Wedding Rings

I was having a very difficult time coming up with intriguing ideas for a wedding gift for Ari. We were also trying to get so many things done in a relatively short time that I didn't have as much time as I needed to investigate really unique, fun options. I thought custom artwork would be an interesting idea, and actually found an artist who's work is beautiful, incorporating personal photos into the pieces in very unique ways. I had also been researching wedding rings - Ari wasn't interested in the standard designs you find in your standard jewelry stores - and I came across New York Wedding Ring, where you work with the studio metalsmith to design and create custom wedding rings. I decided if I could pull it off and make something that didn't look silly, it would be perfect - two birds, one precious metal stone.

I made Ari's wedding ring with Sam, owner and operator of New York Wedding Ring and am SO happy with the results. Sam and I decided on a base of white gold with a platinum inlay and a smaller silver inlay. I arrived at the studio on a Sunday morning to start what turned out to be a metalsmithing marathon. First we went over the studio basics, reviewed the metal he had purchased for me and discussed the game plan. There was no lathe in the studio so the channels that we had to carved for the platinum and silver would need to be done the hard way - and by this I mean seriously hard. We eventually (4 hours and a few blisters later) managed to file, engrave and carve something the platinum could fit in. This picture is the from this first stage of the ring - soldering the platinum inlay to the white gold base.


Since I carved the channel a bit too deep the platinum wasn't lying correctly and kept popping out of place. We used some random bits of metal Sam had lying around and steel bonding wire to keep the platinum in place while soldering. Once the platinum was securely attached to the white gold base we were able to make it into a ring shape and then solder it all together. Of course, this also turned out to be much easier said than done. The platinum anneals (done to make the metal bendable and to remove any spring in it) at a much higher temperature than the white gold. Since we didn't want to melt the white gold into a lump of uselessness we couldn't anneal the platinum all the way so, of course, when we tried to solder the ends of the ring together, the platinum still had spring in it - and thus the ends popped away from each other. The steel bonding wire saved us again - as you can see in the below picture we wrapped the ring tightly in bonding wire in the hopes that it would keep the ring together.

Everything we attempted to do turned out to be much harder than originally planned, so we shouldn't have been surprised when we tried to take the bonding wire off the ring and it was stuck. Instead of a ring we had a mildly interesting sculpture:



Thank goodness for Sam - I would have melted the stupid thing into a blob and thrown it out the window. Instead, we filed off the steel bonding wire and moved on to carving the channel for the silver (which was much smaller thank god) and soldered it into the ring. Almost done right? Almost, but not quite. Now on to 3 hours of filing, sanding, rounding, and perfecting. Fourteen and a half hours after we started the ring was done - and much more attractive than a melted projectile blob of precious metal.

Its really hard to get good pictures of jewelry, but here are some of the better ones. (The ring isn't yellow in color at all, despite the tint in the pics.)




The white gold is the darkest metal, platinum the wide stripe, and silver the smallest and lightest stripe.

Adhesions Stink

Its been a while since I last posted. Its much harder to motivate now that I'm going back to work. Usually I just want to lay around after a day at the office.

The knee is still improving. Recently the Torturers decided it was time to get rid of the adhesions preventing me from bending my leg. This involves an extremely painful process that includes screaming and crying from me, and forced bending from the Torturer.

Today was the third time evil boss man has attempted to break the adhesions apart. This time he decided to cheat. Once I reached a point where I was yelling in pain and couldn't handle it any more you would count down from 5. Instead of letting go at 1, as he did last time, he decided it would be amusing to quickly smash my knee into a more bent position before letting it go. After attempting this a couple of times, including the cheating bit, and only getting minor snaps from the adhesions he attempted another torture tactic. He had another Therapist come over push down on my hip so I couldn't lift it. Then he picked up my leg so both the thigh and knee were off the table and then bent and lowered the knee, which he claimed wouldn't hurt (which was total crap). On the second attempt at this lots of snap crackle pops occurred.

While the torture is absolutely horrible, I must admit that is is remarkable how much more flexibility I had after the first adhesion breaking session last Friday. This time its hard to tell since my knee is super swollen now and my thigh is aching, but hopefully the improvement will be even more noticeable.

The evil boss even congratulated me and said that there weren't many people who could have handled that (I didn't even cry this time, just yelled). He was probably saying it to make me feel better, but I'm still going to tell everyone I'm a bad ass.

Here are the updates on the milestones I had left:

• Sleeping on my side - Achieved!!
  
• Sleeping on my stomach - I can also do this, though it feels weird when the fluid pushes into the knee.
  
