Empathy with a hambone!

Just like I find it interesting to play in other people's shops with my locum work, it is also fun to cook in other people's kitchens. Finding myself in that situation, I found a hambone in the freezer. Soooo.... what you see to the right is what we had for dinner. Before we dished it up, I decided to fish out the bone to make it easier. I noticed that it was in fact the "stifle" of the pig. For the non-medical (or non-veterinary) folks, the stifle is "knee".. Aha!. Now you see the relationship of this post. Although most of the cartilage had separated from the bone, I could recognize the meniscus. One of the menisci was intact and the other was pretty much cooked away... I'm guessing that is what my medial meniscus will look like to the surgeon. Oh well. With my surgeon doing 6 of these a week, and myriads of orthopedic surgeons in the world, I am certainly not alone. The great thing is that all in all, I am hearing some great things once folks make it through the massive physical therapy. In the meantime, I'll just do what I can. Maybe I won't be dissecting the next hambone I come across. Now if you want to see something interesting do a bing search for hambone images. What a wide range of images although most of them are dogs. However, my facebook friend (and pharmacist) has an English Bulldog pup named "Meatball". Idn't that great?

More information revealed

In the February 1 "Yogi Berra" post, I mentioned that I had torn the meniscus in my knee. That was from a quick report from a nurse via phone message. Yesterday, I finally got to meet with the surgeon and see the MRI images. A very interesting meeting. First about the surgeon. I had heard that he was very good and worked with university and high school athletes and that he lives "just across the road" from our addition. After meeting him, I also found that his dad and several other relatives are veterinarians, some of whom I have taught. I don't think I told you that because of the pain and lack of time before leaving for Corvallis, I called to make an "emergency" appointment back in January. My regular doctor was booked, but I got in with a physician's assistant who seemed to know what she was talking about.... and scheduled the MRI. Well, her dad is also a veterinarian. I do remember speaking with both of these dads while working at the university.

So what did I learn yesterday? I went into the meeting thinking that there was a small tear in the cartilage which would need to be trimmed up a bit by arthroscopy and I would be "as good as new" in a few days. I got a surprise. This image is very much like that of my knee. The image on the left is "as is" and I have retouched the one on the right. The bright green triangle is the normal lateral meniscus. In these images, fluid is white. You can see that on the medial side fluid has replaced the medial meniscus. Adjacent to the place where the meniscus should be, you see a large white area in the bone. This is bone contusion or edema (fluid and inflamation) in the bone caused by irritation from bone on bone contact. This tells us that the medial meniscus is not just torn, but gone.. It has been destroyed and no longer provides the normal cushion. All options presented for therapy are temporary except a "knee replacement" surgery. I'm guessing that will only be on the medial side, like this image, but will know more at my next meeting. What I do know is that it will be a 3 day hospital stay and lots of physical therapy. They expect me to be "out of commission" for 4-6 weeks. Obviously with Georgia's other foot in the offing, it seems like our home will be a recovery ward for a while.  He does surgery on Thursdays and does about 6 of these each Thursday. He is booked into July, so unless there is a cancellation, I will be pretty much "as is" until late July. Instead of being out of commission for a few days in April, I now expect to be down for several weeks this late summer. Yes, prayers are accepted. Thanks.

The battle is on!

Yesterday, I hobbled around the yard to check thing out. At this point this little yellow crochus is the only bloom. However, the daffodils and tulips are peeking their tendler little heads out of the muclh with the promise of a spring full of glorious blooms.  Having had this promise in past seasons, I face it with a bit of apprehension. I am aware of 2 ways in which those blooms may be stolen from us. The first is similar to that faced each year by the Florida fruit growers; the freak freeze that comes just as the buds are about to open (or fruit ripen). Not sure I can do anything about that. I do have lots of mulch around and over them, which should help for a while. We'll just have to wait and see. I don't see myself putting floating row cover on and off as the weather people over-estimate the threat of freezing weather as they seem to love to do... Anything to create a sensation.

