It was a overcast and rainy morning when we set off for Bellevue for my follow up post-op appointment with Dr. Jackman. It took us a little while to find the right place to park, Bellevue's Overlake facility is a sprawling campus with many buildings and we had to be in a very unassuming low rise with very little parking space. But we got there and I hobbled up to the first floor to fill in 4 forms. Dr. Jackman is "out of network" which means only a portion of the fees will be covered by my health insurance but we figured seeing the same guy that drove in the screws and pin would be a good thing - keep him honest and have continuity of service.

We waited a good 30 mins before being taken down to the "plaster room" which is kind of like a storage room behind the x-ray machine. I was popped onto a table and the extraction of my foot from the splint began. There was a load of cotton wool they had to cut through but eventually the sorry excuse for a foot dangles from my right leg was brought to light, almost like a birth. Like a just born, it was ugly, bruised, shriveled and  in need of air - badly. The source of my greatest pain was immediately apparent to all onlookers, I had two large blood bruises where the bandage had been secured to tightly near the toes after the operation. They were dark and ugly judging by the looks on the faces of those that could see them - luckily I couldn't. It was these sore points that Amy had fashioned the USB brace for (see previous entry re MacGyver).

The foot was then held awkwardly while it's x-ray photo was snapped in 3 different positions. The Dr also had his knee expert come and feel me up and they were both encouraged by the rigidity of the knee and didn't think surgery was required at this stage. Very good news. Sometimes these things can heal themselves. I'll be on range of motion physio therapy from next Monday for the knee, starting at 45 deg and then seeing how things go from there. If it feels too unstable or risky then we'll re-examine surgery options, arthroscopic replacement and clean up using my body parts or someone else's.

The x-rays showed a crazy mesh of nails and pins as you can see below. He was very pleased that the break was barely visible now and was happy with the healing progress. Eventually the pin will come out but he said that unless the plate was uncomfortable or getting in the way, he'd leave the screws and plate in situ.

We'll be back to see the Dr in 2 weeks to have the new plaster cast taken off and some other form of restraint/support put on. He hopes that by the wedding I can have photos taken without the crutches but I'll still need to be keeping all weight off the foot for a good 6 weeks. I chose a hot red colour for the plaster and it's been applied with a lot more care, taking the blood blisters into consideration. The leg brace is back on to keep the knee immobilized too. The cast is lighter and more comfortable so I'm happy about that. Oh and the sutures you can see in the Frankenstein photo below were removed too. They are happy with progress.

Saturday brought only the 2nd visitor to the house, with Sunday bringing the 3rd! What a social weekend we've had.

Saturday afternoon finally saw the breaking of the snow grip we've been under for the best part of two weeks, replaced with rain and dull grey skies - normal Seattle weather for this time of year. We got a call from Shannon to say that she'd like to drop around in the evening of Saturday. She brought some great Christmas gifts, including my first drop of red wine for some weeks and many a good story. Amy did a great job in the kitchen cooking up salad starter, then penne with a tomato and sausage sauce, finishing up with an acorn squash recipe that Shannon brought along. Acorn squash was new to me, but it was good - roasted to soften it up and basted with a brandy and maple syrup mixture. We introduced Shannon to the Nintendo Wii Fit. Being a fitness guru, Shannon was fascinated by the mechanics of it all. She left a little after 10 for the long drive back to Tacoma and we were buggered so went to bed.

Mike and Marion spoke to us from the Loire Valley in France today via IM. They're having a great time over there and the magic of the Internet means that we can do a video call with them in their Château. With the snow cleared, Amy broke the Jetta out of hibernation and hit the shops. Following that, we had Ryan and Cathy drop around and Cooper was able to flutter his eyelids and charm their socks off. Amy's cooking ability grows with each day, tonight were snacking into Mexican style lamb wraps with fresh guacamole  - yum.

Off to the Dr tomorrow for an assessment on how things are going - I'll let you know.

