Howdy, Peter, and group, again...
"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
m...
So, if I have a later surgery (current schedule is June 15th), it would
allow a longer rehab and also more time to get our act together about
getting houses dealt with, for a November 05 departure. As it is, we
may be
delayed, unless we just "throw them away" by cutting the prices to fire
sale
level (thus killing our cruising kitty - a catch 22), so perhaps it
wouldn't
matter, anyway, to have a later surgery. However, Lydia's just beside
herself wanting to get aboard, so we've not yet made that decision.
Nothing's changed in that department, but we've made great strides in
getting my house (encumbered by about 40 years of accumulation) ready for
sale. Put a sign on the dock this weekend, and had two calls and a showing
from it, along with two showings to prior contacts. A group letter to
others I'd cultivated in the past should generate some more activity. I
believe we'll have them sold before we'd otherwise be ready to go, as I've
determined to have the surgery, regardless of when and outcomes.
My preference is to wait until, say, September, and get a good long
rehab
before making the boat as perfect as we can, and heading out November
05.
That would also get us past the requirement to come back from wherever
we
were to see her son graduate in December :{))
I recently broke my elbow in multiple places, along with assted other
injuries, in a fall. My physiotherapist says to forget about even
OWW!!!
paddling a kayak for months and not to go to sea on my annual work
cruise to the Antarctic. You go to sea with a bad shoulder, half
healed, and cop a heavy roll at the wrong moment, it's not going to be
pretty. How are you going to hang onto anything? I know that I can't,
right now.
My thoughts exactly. My expected time line (based on prior experience and
confirmation recently from the surgeon) is 2 weeks of absolutely no activity
other than pendulum circular swinging to keep the joint mobile, up to 6
weeks of that or, assuming all is well, another 4 weeks (total 6) of minimal
exercise in a pendulum mode, followed by about 6 months of rehab/PT. That
will restore me to function, but not necessarily strength or pain-free
condition. My gauge will be not only the ability to raise my arm over my
head comfortably, the comfortable ability to hang (I'm over 200#) in any
position with it, and the ability to take a strong punch (equivalent,
roughly, to bouncing off a bulkhead in an unexpected attitude adjustment).
That may well take us to November in any case, though I really don't think
so. I'm sure it will work out in the end.
Get well, then go. Otherwise the first might be the last when it all
gets ugly & painful instead of enjoyable. Even crew won't help if the
weather gets bad and you need the strength of a bad hand.
:{)) No kidding. We made a great deal of progress on my house (we don't
yet live together, as she lives and works 80 miles away) this holiday
weekend, sending a van-full off to the charities and some to the landfill,
which was preceded by my son's wedding a couple of weeks earlier, during
which a great deal left with relatives. Lydia's committed to doing all the
things I won't be able to do physically in order to get things going ASAP,
so I'm confirmed for Cutting about 334 hours from now (two weeks less a
couple of hours).
On the procedure, I have no qualms. The outcome won't be any worse, other
than a small potential for residual pain, of which there's none, now, and
there's every possibility (though only a rate of 50% success factor in the
procedure) that I'll regain full use of my arm. The surgeon is the best
there is in this field.
A side benefit (when life hands me lemons, I try to make lemonade) is that
the work I'd expected I'd do on the boat now will be most likely in the
winter, rather than the FL summer, which is brutal in a boat on the hard and
un-airconditioned. I expect I could be able to do the kind of work I'd want
to do (tracing some wiring, redoing some plumbing, taking a windlass off for
reconditioning, supervising some new fabrication) without being fully
rehabbed, or being rehabbed, but not yet strong enough or pain-free enough
to want to splash it, so perhaps it will all work out for the best. I'm
just enough of a perfectionist to not want to have to 'sit around' in a
period when I'd expected to be making measurable progress. But if I have to
sit around, better it should be in a time when I'd not really want to work
in the bowels of Hades, anyway! :{))
L8R
Skip and Lydia
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2
"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a
clear night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize
that you are quite alone on a great, wide sea, it is apt to occur to
you that in the general scheme of things you are merely an
insignificant speck on the surface of the ocean; and are not nearly
so important or as self-sufficient as you thought you were. Which is
an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one that may effect a
permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly appreciated
by your friends." - James S. Pitkin