November-December, 2014.
I am after a long time away from this blog, getting back to posting stories. Last November I had total knee replacement surgery. Recuperation is a challenge anyway, but more so on a houseboat. It’s not like you can pull up in your driveway or garage and walk a few steps to the house. I was going to have to get up and down the ramp, and then the walkway.
Since it was winter and I heat with a wood-burning stove, there was wood to bring down from the parking lot to the outside deck, and then inside. (What was I thinking? Why didn’t I plan this for summer? I know – because by summer I would have a knee completely healed and have fun.) My dear friend Peg came out from Washington D.C. to help get me home from the hospital, and then my moorage neighbors were a great help.
Coming home from the hospital, Tim and Diana helped Peg get me down the ramp in a wheelchair. My 80-year-old neighbor Tom, himself the recipient of a new knee last October, came over twice a day to bring wood inside. Tim kept an eye out on the wood rack outside and filled it when the pile was getting low. Courtney brought milk and checked the mail. Lots of people came to visit. I used a website called LotsaHelpingHands to coordinate friends and what I needed. Trevor from Beyond the Clinic was the physical therapist who came to the houseboat to basically retrain me how to walk and to build up my leg muscles. In a week, I was able to get myself up and down the ramp. By January, I had gone on a four-mile hike.
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