to go a bit crazy.

Another adverse side affect is the pressure you tend to place on your spouse. The past several weeks I have not slept well due to the pain in my knee. I have tried to avoid taking the narcotics they provide to ease the pain, so the result has been that I have taken to watching late night movies on Net Flicks when I can't sleep. When ever I toss and turn due to the throb in my leg, I unintentionally disturb Linda's sleep. She is a light sleeper and when she is waken, she does not return to sleep very fast. The bottom line is that I was keeping myself and Linda awake and we both need to have a break.

Opportunity knocked in the form of Tom Husby and two of his friends heading down to the Lower Salmon to fly fish for steel head. So I packed the camper with food, grabbed my fishing rods and drove down for three days of fishing.

I know that you are rolling your eyes and saying "How can you fish with your knee and all?" I was lucky to find a spot on the river where I could park the camper with in about 30 yards of the rivers edge. The access was as good as you could find so all I had to do was carry my chair, poles and fish net down once a day. I even left the chair and net down at my spot at night which made my morning trek very easy each day.

I was able to sit and fish, get rid of the effects of being home bound for five weeks, and allow Linda to get to bed and sleep the entire two nights I was gone. It was a good trip, the weather was hot and dry. The fishing was terrible, but that was just fine by me. I even think that the walking on the unstable rocks and sand of the river bank helped to work the muscles and tendons around my knee as I moved from the camper to my chair on the bank.

I returned to Coeur d'Alene at about noon on the day I was to meet with my knee doctor. The appointment went great, he looked at x-rays of the knee and said everything was perfect so I don't have to see him for about a year. The future is getting better, I have less pain and Linda and I are about to get our schedules open enough that we can get back out and explore. Life is getting back to normal but I still have about six months until I can run, or hike like I really want, and that is OK, I can wait.