Dunkirk NY – The food shopping has been done, the RV is winterized, and all errands that required physical labor have been completed. It’s all over but the cutting.

Radar projection for Thursday AM

Tonight we head up to Buffalo, spend the night in the Hampton Inn just around the corner from the surgery center, and at 7:30 AM will be checking in for surgery. Naturally, since this is a pretty important event, the weather is being less than cooperative. My wife and I are famous for making travel plans that are always hampered by bad weather, and tomorrow is no different. The area is supposed to get its first significant snowfall of the year overnight tonight and into tomorrow. Fortunately, it does look like the immediate lake shore will be spared any accumulation. Most of the significant snow will fall in the hills. So with my wife driving back (who dislikes driving in anything but ideal conditions), it will be a little bit of an adventure, and something of a sloppy mess to arrive home.

An arthroscopic repair of the meniscus

And in case you’ve never seen one, here’s a look at what an arthroscopic procedure entails. There are three instruments: the irrigation instrument, the arthroscope, and the surgical instrument. Three holes are punched, one for each instrument, and the work is pretty much done by looking at a monitor and sawing/cutting away at the tear until it’s as smooth and clean as it can get. It’s pretty quick, and I remember the last time I was up and around fairly good in three days. No driving or riding in a car for a month, though, and of course no exercise or extraneous movement until it’s time for physical therapy.

All in all, should be a fun time!  -twl

Illustration of the procedure

Dunkirk NY – Yesterday’s weather was good, so I was able to get a good portion of outdoor stuff accomplished: bikes to the basement, scooter in the shed, snowblower on the driveway. This morning is a typical dreary November day for this area, so a lot of indoor tasks will get accomplished today. What’s left?

• Bringing items to the Salvation Army. The wife had some “memory lane” moments because the items were some of the toys the kids played with, so the work slowed down a bit.
• Hanging a curtain upstairs for a bedroom window.
• Hanging the office room curtains.
• Moving boxes from one of the upstairs bedrooms to another storage area.
• Food and ice shopping. Especially ice. The ice compress machine takes a lot of ice, about a bag a day. We need to get in about 4-6 bags today and load up the freezers.
• Laundry.
• Recycling the glass. For some reason the recycling program here no longer takes glass.
• Getting antifreeze into the water lines of the RV.
• Bringing in the RV cushions to act as a bed for Thanksgiving company.

There’s more, but you get the drift. In the next two days the house has to be more or less ready for the two boys to come home for Thanksgiving, and we have to do it now before I go down for the next three weeks or so. It feels a little rushed, and it’s chore work, but it’s got to get done. I am sure it will help to keep a rainy, dreary day at bay. -twl

Dunkirk NY – Well, here it is, Monday, the day after the opera had its second and final performance, and it’s now on to the next segment of life – getting ready for the surgery. I made my “to do” list this morning, and it’s extensive. Basically, I have to try to anticipate getting everything ship-shape and squared away for winter and the arrival of two of the kids for Thanksgiving. Since I’ll be sitting on the couch for a few weeks and not able to do much physical labor during that time, I’ve got to get everything done in the three days I have before I go under the arthroscopic knife (I actually think it’s more like a little buzzsaw).

So this is it for today. Gotta get to-doing!  -twl