Walking Better

My knee is not yet where I want it to be but it is so much better than it was.  I am impatient to begin more exercise to regain my strength and stamina

Forced Bending, Part Two

The aftermath of the manipulation of my knee has been pretty good. The anesthesia left me groggy for the given day but no pain afterward and I can still walk okay. Results in physical therapy have improved, so it's gone well.

Forced Bending

Alas my knee has been slow to bend after my knee replacement. The next step is to forcibly bend the knee, ripping the scar tissue apart, under anesthesia. I am looking forward to the result if not the procedure itself.

Walking Without a Cane

It's been roughly three weeks now that I've been without a cane. My leg does not bend or straighten correctly, so I can not go up stairs with both legs but I can walk freely and using a rail for stability I can go up stairs with both legs. This is a huge step forward, literally.

Improvement

At times it has seemed glacier-like in its pace, but my rehab is making progress. I am so very happy to walk without a cane after nearly a year of needing one.  My leg is still limited in bending and straightening but there is definite improvement from week to week. 

Rehab

Having a knee replacement appears to be all about months of physical therapy. I can see the pay-off in the distance but it is strenuous. I have sciatica and the exercise has been triggering a good deal of pain, disrupting my sleep etc.  Nothing to do but get through it. 

New Knee

I have a new knee. I'm still breaking it in, and will be out of circulation for at least another week or two.

The surgery had a couple of glitches; I developed pneumonia and had to stay in the hospital for a couple of extra days. I developed a rash because of one of my medications that went away after it was switched to another medication.

My knee's rehab is glacier-like. The work on increasing its flexibility is a trigger for my sciatica, so pain has been my faithful companion.

After two weeks I've moved from a walker to a cane and I am trying to do more for myself. As my physical therapist stressed, I need to measure progress in weeks and not days.

Final Exams

 It's been hard teaching during the pandemic for a number of reasons, one of which is that many students have asked for more leeway about deadlines, etc. It takes a good deal more work not to lose track of assignments for students that send them via different channels, etc.

What's worse is the number of students who have been violating the honor code. It is difficult if not impossible to prevent cheating on online exams.

A number of students this term have decided to email me their online exams hours after the deadline. I don't understand their reasoning in taking more time than their colleagues took for exams and expecting to be rewarded for this. During the term I have given 0's but offered make-up exams. Now in final exam period when I have fewer options I have had to pro-rate a three-hour exam that was taken over a five-hour period without my consent.

It is always a goal of mine to end the semester respecting all of my students, including those for whom my course is not important. I have not been able to this term.

Wrapping Up the Academic Year

I've taught my last new class in two of my sections and will teach the last class in my third next week. Then final exams. I'll have a brief period of freedom before my surgery, can't see far enough ahead to see how to spend that time. 

Fatigue

Around this time every academic year I along with most of the people around me are fatigued. This is aside from how much sleep we get any particular day. It's cumulative over the academic year. The insidious part is that it's hard to articulate fatigue when you're fatigued.

Last Stretch

Everyone and I do mean everyone around me is looking dead-tired as we move into the last half of the Spring semester.  For me the fatigue shows up in confusing students with similar names, making typos on dates for posting course materials, etc. So far no car crashes for which I'm grateful.

Knee Replacement, Part II

I now have an appointment for having my knee replaced as well as all the other related office visits.  I do need to keep my blood sugar low in order to have the surgery, so I have been fasting a bit.

I get depressed very easily when my blood sugar is low. It hits in waves, where I just want to weep with no particular trigger.  It is one of the reasons I suspect that my blood sugar has been above the norm if not incredibly high.

Catching Up

I often feel very behind. Sometimes that feeling is accurate; often it is because I am not as far ahead as I would like to be.

Once or twice a semester I have a moment where all of the important things are done and there is a brief respite before other major tasks begin.  I felt that kind of respite yesterday.

I know that my stress is self-induced. It isn't very often that I give myself a break.

Vaccination

 I had hoped to get vaccinated earlier in the year, then expected it later, but the changing state priorities finally included me and my cohort and I received my first (Moderna) COVID vaccination a week ago.

My arm was sore but about par for a vaccination; I had no fever nor any other side effects, which is a blessing.  I have my quality-of-life illnesses but I don't seem to get hit with flu or cold stuff very often.

Our live-at-home adult child will have to wait a while to be vaccinated, so even after my wife and I are vaccinated we will need to be careful not to pop our COVID bubble until all of us are set.

Knee Replacement

 I have suffered for some time from arthritis. This past August the pain in my left knee increased to the point where I now walk with a cane.

X-rays show little cartilage left there, and so I will be needing to replace the knee. I do not think that the pandemic has ebbed enough yet but am hopeful that it will be safe to do so after classes end in May.

I have a vivid imagination and do not like to think about the surgery itself or the rehab, but know that the alternative is worse.

Code Review

 One of the things that I've given more thought to over the past year or two is trying to articulate what I've learned in years of programming Python.  Part of it occurs when I document code and realize how better to structure it.  Part of it is trying to improve large structures and make them easier to validate and maintain.

Independently I had to write a small program that would consult a data file and I tried using the json format. It was very serviceable, and it started me thinking about doing the same as part of my code review process.

I am in the process of (it will take many weeks) of creating code to progressively document code, producing a LaTeX document that will serve in ensuring consistent documentation (with docstrings) of my code and force me to think about structural issues. It is quite engrossing.

Another Monday, another term

 Our Spring semester starts this coming Monday. I'm pretty prepared for the first week. I've also caught up on a lot of paperwork, so I go into the weekend without being under a great pile of work. I hope it lasts.

New President

Joe Biden is now president. He is not a messiah figure, but he is an experienced politician who seems to genuinely want to help people and know how to, qualities missing in Donald Trump.  I do believe that we will see some improvements in the pandemic by the end of February, and he has already heartened anti-racists by restoring a lot of protections of non-white males that Trump and gotten rid of.  

We still have many people dying each day but I am much more hopeful.

Fatigue

I haven't felt fully awake for a while.

There are some background stressors that I think are the issue. The pandemic continues and is worsening, although it sounds as if things will turn around as soon as Biden is sworn in.

The attack on the Capitol and the ongoing threat of further violence from Trump supporters keeps me checking the news every five minutes. It hurts to think of so many of my fellow citizens being so violently deluded.

In any event I keep taking involuntary naps as soon as my adrenaline fades a bit. It is not much fun.

Coup Attempt

Nobody seemed to take Trump and his minions seriously. Now we have a violated federal Capitol and a country in shock.

A sizeable number of Republicans living in conspiracy-world still believe that the election of Joe Biden was fraudulent, without any proof. They are finding excuses for the mob that Trump organized and directed to attack the Capitol.

Trump has quieted but has still not conceded the election he lost in November 3. As of this writing he has 12 more days as President. There is talk of the 25th amendment but the folk who would have to invoke it have neither honor nor courage. Congress is moving to impeach him but the earliest they start the procedure is apparently Monday.

Why did no one believe that Trump was capable of this, after four years of violent rhetoric and orders? I expected a circus from assholes like Cruz, Hawley, and Johnson, but never imagined that the people organizing security for the Capitol would treat the mob with kid gloves.

It's been hard to concentrate on anything. I struggle to believe in America as a noble concept but I see that hope fading in my children and I curse the Republicans that brought this to fruition, step by step, away from truth and honor.