Fifth Week of Recovery

Last week I said I had some goals for this week. They were "catch up on my thank you notes, call Stanford to discuss my return to work plan, work up to three walks per day, and to continue to recover as best I can. I'm also trying very hard to avoid the H1N1 flu bug and hopefully I can get a shot from my clinic as soon as they have the virus injections on hand."

I made some progress on my thank you notes. Still have a long list to work through, which I will continue this week.

I did call Stanford and the Hartford to discuss my return to work plan and to try to confirm Hartford's understanding of my leave time and disability salary continuation. I understand that Stanford submits everyone who has the sort of surgery I had for twelve weeks of time to recover, but the Hartford somehow had me shown for only six. Looks like we have some work to do and Stanford is working with the Hartford to get me an extension. I will not be ready to return to work one week from tomorrow (Monday, Nov 2). I have been recovering well and there are no major obstacles in the way other than building my endurance back up, which is coming along well. I will be getting this resolved this coming week and make sure all the "paperwork" is in order so I can continue to get better.

I did work up to three 20-minute walks this week and then I shifted to one 30-minute walk for a couple of days when the weather cooperated and then today I made it to two 30-minute walks. As long as the weather cooperates, I expect to stay at this level for a while.

I am continuing to recover pretty well. No real setback days this week. Sleeping is getting a bit better, but is still not as sound as I'd like. Hopefully increased activity this week will help that. My anti-coagulation check went well this week. At 8 mg Warfarin per day, I reached an INR level of 2.1 (my goal is 1.5 - 2.5). One more weekly checkup at 8 mg and if we are in the right range we will stay there and they will bump me out to a check every two weeks instead of every week. I'm starting to spend more time reading again and other diversions that aren't on the television. Daytime TV is just bad, and watching news channels all day is really depressing me :-) My appetite continues to improve and my digestive system seems to be returning to normal. I still have a ways to go, but I'm snacking more during the day, so it looks like things are definitely getting better.

So far I've managed to avoid the H1N1 virus and I am trying very hard to continue avoiding it. No virus shot for me, so I'll just stay away from people as much as I can.

My youngest daughter and her son, my oldest grandson, came to visit us yesterday. Jacob simply wore me out, though we all had a lot of fun playing pirates and swords and reading books and decorating a halloween gingerbread house and just generally doing "papa", Grandma, and Jacob stuff. Even though it wore me out, I wouldn't have had the day go any other way -- what great therapy it was!

So for this week, I need to continue to work on thank you notes, my return to work plan with Stanford and the Hartford, my walking, my reading, and my continued recovery by raising my activity level and endurance. Surprisingly the days are passing by quickly and my daily to do lists are getting longer and more difficult.

Looking forward to another week of good progress,

Jon