It's boxing day here in Issaquah and Christmas is all over bar the shouting. We had a great morning yesterday. Santa came! Who'd have thought. Our stockings were full (Amy, me and the dogs collectively) when I came downstairs and it made me very happy. I guess Amy had filled them when she took the Coop out at around 7am. I wasn't expecting and I was frankly quite moved that she'd gone to the trouble - it really made it feel like Christmas. I got a Kitchen Nightmare game for the Wii, some shampoo, a cleaning cloth for the laptop and some of the excellent Williams & Sanoma finishing sauces that I love to use with lamb or beef steaks. Amy made a french toast style breakfast using another gift from one of my colleagues at work, a Panettone cake. Yum. The dogs were spoiled too - 4 new toys and a tasty chew bone for them. You can see them fighting over the skunk, ball, mini-hedgehog and bear in the shots below.

Mike and Marion called before they headed to the airport for their Christmas trip. With all the chaos at US airports we were worried they wouldn't get out but they seemed to have made it off ok. Bon Voyage. I spoke with Mum and her sister via webcam Christmas Eve that was a lot of fun. The sun was shining and they all had wine in hand! Merry Christmas. Yesterday, we caught Dad, Helen and Cam for their Boxing Day dinner and had a good chat. Dad and Helen will be coming up for the wedding in February which is a nice surprise - they must've taken pity on the gimp.

Today Amy and I went through a bunch of final wedding items like the vows, readings, menu and schedule for the day. It's going to be a lot of fun. Not sure what state my leg will be in except that it won't be normal - I'll be on crutches of some sort and have a protective boot or brace too. We're seeing the surgeon again on Monday next week where he'll take a look at the healing progress and probably schedule an MRI for the knee. The knee has been hurting a little lately, probably as I'm winding down the drugs and I have to hold the foot out in front of me when I crutch around and it's quite a heavy cast, weighing down on the knee joint.

And of course, the snow keeps falling. Hope everyone had a safe and happy festive season! Here are some shots of our Christmas.

Well the snow continues to fall although the rain is giving it a pretty strong running here in 'The Quah' on Christmas Eve. Amy and I loaded up Lips this morning and belted out some Christmas classics to get us in the mood. I even had a sponge bath! Things were starting to go off in places that haven't seen the light in some days (well a week and a half). It was worth it. If you ever find yourself without a wash in over a week, I'd recommend it.

Cooper kept Amy up overnight with a case of 'the runs'. We suspect the dirty snow he can be seen eating in the video we posted a few days back is to blame. We think it's cleared now.

Back in Australia it's now Christmas day. An institution of Christmas in Melbourne is 'Carols by Candlelight', usually broadcast live on Channel 9. It's cheesy, aimed at kids and I love it. It brings back memories for me that go back to when I was 5 or 6 and heading over to our Aunties house for Christmas. This Christmas will be the first time both Amy and I have been without our families around which is strange but it's going well. I think it's amazing that we can be together and be happy with just our company in all sorts of situations. We have our house, the animals are healthy (well except for George the fish, he didn't make it) and we have each other.

Here's hoping you're all having a great Christmas and feel close to the ones that you love.

Watched

• House, 30 Rock, Fringe, U2 Live in Paris 87, heaps of Food Network and some Discovery

Played

• Prince of Persia (very nice)
• World Of Warcraft

Reading

• The Soul of a Chef

You should see the snow we have around the house! I have only seen it from the couple of vantage points I have but Amy has taken a couple of videos of the outside area where we take the dogs to "do business" so hopefully you can see those below. Seattle had it's coldest weather in 25 years they tell us. A severe snow storm turned into a mild snow fall late last night, staving off loss of electricity and general panic from the locals.

My attempt to go drug free yesterday didn't go as well as we'd hoped. Although I got right through from 2am Saturday to this morning (Sunday), I didn't sleep very well at all and was in quite a bit of pain when I got up this morning to come downstairs. Youch. Needless to say, I'm back on the drugs. Guess I was numb to just how much my body is working to heal. It got me quite down but Amy was great and got me to perk up again.

We woke this morning to shredded cardboard all over the office floor. Seems Cooper had taken a liking to an old (like 28 year old) cardboard inner-tube from a used Glad Wrap box that I'd been storing some primary school art work in. He must be our child replacement (they call them 'fury children' here) as I remembered thinking to myself that I'd hold onto that old stuff to show my own kids, something I would've liked to have seen from my own parents just to prove that they were kids once too. Well there you go Coop! Time for you to do some of your own art work now - hehe.

