On Saturday, March 4, Albany received enough wet snow that several tree branches came down throughout the city. One was in my yard. Unfortunately, it was also totally across the sidewalk. It needed to be moved.
Ultimately, I needed to walk into the few inches of snow. Unfortunately, atop the snow was a sheet of ice, which made me turn my ankle. It was uncomfortable, but I figured it’d pass. The next day, it seemed fine.
Monday morning – more the middle of the night – I awoke to extreme pain on the left side of my left knee. I could not bear to put any weight on it. Getting out of the office chair took ten minutes.
So I spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday, my 70th birthday, sitting on the sofa, my damn knee elevated, watching news programs (60 Minutes et al.), and reading magazines. I couldn’t focus on much more than that.
Eventually, I felt less pain with a knee brace and a walking stick. I first damaged my knee in 1994, as I wrote here. I’m working on getting an ortho appointment.
You gotta have heart
Meanwhile, I went to see my original cardiologist on March 9. Even after a few scans over the past three years, it is “unclear whether the patient’s bicuspid valve is congenital or acquired due to heavy calcification.” I have a “moderate dilation of the ascending aorta. The maximum diameter of the enlarged segment is 5.1 cm.”
If it gets to 5.5 cm, I get to have heart surgery. Oh, joy! I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little anxious when I think about it, which is about twice a year when I get the scans and see the heart doc.
I need to lose more weight, as I’ve lost none since the beginning of the year. The good news is that I haven’t gained any either, and it’s stayed in a five-pound range.