I am so pleased with myself that ─ despite the vile conclusion to my evening yesterday ─ this morning I rose relatively early still intending to try to pay a visit to Urgent and Primary Care Centre - Surrey-Whalley to have my damaged right leg's knee assessed.
The location might be a walk of a mile from where I live, and it opens daily at 9 a.m., so the plan was to try and arrive around then.
Well, I failed in that. It might have been at least 8:35 a.m. before I left home ─ no one else was yet up. And I took my trusty five-foot makeshift walking staff.
I had decided that using the intersection of 96th Avenue & King George Boulevard (Google Map) was too daunting due to how heavily trafficked it is. Had I held true and taken that shortest route, I would have been travelling from the left of the map along 96th Avenue.
Google Maps lists the clinic location as shown here.
I opted to add a little distance to my route to avoid the dreaded intersection, and instead I made my crossing at 97-A Avenue (Google Map) ─ I was actually able to jaywalk because of a wide raised median at that point on the highway. There is a pedestrian-operated traffic light right there, but I saw no need to use it ─ I did not wish to provide myself as a spectacle for motorists forced to stop by my doing.
Unfortunately, when I left home, I failed to take note of just where the clinic was located ─ I thought that it fronted on 96th Avenue, but it did not. And so I wandered about for some while before finally locating it and having to stand in a lineup of maybe as many as 15 other people ahead of me, for by then it was well past 9 a.m.
Ultimately, I probably was finally seen by a ─ nurse practitioner? ─ at just about noon.
However, first I had to get checked in, and then the wait began. Then well after 11 a.m., I was summoned to a bit of an interview in an examination room by a nurse or some other healthcare worker who took notes and then took my blood pressure on my right arm.
I have in the past registered alarmingly high, and that turned out to be the case this time. It was such a shock to her that she then tried using my left arm. She was so concerned that she exclaimed that I ought to be taking medications to lower my pressure because of all the damage it can cause to my organs and other systems, and she asserted that the doctor I would be seeing would most definitely be assessing this pathological condition (my words).
I am not a social person ─ I only rarely interact with anyone outside of my home, and of late I have not even been grocery shopping due to my bad knee injured on March 1st, so I don't even deal with cashiers on any regular basis once or twice a week.
This gal had me feeling utterly uptight with her talk of what seriously bad shape my blood pressure was in.
So what of the NP (nurse practitioner) who saw me a while thereafter? Well, she never mentioned a thing about my blood pressure.
Apparently the NP had her own leg issues, for she walked with some sort of probably rubberized or elastic band stretching around both of her knees.
I had worn a pair of shorts or loose beach trunks beneath my jeans, so she was delighted when I alerted her of this ─ she thought she was going to have to have me try and roll up my pant leg above my target knee.
Her final verdict?
She had accessed the results of the three X-rays and the skyline X-ray taken of my knee when I visited Surrey Memorial several hours after my accident.
Although my patella never suffered a break, she said that it was likely there may have been one or more chips (or flakes) that splintered off it from the impact, but anything like that would be insignificant.
Her assessment was that the hardened ─ swollen ─ areas at the lower quadriceps muscles above the sides and the top of my knee at the lowermost thigh were damaged muscle fibres that had accreted, but expert and rather rigorous physiotherapy could potentially break apart much of it in time, liberating more freedom of movement and use of my knee.
She printed out the one-page report for the three normal X-rays, and the other report for the skyline X-ray, and gave them to me. And that was basically where things ended ─ she left it to me to find a good physiotherapist, and to look into how many treatments I might be able to get for free if I didn't want to pay for more.
So basically, good luck! But she did express that from what she saw of me at my age of 75, I clearly had a long life ahead of me.
I never knew who the doctor was that saw me when I visited Surrey Memorial, but I now have his name on these two X-ray reports: William J. Sisler (FRCPC).
My walk back home was accomplished in a far lighter mood than my earlier walk. I even went all the way up to King George Boulevard & Fraser Highway (Google Map) to use the crossing there, then followed 98th Avenue and worked my way back to 96th Avenue ─ so between the two walks, I am confident that I must have come close to covering three miles.
Also, my walk back home seemed to be with a healthier knee than I have yet known since its accident. I honestly feel confident now about maybe starting to do some of my own grocery shopping hereabouts locally early on Sundays.
As for physiotherapy ... that's yet for me to work out.
My cellphone says that my younger brother had tried phoning me at 12:07 p.m., but I never heard anything. Could I have even newly been on my way home at that point? The street noise would explain why I never heard any quiet ringing with my phone tucked inside one of my jacket's deep pockets.
Only Bev was here when I got home, although my youngest stepson was not yet up from bed for the day. My wife either had a full workday today at the Thai restaurant where she is employed part-time, or else she left for other reasons.
My brother was away on an errand or two, and returned home soon after I had settled in here at my bedside computer. He told me that he was concerned that I had gone on one of my wee a.m. walks and fell down somewhere in some bushy area and was unable to get up again.
I am going to take a break from this post now at 8:01 p.m.
★★★
My brother ─ who had left before mid-afternoon to catch a bus and go social drinking ─ was still not home by 9 p.m., so I shut myself up into my bedroom to watch some T.V. and enjoy a can of Cariboo Malt (7.9% alcohol).
My show choice here on my bedside computer was Superman & Lois ─ episode 10 ("O Mother, Where Art Thou?") of the first season.
It was good, and had quite a few emotional scenes that were very effective. So if interested, my flawless source was this GOOJARA.to link.
Evidently my brother showed up sometime during the show, but there is no chance that he will be sober enough for me to care to try watching any of our shows together even if Bev had retired to their bedroom ─ which she had not.
Today was the second consecutive afternoon in which I did not engage the bit of exercising of my knee that has become my custom, but I had that goodly walk. I just didn't get in any exercise of my arms, shoulders, and so forth.
Tomorrow is another day. And I just may commence it with some local grocery shopping.
Whatever I shall be doing, it is presently late enough for me at 10:48 p.m., so I am going to start wrapping up and getting myself to bed.
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