• Moving around with 1 crutch - Done
  
• Moving around with no crutches - Done
  
• Brace Free Walking - Done
  
• Unaided Walking - Done, even though I look like a hunchback still.
  

The only one I have left from the list is:

• Sleeping through the night
  

I think I might give this one up, its mostly unrealistic unless I drug myself with sleep aids.

Now I am working towards my physical therapy goals: increasing my bending flexibility and strengthening the pathetically smaller leg.

Crazy Runners

Ari's sister Pia came to visit this weekend. She works for the Big Apple Circus and was up in the neighborhood so she stayed for dinner. We made homemade Italian bread, tarragon chicken and squash. It was all very yummy. We also found a new knitting store around the corner from me - very convenient and thus dangerous for my bank account.

Today Ari and I went to cheer for my friend who is running the marathon. Last year she ran so damn fast we completely missed her so this year we showed up 30 minutes early to improve our chances of spotting her. Miraculously, we didn't miss her in the enormous crowds of runners and spectators and she nodded our way as she passed while we screamed her name. I am pretty sure we just distracted her, but whatever, she didn't stumble or fall down or anything. I still think people who run marathons are crazy.

After that we cheered a bit, though I must say its pretty boring when you aren't looking for somebody specific. We headed home to an afternoon and evening of watching football after only a few minutes.

Yaaay Bills!

Stupid Patriots. Their coach is a real jerk, and he dresses like a loser too.

Boo

Yesterday was my first day I went in to work since surgery. Since my office is in a crowded area I wore the brace and took the gimp sticks in order to beat morons away. I had to get up at the crack of dawn to do my exercises and get ready. I hate the morning. Fortunately, the commute wasn't too bad - it turns out it's really pretty easy to get a Taxi at 7 AM in the morning. The day went by quickly, most likely because it took me 10 minutes to gimp to any given location. Everyone was very helpful and most tried to deny how pathetic I looked.

I decided to go all out and dress up as a gimp for Halloween. As you can imagine it was really easy, gimp sticks and a brace are all you need - maybe I will keep them around for next year.

The torture session today was particularly awful. The evil boss took an interest in me and decided the knee wasn't being bent to its full potential. He proceeded to push it in all different and painful ways until I cried (literally) from pain. I think I might have screamed too because everybody in the place was staring at me. After that I wasn't too interested in attempting the rest of my exercises, I was more interested in the pain medication and Rocky Road ice cream awaiting me at home.

There weren't very many good costumes tonight either. One punk kid came up with monster gloves on, a t-shirt and jeans. He had no response when I asked him what he was supposed to be besides a slacker and so he only got one piece of candy. This other creepy child came dressed up as a bleeding version of the Scream thing. Nasty. Only one kid came in a costume that was homemade - it was a huge paper-maché bird head. Quiet interesting - it got the most candy.

All in all not the best Halloween I've had. I think instead of a gimp I will go as a blood sucking vampire physical therapist for Halloween next year.

A Good Start

Today was a good start to my second month. Since my doctor said I could put as much weight on my leg as was comfortable I experimented last night and this morning. I am now able walk around the apartment with no brace and no crutches! My knee is still a bit wobbly and I can't bend it very well (not to mention the morons) so I don't feel comfortable going outside without the brace and crutches yet, soon....

I did exercises for about an hour this morning. We've added a few additional exercises to my daily routine so it takes longer; the new exercises are straight leg lifts with my left leg, exercises for my inner thigh on my right leg, and maybe if I feel like inflicting pain on myself I attempt straight leg lifts with the right leg.

Yesterday I asked the Doctor whether I could take some Advil for pain that doesn't warrant the heavy hitter pills. He said I could, but that Advil could negatively impact the reconstruction. He recommended I take extra strength Tylenol instead which apparently will work nicely and since messing with the reconstruction is absolutely the last thing I feel compelled to do I promptly went and purchased lots of Tylenol.

After my somewhat ambitious outing yesterday my elbows are killing me. Way too much crutching around. I made it only to CVS and the coffee place today, that was enough for me. Fortunately, Lee and her daughter Sophie came over to visit me this afternoon. Sophie is 6 weeks old, cute and makes such funny faces. It was great to see them.

I'm still not sleeping very well. I can't get comfortable and I wake up every few hours. I can, however, lay on my stomach and side if I prop the knee correctly on the perfect pillow. My grandma made me the pillow from quilt pieces my great-grandmother made. I feel as though I shouldn't use it so I can preserve it for as long as possible but it's just so perfect for making my knee comfortable. I have abstained from napping the past 2 days in an effort to increase my sleepiness. Hopefully I will be able to sleep more tonight.

