I woke up this morning, early, to an unusual noise. The hotel has a large group of little league teams in the house, and one of the little ‘outfielders’ was trying his key in our door.
Ok , now I’m awake. I’m also REALLY tired of living in this hotel….. and I miss my Sonic care toothbrush! Basically I’m in a crappy mood – we’ll be going out to get some sunshine and see something besides these hotel walls.

I can usually keep my self occupied with some project or another. I brought a couple of books, which I’ve read. I even had Tom send me a couple more with a few other needed items.

I recently had to have some major ‘surgery’ done on my Mac Book – the spinning beach ball od death kept occurring. So now I have to start over with Light room. I have all my images but I’ve not been in any frame of mind nor do I have the stamina mentally right now to tackle that project. Perhaps over the next few months. On the other hand... any one want to buy a Mac Book Pro Retina? Not being a Mac User, I find it really frustrating!!!!!!

On to real life things. The incision on the side of my leg is driving me bonkers with the itching. I know this is a GOOD thing, - it means healing, but DAMN its annoying and I of course, can’t think of anything else!

I am able to do al of the leg exercises that I had researched prior to surgery and approved by my doc. Full leg lifts laying on my back, heel lifted 12” and held for count of 10/ 10 each.
Side lying same 10 each… the last 4 are hard and I feel it in the osteotomy site. Laying on my stomach, doable if I have a small pillow under my ankle, I can do straight leg raises, and bent knee heel pushes. Knee flexion feels pretty good in this position and Gaby reports good range of motion. I’ll have to trust her as I can’t see it.
I was also able to ‘hang’ my knee as I call it. Pillow under the ankle and nothing under the knee to work on extension – similar exercise to a total knee replacement. I was able to complete 9 minutes and 40 seconds of relative ease, and 20 seconds that were excruciating! As the hamstrings and other knee flexors were already tight, this is something I’m always going to have to work on. I can hardly wait until things heal up enough for me to use the foam roller! NOT!

So while parts of me are very frustrated, I still find it relatively easy to take a nap during the day. “Patience my little one”! I know I know, it has been just two weeks.

I’ve commented before on how I thought the hazardous sidewalks would be very difficult for a handicapped individual – one needing to use self propelled transportation. Now that I’m one in Mexico… here rare few observations, just from this hotel!

The main elevator, maybe 5x5’ is currently out of service and has been since Tom and I got here on July 1. They are ‘waiting for a part’. The service elevator, now the only one is quite a bit smaller and barely big enough for me in the chair and Gaby to join me. I certainly can’t turn around in it.

On the main floor, there is a sofa near the service elevator that limits the access to the ‘up’ button. I can ‘just’ reach it, but it’s a real stretch. Once inside, the elevator I can hardly reach the 4 button. If I’m going from the 4th floor to the lobby (1) I can go in backwards to see to get out, and reach the button as I’m half in and half out of the door. If I’m going to the 4th floor, I must go in forward as the elevator doesn’t quite make it all the way to the even level… 2 “ that only the big wheels and some force get me over. I’ve tried in forward and the small front wheels just turn and get caught in the ‘slot’. And I consider myself very mobile!

I haven’t tried the access to the bathrooms.

Now to get to the street level one must roll down a fairly steep driveway of 30 degrees! There’s no way I could get myself up this nor do I trust myself going down! We have the taxi’s come to the top. But if we’re going to one of the neighboring restaurants, I usually crutch it.

That means down 2 sets of 12 lovely white marble steps. I use the banister and one crutch. Three more steps at the bottom from the main floor to the street level. Down one step to the driveway, across it and up the other side. To Da Massimo, the Italian restaurant there are 8 steps to a ‘landing’ then 4 more up to the outside seating, four more to the inside lounge/lobby area, and then 4 more to the main restaurant. Are you tired yet? When we left the other night they opened up a ‘ramp, unlit, that eliminated about 8 steps. I then choose to climb up the driveway rather than tackle the steps. There is so much effort involved in getting to and from, that I completely forgot about the nice dinner we had.

We were at a mall the other night for a meal and a stroll/roll. While it was better suited and set up for wheel chairs, the entrances and exits to the mall were not well labeled as to wheel chair access. WE had to follow around a good portion of the mall to find the taxi stand… and good thing we bring the crutches as I could get to 15’ of the taxi before I ran out of access. Now, Tom could have tipped me back and lifted me up the curb, but Gaby does not have the strength to do that.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write on this subject back in La Paz. I can already picture the ‘ramps’ around the marina and how inaccessible they are … and I’ won’t be quiet about it!

Obviously I need a change of scenery, food and activity.. a good swim would be very good for my head. I’m hoping the stitch removal tomorrow goes well and the little spots heal quickly so I can get in the water!