Last Saturday, we picked up the new water pill prescription and almost immediately started to breathe a little better, after taking the first one. This was not always the case in the next few days, but overall, things appear to be getting better.

I have been able to put full wt on the knee,(standing only) for a while. I am very close to being able to put full wt on while bending it to walk. I haven't tried yet today but will soon. I am walking back and forth down the hallway(with crutches) 8-10 times/day.

Friday is the next Dr visit with our new GP. He had us do blood work, so maybe we will learning something from this. We are also scheduled to have the first therapy session on Friday.

Sleeping is still a problem, but is gettting better. Overall, there is hope, that this nightmare will soon be behind us. The stupid cold weather is soon behind us too. Laura lost some of her plant life, but otherwise we had no problem, other than a furnace running all the time.

Now that I have basically caught up, I would like to summarize the recent events.



Dec 15-First Pains started to develop.

Dec 16-Went to Dr Dew in St Augustine-cortisone shot, pain pills

Dec 18-Back to Dr Dew in St Augustine-braced knee, stronger pain pills.

Dec 21-Back to Dr Dew, lanced knee, blood clot test, ekg, to lab for tests, away to Hospital

Dec 23-Arthoscopic cleaning of knee

Dec 24- released from hospital

Dec 25-Started daily IV infusions at the hospital

Jan 4-Stopped IV(11 done), switched to pills

Jan 8-Acquired GP doctor for florida

Jan 8, 2010

today was a double dose of office visits. first to Dr Romero, where the cumiden level was checked and found to be perfect at 2.5. next check in about a month. Blood pressure reading was 154/91. They will relay this info to Dr Romero who will change the medication if he deems it to be necessary.

Then off to Dr Limeres office, where we filled out all the pertinent patient info for them. We now have a GP to go to for any future situations.We talked to his assistant for a while. He could not get a BP reading with his automatic machine, so did it the old fashioned way. Manually, he got 148/70, which is better than most, though still higher than we like. He explained that the arrithmia(?) causes the device to stop when beats stop, then starts again when the beats reappear, causing the device to read higher than it should. this makes sense. After talking with Dr Limeres for a while, he issued a prescription for water pills, and blood tests. Next visit, next Friday. The visits were not as productive as we had hoped, but at least we now have several people trying to help us.

For the moment I guess the heart is more important than the knee, but the knee continues to improve, and I am very close to putting weight on it.

Jan 6

sleeping pattern has changed to 3-4 hours, then laying awake until daybreak. hard to stay awake during days sometimes. continuing to heat and cool ,while flexing and bending, while in chair.

cold, 28-50 degrees.

JAN 5

Lester moved Jerrys trailer, to make room for Bea and Cliff and Ken and June and Judy, who arrived late in the afternoon. Lester got them set up. Laura had supper ready for everybody. It is nice and cool here (30-50 degrees)

Monday Jan 4

We went to have iv #11 done, then got in to see Dr Laubaugh. he checked on the germ that was found in my knee and determined there are many antibiotics that will kill it.So he stopped the iv drip and changed to a pill version. we went back to the hospital to have the iv apparatus removed.

Laura had called Dr Romero to see if he would change the blood pressure medication, which he did by doubling the quantity and doubling the frequency.

Lester and Sue arrived today and Bob and Laverne came for a welcome supper.

Welcome 2010

Jan 1,2,3

routine trips to hospital for daily IV drips, and heating and cooling treatment of the knee.