I had a video call with Mum over IM yesterday too! She's becoming quite the digital immigrant now as she installed that herself. She's worried that she needs to put on makeup to talk to me now - too funny. Well done Mum. At least we can be at Christmas virtually now.

It's Football Sunday here in the states - the whole day is full of back to back games. On the west coast that means 10am, 1pm and 5pm kickoff times. I'm watching a game while writing this and it's snowing heavily in New England. Can't imagine how crazy that would be - imagine a leather ball at -10 C. It'd be like a rock. Only annoying thing about Sunday's for me are the endless commercials. Sometimes we have 5 or 6 ads, only to come back to about 10 seconds of footage, then straight back to ads. But understanding NFL is important to understand an important part of the American psyche. When you see how hard these guys work and how big they are, and the massive investment in football schools across the country make, you get a lot about the States. The always do better attitude, the quarterbacks importance and how it's OK to be a star, the acceptance of large sized people, the sense of pageantry and pride in country all comes from this game. Quite amazing.

Amy is slowly developing her skills in the kitchen too. A self-professed "non-chef", she successfully whipped up a very nice omelette for me yesterday. You can see a shot of me enjoying it below. It was stuffed with breakfast herb sausage and I slapped on some Hoi Sin sauce.

I watched quite a bit of the Australian Idol winners performances on YouTube recently too - Wes Carr. He was really good. Loved his versions of Get Back, Black and White and Jumpin Jack Flash. He should go far. He's only 25 and he's been performing most of his life. I'll be surprised if he's not putting out music in 20 years.

Watched:

• Aus Idol on YouTube
• Food Network Channel
• 4 more 30 Rock; Season 1
• Elf with Will Farrel
• Coldplay in Concert
• My Morning Jacket from Austin City Limits

Played

• World of Warcraft

Today's been pretty fun compared to the initial few days out of hospital. The clear skies and snowy ground made for a frisky mood within our dogs and each time they went out there were many stories of ice licking and mad running up and down the street.

I reduced the 4 hourly med dosage down so that I'm only on 1/2 or 1 of the pain killer so that I can start to feel more normal. The pain killers bind you up and I think they're contributing to being short of breath and making each effort seem bigger or more effortful than it should be. Amy and I shared a glass of Australian Sparkling Shiraz over dinner of ham on the bone and cheese melted sandwiches.

Only problem is, she tends to get more clumsy as she drinks the glass and has now hit her left leg on rearranged furniture 3 times (and counting). We're just a couple of cripples.

Watched:

• 5 episodes of 30 Rock: Season 1
• Grays Anatomy re-run
• NFL Football
• Top Gear

Played:

• World of Warcraft (grats on 77 Amy)

Most of the last 24 hours has been about pillows and pinkie toes.

I've shifted to a new position on the couch (big deal you may think, but trust me, it really is) and Amy had to work many many different iterations of pillow placement to get things comfortable. Then at night, I move upstairs and all of the pillows come with us, including the AirLite breathing encourager (designed to make you inhale smoothly and deeply to expand the lungs), the drink bottle we brought home from hospital, my glasses and of course the drugs for the night. Amy's pillow management skill is increasing daily.

The snow is falling pretty steadily here today, covering the ground with about 4 inches of snow. The dogs love it and it makes me feel less bad about not being able to go outside and be active. I'm cutting down the drug intake slowly to see how I go. I had my foot up this afternoon and could feel the pin the put through the two leg bones. It's not really painful, just uncomfortable. Sort of like having a metal rod placed into your shoe. You can put up with it, but it's not ideal.

I also managed to prop up and play World of Warcraft today which was a good waste of time. :)

We sorted out last night where the majority of the pain was coming from last night too - my pinkie toe. Seems that the plaster wrap that holds my foot to the support plate was cutting into my pinkie. When it was up in the air, not much happened. But after going to the toilet or moving about with the leg down, blood would rush to my foot and flood into the pinkie toe. Then the foot went up and the lower pressure wouldn't suck the blood down and out for ages. Finally, Amy fashioned an old fashioned support out of the Zune's USB plastic shielding that it came with out of the box and stuck that down the side of my foot, taking the pressure off my toe and allowing nearly unrestricted blood flow! Yay for Amy - Macguiver nurse!

Thanks for all of the well wishes. Please keep safe this Christmas.