The second threat to bountiful blooms are those pesky wabbits. So far, I didn't see any nibbled buds. I know that the daffodils are safe because they don't like them. But... they seem to love the tulips and crochus. So I did my first "gardening" of the year by spraying "liquid fence" on everything. My first volley in this battle for the blooms. Last year, I won. Two years ago, I lost. So here we go with another season "on the brink".. (Sorry Bobby)

Life on the Road at 31 Degrees



A cabin at the Lodge at Suttle Lake



Snow on the Roof of the Suttle Lake Lodge



Yes, it's me complaining again. I was going to name this post "Welcome Back Yogi".... If you read the earlier post when I was describing repeat patterns, you would understand. However after a couple of thousand miles of glancing down at the outside temperature guage on our dashboard to see 31, I decided to use this name. There's nothing inherantly wrong with 31 degrees, except when there is moisture involved and you are on the road. Here I slipped in a couple of pictures of the Snow at Suttle Lake Lodge that I left out of earlier posts, then starting in the Oregon Cascades where we first encountered 31 degrees and lower and ending in St. Joseph, Missouri where we seem to have left that number, there are images of the beauty of freezing rain and fog when you're not driving.



Out our window at Suttle Lake Lodge



Although we dealt with that off and on through the mountains, I had such a feeling of relief as we passed Laramie because that meant we weren't going to get stuck in the mountains by deep snow again. That was also when we realized that coming up out of Laramie, we were surrounded by pine and cedar trees. We hadn't seen that since the Cascades. All that space. Then we passed by Cheyenne and were commenting on the nearby clouds covering the rock formations. All of a sudden the temperature dropped and we were in those clouds. Time to back off the 75 mph. Again, it was beautiful, but not fun to drive in. Sorry; no pictures.



Georgia in the Cascade snow.



Seems that in North Platte, Nebraska, there was a meeting of 3 forces. The wet storm coming up from the south. The cold blast from the northwest. And us!. All across Nebraska (See the post about our trip out across Nebraska.)  it was pretty much the same. The roads became clear after about 100 miles, but that ominous number 31 hung in there and the windshield was waffling between needing the wipers to needing the defroster. You felt like you could go ahead and drive on, but at 31 degrees, you knew there could be ice patches at any point. There were several cars and trucks along the road to attest to this fact. At Lincoln, we left the "old route" that we had used so often and thanks to Garmen and Mapquest, found a shorter route through Springfield, Illinois by dropping down to St. Joseph, Missouri and taking the divided 4 lane (non interstate) 36 across Missouri to Hannibal. Garmen showed me this coming home last summer, rather than going through St. Louis as I traveled from Denver on I-70. Although the temperature rose a little, we did experience a little of the only kind of precipitation we had missed to this point; hail. Not a lot, but just enough to know it was there, and raise our BP a bit. As we make the last leg of the trip home today, the temperature promised to be in the high 30's and low 40's. That will be such a relief, although it looks like another day of rain.. But in this case, wet rain, not freezing rain. Relief at last????

 





A native waiting to cross in Eastern Oregon



Beauty in central Nebraska



Another chapter closed

Thursday afternoon, I finished my 4th class teaching in the radiology course at Oregon State University. Friday evening said goodbye to the clinic for the 6th time. This trip may not have been as exciting as the past. I ended up spending a lot of time on crutches to spare my bad knee and Georgia was sick most of the time. We did revisit the Lodge at Suttle Lake, Three Creeks Brewing company in Sisters, and Tidal Raves seafood grill in Depoe Bay. Got to order in that fabulous Cirello's pizza a couple of times and got lots of stuff at New Morning Bakery. Guess those things make us "regulars" in Corvallis. We didn't eat out as much as in the past, but there are a bunch of new places in "town".. And we were told about some that weren't so new. Dr. Gordon put us on to Mexico Lindo which was great Jason and Misty got us to go to Sam's City in Albany..  It was fantastic also. I'm afraid that our previous favorite oriental place (China Blue) has to take a back seat, except that we have to go to Albany to get it. When we first arrived, Dr. Kinsley started talking about  Le Patissier http://www.lepatissier.net/ a French bakery.. Finally as Georgia was working on getting ready to leave, yesterday morning, I went down and picked up some pastries for the trip... It's an OMG place. He was so right. Apparently it isn't that new, but we hadn't heard of it before. I had never really cared for croissants,  but now I see that I had never really had one. Those pop and serve Pillsbury things are a joke. So now Le Bistro will have to take a back seat also. It is right around the corner from the Market of Choice. That's about all of the new eating we did. Just didn't feel like doing more. Next time, we have a list of other new places that were suggested including the one where Iovino's used to be. Here is their website... looks good. http://delalmarestaurant.com/   Because of a family health issue we are now heading home as fast as we can. Not as fast as my trip last summer, but certainly quicker than we had intended. One of the things we had planned to see was the Oregon Painted Hills. Look it up. We must work that in to a future trip. For now, it's "hit the road Jack"... but hopefully we'll be back.