Tomorrow I start working again, I am actually looking forward to it....mostly.....

One Month Down...

I went to PT again this morning. The bending torture sucked, but Nicole managed to shove the leg to 85 degrees before I attempted to vault off the table to relieve the pain so I guess thats good. The knee remains very stiff unless I continuously do heel slides. I'm waiting to see the improvement which would allow me to easily bend it to 45 degrees and work up from there, hopefully that comes soon. I also did the neuro-muscular re-education thing (when they stick the stim pads on my leg and I attempt straight leg raises). I was able to do the leg raise every time - most thrilling. Right now the only major discomfort during PT (besides the bending horrors) is a sharp pain at the very top of my knee cap when doing straight leg lifts. I have no idea what this is but the Torturer's boss, who also helps me out, told me to suck it up so I guess that's what I'll do.

I also had a doctor's appointment this afternoon. I was debating gimping home after PT but by the time I got out I would have to have left home 30 minutes after arriving in order to accommodate the pathetic snail pace at which I travel (requiring 30 minutes to gimp back from PT and another 45 minutes to gimp to the doctors from my house). Plus, I didn't feel like doing laundry and needed some underwear. So after procuring this necessity I gimped my way to what turned out to be a very successful doctor's visit.

As it turns out I am not weeks behind in rehabilitation. The doctor explained that bending the knee more than 90 degrees in the first month would compromise the reconstruction, so I was right on target with bending. He also gave me the go-ahead to stop wearing the brace unless I'm going to be in a crowded public place. This is more to draw potential moron's attention to the fact that they shouldn't push me because not only do I have metal sticks to hit them with, I have a gimp leg that is forced straight which I could trip them with. He also told me it was ok to start work again as long as I wasn't in pain.

Beth came to visit me this evening, she is almost 6 months pregnant and brought us milk shakes which were DELICIOUS. I'm surprised I'm not sucking down 3 of those a day now and weighing in at 1000 pounds. Fortunately, I am lazy and don't want to go all the way to the diner.

Beth has had a horrid pregnancy - she was on bed rest in the beginning and has puked nearly every day for 6 months. As it turns out, the days when she didn't vomit all over happen to coincide exactly with days when her husband is away traveling for work. I suggested she make him stay in a hotel or the garage until the baby arrives but she didn't think that would work.

Her husband had been away for 2 days when she came to visit me so she was in a good mood, having not vommed (she has simply shortened vomit to vomm due to the number of times she's had to do it in 6 months) in a couple days. Turns out her luck didn't last. She got rear-ended on her way home from my house by an idiot who couldn't drive and who was so nervous that instead of putting his car in park he slammed on the gas and rear-ended her again. And to top off what must have been a great 3 hours as soon as she walked into the house and saw her husband she had to beeline to the bathroom as she vommed. Terrible.

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

I tried avoiding the heavier hitting pain medication last night. That was foolish - I didn't sleep very much and the leg was uncomfortable. As a result the 15 foot hobble from the bedroom to the couch prompted a nap.

The PT torture session this morning was very successful - I was able to lift my leg off the table ~12 inches! Today was the first day I was able to do a straight leg lift since surgery! Very exciting stuff.

I'm also able to gimp around my apartment using one crutch - sometimes with no crutches, though this is still accomplished with a Hunchback of Notre Dame gimp and numerous ricochets off the walls and furniture.

Of course, since I worked hard enough to lift my pathetically atrophied leg off the table a whole foot, I decided I deserved another nap and slept the afternoon away. And lets face it - what else am I going to do? I can't bend my leg or walk, the 6 block crutch to PT hardly counts as exercise so I can't sit around and eat unless I want to return to work naked since none of my clothes will fit.

While Ari and I were enjoying another episode of the mind numbing cartoon Family Guy tonight we decided to identify who should be the cast for an A-Team movie (the A-Team happened to be part of the stunningly well done cartoon plot). So far we have all the main peeps:

• Jim Carry might seriously have been born to play Murdock
  
• Face would naturally be played by Rob Lowe
  
• Michael Clark Duncan (that huge guy 'Bear' from Armageddon) would be BA
  
• Hannibal, by far the hardest to cast, would be played by Billy Bob Thornton
  
• That dick general that always chases them around was also a hard one, we think Jason Isaacs (the guy who places Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter) would be good
  

Also, I'm sure there has to be some way to fit that complete lunatic Gary Busey in as a henchman for one of the bad guys. Naturally he dies.

Why this movie hasn't already been made is beyond me, it would be an instant classic.