It was a very cool morning and the mist was hanging low in the valleys and along the river. I took this short video of the curls of mist following the flow of the river downstream. It was very serene. After that I met my brother John and his family for breakfast. I spent much of the afternoon on the phone talking to well wishers and in the evening I went to dinner with Sue, Harold, Cindy, Richard, and Mary Lou. It was a very good day.
I did get some health news in the days surrounding the weekend, too. I saw my pulmonologist on Friday. He said that I haven't shown any further loss of lung capacity since this time last year. By way of background information, they never got an accurate measure of my lung capacity from before the disease kicked in. The first test I had for that was after I had had the pneumonia and the tumor was suspected. It's likely my one lung was already compromised somewhat at that point. I'm showing a reduction of about 10 to 15 percent of lung capacity since then, due to the surgery. The fact that the lung capacity hasn't changed in a year is good news.
On another front, I went to the podiatrist today to see what the MRI had shown about my torn Achilles tendon. It turns out that it has a tear that involves about 1.5 inches of the tendon. From what he told me, if it's not treated it might snap or 'rupture'. Hearing that gave me the willies. I have to wear a large and cumbersome boot thing for four weeks. After that I'll have another MRI to see how much it might have healed. If it doesn't recover much, then I might have to have surgery. I'm not happy about that.
The boot is annoying but I'm going to do my best with it. If it allows the tendon to heal then it will have been worth the effort. I don't want to have the surgery if I can help it. I'll take whatever steps I need to get it as close as I can to 'good as new' so it won't give me trouble in the long term.
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