I got to the gym twice this weekend, and put in two sessions of 60-minutes each on the stationary bike and another 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer. I lifted some weights, enough to make me sore two days later. During the week, I was able to do a few short sessions of rehab.
Earlier in the week, I got my sutures removed and the doc said that everything looked fine and to come back in three weeks. He suggested that I do some physical therapy to get back up to speed.
I also checked in with Pierre Couvillion who recommended that I take at least a month, maybe two, to ease myself back into yoga. Is he being overly cautious? Or am I just an ingrained overachiever who always has to push harder and farther.
This past weekend, I went to the gym and got on the stationary bicycle to build up strength in my leg and build up my conditioning. I also did several sessions of rehab exercises for my knee. I worked up to 60 minutes on the bike and felt no adverse consequences. I will have my sutures removed on Wednesday and I'll be able to do some swimming after that.
At work, I've run into two other colleagues who had orthopedic surgery on their knees -- I guess meniscus tears are contagious (he said ironically).
While listlessly surfing the web, distracted by the boiling political soup of the day, I came across the following quote that struck me as so true:
"In a real sense all life is interrelated, all humanity is caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, united in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be."
The words are those of Martin Luther King, Jr in his most Buddhist mindmeld. I discovered them on the blog of the latest boogie man of the election year, Bill Ayers. Then, I read a little further through the blog entry. It was the June '08 Commencement Address at the New City High School (not sure where, maybe in Kalamazoo, Michigan? or somewhere else cuz there's a string of charter schools that go by that name). I read through the paragraphs and realized that I would have wanted to have heard the speech at my commencement 35-40 years ago, or even five years ago, or even now. But then again, I guess I was a radicalized flower-power malcontent. Only I ended running off to Peru where I learned what real blood-drinking revolutionary Maoists do when they want to liberate the masses, and how well-meaning people can be trapped in ugly political situations.
And this is the diablo being castigated by McCain, the Republicans and Fox News. Of course, what they're talking about has nothing to do with reality; it's a political passion play. But it's also clear that Ayers' political position is far to the left of Obama (into the realm of flackiness since his ideology blinds him to many aspects of American society and the world) and that he thinks that his opposition to the war in Vietnam was the correct stand even though most Americans cannot accept his tactics and strategies. That's the "unrepentant" part that inflames the right.
Most comments about this issue come from politicians and talking heads who have not made a minimal attempt to understand what really happened between Obama and Ayers back in Chicago. In Slate, Barack, Bill, and Me by David S. Tanenhaus, a history and law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, lays out the social landscape in Chicago in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I recommend highly the article Chicago Annenberg Challenge in Spotlight by Dakarai I. Aarons in Education Week. Also read Ayer's own take on the issue: I’M SORRY!!!! i think…. and Episodic Notoriety–Fact and Fantasy. The Wikepedia entry of Ayers has a lot of information and links.
Labels: blessing, philosophy
More graphics than you may want to see of my torn meniscus,but I couldn't resist. Photo courtesy Dr. Graeter
Today is the first day in which I've been able to string two sentences together. I had my outpatient surgery on Friday afternoon, and was on pain medications until last night. I took off my surgical bandages yesterday, and now keep an Ace bandage to support my knee. I ice the knee as often as I can (15 minutes at a time). Yesterday, I was able to walk around without crutches. Today, I can climb stars. I can go down stairs only one step at a time, placing my injured leg first. The doctor says that I can start exercising on a stationary bicycle by next Saturday. I will get my stitches out early next week. I expect to be back at work tomorrow unless I wake up with a complication (say, overdid walking and stair climbing).
The operation itself went rather uneventfully. I had to wait about 90 minutes at the GW Hospital before they started the surgical prep. I guess they just want to make sure patients are on site and ready for the procedure, but it's boring. I was briefed about the procedure and given post-operation instructions. I was wheeled into the surgery room and I was unconscious before I could take in the full surrounding. I just noticed that it was chilly.
I got a second opinion on my knee injury about a month ago and decided to have orthopedic surgery with Dr. James Graeter because he's on my health insurance network and that will hold down costs. After he looked at my scans, he told me that yoga poses that are really dangerous for the knee are Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, Gomukhasana A or any pose in which the knee is flexed sharply. The risk is that the meniscus will be pinched between the femur and tibia bones. In this type of pose, the leg is often rotated and that may put additional stress on the menisci or expose them to the bones in harmful ways. hero's pose (or Virasana) (or variations on it) is another risky pose because your upper body is pressing down on your legs.
Once I understood the knee's peculiar risk in yoga, I realized that precautions have to be taken. For instance, putting a rolled-up hand towel or blanket behind the knee so that the bones are stretched apart. Because you can put your knees at risk in both standing and sitting poses, you have to think hard about how best to wedge the towels between your calf and your thigh.
Because there are no nerves (or blood flow) in the menisci, there's no way of telling if damage happens. It's only when you have debris floating around in your knee bursa that problems develop. It can actually lock up your knee so that it can't move.
