Derylin, thanks for asking. (The rest of you, sorry for the thread drift.)
April 7th for the first knee. Undetermined date for the second but potentially as late as fall, as DH wants to see his family on the East Coast, and I would like to visit my sister in KS, and between ops seems like a possible time (but I can't travel for at least 3 months post-op).
The big question/issue is if the other knee (which actually looks worse on X-ray, and this past week has been giving me A LOT of trouble) is going to hold up. The surgeon (yesterday) told me that he thinks that knee should last (for as long as we actually NEED it to), but he could give me a cortisone shot in that knee (for all the good that does) 2 weeks post-op.
So, things are up in the air in that regard. It may be that the need to get the second knee done becomes critical, so no summer travel at all.
First things first... successfully (I am at a higher risk of infection than most folks) get through the operation and recovery, at least to the point where I am using a cane.
(I have to say that I am getting stressed, and getting a rat-in-a-trap feeling... I'm not at all looking forward to the pain/disability/recovery. The surgeon has been trying to convince me that this experience will be NOTHING like the recovery from an earlier knee surgery (supposedly better, which I find hard to believe, given the size of the incision). Surprisingly, he said that "arthroscopic knee surgery" (what I had, to repair a meniscal tear) in anyone over 26 years old is a "crap shoot" (you don't know how it's going to turn out). That knee (knee #2 to be replaced) had a LONG recovery and has not been the same since.)
So right now, gardening is mostly looking out my windows at whatever flowers I can see, which currently are the
Iberis, the
Euryops, the flowering crabapple, and a few scattered rose, pellie, and daffodil blooms. When I'm up to it, I gimp around the Near 40 and maybe the side yard, checking on the irises and other plants. (This weekend, I'll have to draft DH to help with planting the tomatoes.) I'm going to be really glad for the potted irises on my patio, in a month or so.
<end thread drift>
In the meantime.... re my stratifying iris seeds... should I wait to see more rootlets before planting?
