Back on the bike

And so today, it marked the day of my first time back riding my bike- I had no pain in my knee it was so good! I haven't ridden my bike since at least May (when I had the surgery) and so to be back on it as the warmer weather is showing now, getting warmer leading up to summer!

On the way we stopped for lunch, then we saw the damage from the recent storm that passed through which happened to be at its strongest when it is high tide, on a king tide so the sea levels were rather high and took out a lot of the built up sand around the coast, you can see evidence of this all along the Orewa Beach stretch of the coast which is a good few kilometers long (five I think).  There is barriers all up along the beach front and the grass just goes straight down and all the tree roots are showing- that is all that is holding the beach front.  There is still a lot of debris on the beach as well.

I don't have pictures of the South end of the beach where the damage is a lot worse as the height of the sand/grass walls are a lot higher!!!

Even old steps were uncovered... 

This use to be covered in sand...

Saw this mailbox too- very cool!

We then went and got ice-creams...

And Allie got licks too- her treat :-)

Knee Check Up

**On a side note, on Monday I had another appointment with my knee surgeon and my knee is on the way to recovery, I am back to normal running and working without problems bending up and down.  I have another appointment on Monday 4th November this year (the day before my 18th!!) for the 6 month (I think actually only 5 months) check up.  It will still take about 18 months for us to know the outcome of the operation if it had actually worked how we hope or not, as there was only a 60% chance that it would, but doing it wont have made it worse.

Editing to add photos from the trip to the city:

This is the Gillies Ave off-ramp, a lot of traffic for 3 in the afternoon!

The rainy crappy weather... the "merge-like-a-zip" lights are already on... Didn't think they went on until 4pm.  

Haha, the Chelsea Sugar truck- its got sugar mountains on it :)

Update on my knee

As you know I had knee surgery last week.  10 days on and I am finally back at school for the first full day on Friday 7th June.  I have been in for the critical lessons needed to keep me up to date for a math internal that I will be sitting early next week.

Everyone thinks I am crazy weird for wanting to be at school when I have medical permission not to be there - even my doctor.

Wednesday (5th June) I went back down to my surgeons clinic in Auckland to have the bandage taken off and stitches removed with strips put on to hold the incision closed and waterproof dressings put on.  The bruising also started coming out pretty nicely, and the swelling has also meant that I haven't been able to wear my jeans yet, but I kindly got given a pair of track pants that have a zip up the side to borrow so that I can have pants to wear and not my skirts and shorts all the time, as it is winter over here.

My knee has caused a lot of pain when I'm not sitting down with my leg up, so I ended up at my local doctors clinic being prescribed with a higher dose of pain killers which have worked wonders!

Top view of my knee- 2 incisions (one for the camera- small one about 1.5cm in length, and one for the lateral release procedure- bigger one about 4cm in length)

Side view of my knee- yeah, thats the bruising, it continues round the back of me knee too.  The swelling isn't so bad at the moment as I have been from my bed to the lounge and had my leg up all day so far.

I am still on crutches and could be for quite sometime (a couple weeks+ most likely), I am fully weight bearing but not walking correctly as I can't bend my knee at all when standing or walking, though I can physically move it with my hands when sitting down.

Pictures from surgery

Just as I had come out of recovery.

Same day as the op, the yellow on my leg is iodine- it doesn't want to come off still!

 About an hour after I got home from the hospital.

This was taken yesterday- the difference in size! The left knee does have a bandage in it though, I had managed to get leggings on for under my skirt (I can't wear jeans at the moment cause my knee is to fat).

Knee surgery

I tried writing this yesterday but blogger had a spaz at me and decided to delete this post!

Yesterday was D Day for my surgery.  It went pretty good until I got up to go home which I went all sick and pale so I got put back on the ward to be monitored for a couple more hours where they put an anti nausea patch behind my ear to help.

I had an arthroscopy done which is a look inside of my knee with a camera to find anything that they didn't already know was there just incase.  And then they the proceeded with the rest of the procedure which was to cut my tendon holding my kneecap so that it wont be attached in the same was as before because that was what was causing all of the pain I got in my knee.

I have a lovely fat bandaged up knee and I am also practicing to walk on it normally, well slightly weight baring at the moment with the help of crutches.

I do have the next week off school, but I am going in for a meeting in a couple of hours and will probably go back in on Tuesday for the day, or for as long as I'm not in pain.

I am really glad that is is done and dusted now to wait a year or so to see if it has fully worked.

Pictures of it to come..
Me in hospital just after recovery
And, the difference in knee size.