I'm Back

I’ve been out of the country for a couple of weeks and due to security reasons, I didn’t post anything – long story.

I have been away in Scandinavia and if you’ve read my past posts, you’ll recall that this was a “reward trip” – I’ll give you the short version. A tour company offered this all expenses trip to the top sales people from New Zealand and Australia. They call it their “Super Tour” and this year they took 5 from New Zealand and 20 from Australia and we all went to Scandinavia. Spent time in Denmark, Sweden and Norway – AMAZING is all I’ll say and post a few pictures as soon as I have them saved off my camera ( I took 650+ photos, love the digi cameras )

I saw my specialist on the Friday before I went away to have my knee checked out to get the “go ahead” to travel, he was happy with the progress I had made to that stage and gave me the all clear. On the Monday I boarded a plane and had 2, 12 hour plus flights so you can imagine how I felt and how my knee swelled up and then when we arrived in Copenhagen, off we went on some “sightseeing” – suffice to say that after a few days of feeling pretty average, I started to come right. I would have done anything to make sure that I took my place on this trip and now that I am home, I’m happy that I went and now I can concentrate on my rehab to get my knee back to normal.

Will keep you posted on the knee and here are a few pics thus far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update

Quick update.
Knee – today is Wednesday, had the operation on last Thursday and it’s still a bit swollen BUT feeling better each day.

Not sure of the recovery time or when in fact I will be able to be “back to normal” – all I can say is that I am a frustrated “athlete” who just wants to get back to exercise.

You can see the 3 holes in the knee – the top one is where they put the tube to fill with liquid (and then used as the drain after the operation) and the 2 holes below the kneecap where I’m guessing they put the camera in one and the tool in the other. You saw the piece that they took out and I was quite shocked by the size of it.

Will keep you updated on my progress – have an appointment to see the specialist on Friday.

Late Friday Post

Hi all - just a day late but my Friday was spent "under the influence"

I had my knee surgery on Thursday and it all went well BUT I have low blood pressure so they kept me in the hospital overnight (Thursday) and kept me pumped up on painkillers so by the time I got home on Friday, I was buggered.
I hit my own bed and pretty much slept for the rest of the day. Still feeling a bit "off" but hopefully this will pass soon.

I've started to walk slowly and hope to jump on my bike later on - I've got it set up in the gargae on the wind trainer - and as I have said the the wife - yes, I'll be careful!!!!

Here's a couple of pics of what they took out of my knee.

Friday Post - the good old days

We’ve all had them and they say that memories are what we all hold dear to our hearts.


I’ve found a few old photos and I’ve scanned them (please excuse the big white bits on the bottom – haven’t worked out how to sort the work copier/scanner)

I’ll put a little note above each picture of what it is and that particular moment in time.

Enjoy:

This is a surf blog after all so here are a couple of pics from when I was way younger – I don’t have many pics on me surfing but this is probably 20 to 25 years ago. I can tell by the board, it’s a 6’4” Town & Country thruster. I bought this board new – it was my first and I still have it – very fond memories. I have a black and white photo of me with a pack on my back, walking across a pedestrian crossing in Paris with this board under my arm – I love that shot as it’s a moment in time. This one is an action shot of me and my first board.

These pics are around the same time – a bunch of us went “bush” – away on a surf trip and camped by the ocean. The first picture is my mate Andy standing on the rocks looking out at the bay where we camped. The second pic was us arriving at home. My dog was happy to see me and as you can see by the look of us – we were absolutely buggered. There is no such feeling as being exhausted from surfing!!

Baja Mexico – short and sweet. Did a surf trip with Baja Surf Adventures many years ago. I was by myself and just joined in with these guys – they were a bunch of mates from San Fran that do this every year. Good guys.



















Water Polo. I played for New Zealand Schoolboys when I was 17 so when a few years later I was living in Perth, Western Australia, I started playing again. Quickly moved through the ranks and ended up playing A grade in the state league. A very big deal indeed. The World Championships were in Perth in 1990 and a lot of international player stayed on and played in this league. It was tough but great fun.
This photo is of the team with the state championship shield, we won – I am on the right standing and I am 6 foot so you can imagine how big the other guys are? Of the 12 of us in the picture, 10 of the guys were at that time in either the Australian Olympic or Western Australia State team. The guy 4th from the left, back row is Glenn Townsend, the Aussie Goalkeeper at the time he was 6"7" and bloody hard to score any goals against.
It was a great time in my life.

Mood

Grumpy
I am (and have been for a few days) in a grumpy mood.

I am not at all a patient man, never have been and never will be – can’t change what you can’t change!!

I went to see the specialist on Monday (today is Thursday) and the verdict is surgery on my left knee. Now I have to wait and did I mention that I hate waiting. I’m playing the waiting game with ACC (the Accident Compensation Corporation – NZ’s answer to local heath care) – I won’t bore you with the ins and outs with this but I have private medical cover BUT as the injury was the result of an accident, I need ACC to either accept or decline the claim (I know, it makes no sense at all to me either and I live here) before I can go get the operation done privately. Meanwhile, I am getting around on crutches, being grumpy and fast seeing something that I have worked incredibly hard for disappear.

This is incredibly frustrating, I’ve been doing half days at work as I’m popping painkillers and need to keep the leg elevated to keep the swelling down, can’t exercise etc.

I’ll start feeling better once I know the “when” and then that’ll have a flow on effect with what has been planned – who knows, everything might be fine but my hopes are diminishing as each day goes by.

At the end of the day, as my wife says, shit happens and we just have to deal with it – wise woman that one.

Thanks too, to surfsister for her kind words re her knee and journey. I know that I just have to be patient but did I mention……….

On a brighter note – here is a picture of my team and I arriving at our conference and awards dinner – it was a masquerade theme.

Quick post

I mentioned on Friday that the soccer season started this week. Well – not a great start to my season, that’s for sure.

I am on crutches with suspected knee ligament damage. The doc at the medical centre (where I went after the game) said that it looks like ligament but they would have a better idea after the swelling goes down – I went to see my own doc this morning for a referral to the specialist, and he told me that I’d be off the footy field for approx 6 weeks. Very frustrated indeed.

I have an appointment next Monday morning to see the orthopedic surgeon so I’m guessing that I’ll know more then – until then its rest and plenty of painkillers.

As for the first game of the season – I played really well up to the point of the injury (just fell wrong on the hard ground) but we lost.
Not a great day for any of us.

Friday Post

Just a quick update on last weekend.

I mentioned about going for a swim in a freshwater, man-made lake, check it out on Google Earth (just search Pegasus, Canterbury) and zoom in on the lake. It was really nice. A bit cold but it is April after all.

I took a couple of photos just from the beach where we started (on the map, this is the south beach) and we swam out under the bridge to the other end of the lake and back, coming back around the island. All up about 1500m.

Soccer starts tomorrow for the winter, can’t believe that the winter is just about upon us AGAIN – mind you, we don’t get cold temps like you guys in the states with heaps of snow. I have to admit that I do love the snow – I spent a couple of winters in Lake Tahoe working on ski resorts many years ago and also spent a winter in British Columbia skiing – it was AWESOME!!! ( I got married in winter in BC )

Will update you on a later post about my winter exploits – 1 springs to mind as I write this – went to Santa Cruz for a weekend from Tahoe to have a surf. Yes, we were CRAZY KIWIS but had an awesome surf at Steamer Lane with the seals. MAN WAS IT COLD !!!
( I’ll try to find some of my old photos and try and scan them to post.)

Have a good weekend all.