Things watched:

• Top Gear (1 episode)
• Family Guy (1 eps)
• The Muppets Christmas Special (thanks Marian)

Art School

Things played:

• World of Warcraft

Still munching through a pretty heavy set of drugs every 3 or 4 hours so mostly my experience revolves around how much of the drug I've consumed. At the beginning of the hour, I feel pretty normal and there's normally some pain in the foot. Around hour 2 though, I get pretty sleepy and it gets very hard to keep focus. I was playing Banjo Kazoee before and couldn't even concentrate on that for more than 20mins before shifting back to video zombie mode.

Being bed ridden in the 21st century isn't anywhere near as bad as it was just 10 years ago. With Comcast On Demand, XBOX 360 Video and game marketplace and the new Netflix streaming service - I have whole catalogs of entertainment to choose from.

Overall I'm feeling groggy most of the time but in slightly better spirits. I slept in bed last night as opposed to the leather couch and felt much better for it this morning. Amy went and bought a big wooden chopping board and I hope to use it as a steady table for the laptop and mouse to spend some time in World of Warcraft.

Things I've watched in the last 24 hours:

• Dog Whisperer
• Fred Claus (I really shouldn't have but it did make me feel like I was watching a film on the plane heading for Autralia - sitting through it for the sake of sitting through something)
• 1st 4 episodes of 30 Rock; Season 1 (now that's some funny stuff - Baldwin steals the show), streamed through the new instant streaming service on XBOX 360
• 1st two shows of Top Gear: current season

Things I've played:

• Banjo Kazoee
• Black Jack Community edition

Well here I am again blogging about surgery. That's the motivating factor for revisiting this blog. As it's horribly out of date, I won't bother trying to catch you up on things that have occurred in 2008 as there are simply too many of them. Some quick highlights include changing roles within the company and managing a team, getting engaged to Amy with a wedding planned for February, America coming to it's senses by electing Obama, and adding a new member to the family - Cooper; a black 12 month old Lab retriever. Things seemed to be going well, maybe a little too well for me. Until I took Cooper for a walk this Sunday morning.

The winter chill has finally hit Seattle and up in the Issaquah Highlands where we live, it has started to snow. On Sunday morning, there was ice and snow all over the park paths and roads where I normally take the "Coop" for his poop. I picked out the hidden tennis ball we stash under the park information sign (saves us carrying the ball around) and started to throw him the ball as usual. However, on one return of the ball, I turned to get back on the pavement (for more secure footing), landed on my left foot without problem, then shifted weight to the right leg and that's when everything went to shit.

The right knee (the one in the xrays below from 06) popped out of it's position and went waaay over to the right, with the lower leg shifting left as I fell on it. The knee hurt, really hurt, and I screamed out, writhing on the ground clutching it with both hands. It didn't feel normal. Thankfully, a passing neighbor heard me and called 911 from her mobile phone for me. I was whisked away to hospital, with the friendly fire brigade ER guys taking Cooper back to a startled Amy and Zac (he was staying the night).

They replaced my knee into it's correct position which almost immediately made my ankle hurt. Seems that the knee was only the beginning of the problems for me. The lower leg had suffered some trauma as its owners full weight landed on it. It's broken in a couple of places, and they needed to do surgery that evening to bring it back together. I now have a metal support plate running along the lower side of the fibula, with 6 screws and 2 pins holding the plate in place. The pins run right through the tibia for support and will eventually be removed once the break has healed in the right place. After that, I'll be able to get the knee fixed up - most probably a reconstruction involving the MCL that is on the body side of the knee cap.

Amy is doing the most amazing job looking after me. It wouldn't be possible to get through this alone and she's putting up with my grouchiness that has come from the drugs and the crappy luck. She does everything for me. Thanks again honey! I love you. Will be a couple of weeks like this, making sure the knee doesn't move and the leg doesn't receive any weight at all so that it has a chance to set. Still strange to think we were supposed to be on a beach in Fiji right now on the way to Melbourne. Ah well, you've got to take it as it's dealt I guess.

I'll post more photos as I get them - I want to see the cool X-ray shots with the bright pins and plate. I'm guessing I'll need to claim that I have metal on me when I pass through security check points now. Here's a few shots from the stay in hospital that Amy took for y'all.

More later.

Jason