back at work today after working from home yesterday. SO glad i worked from home on friday, i should have done that on thursday as well. but with quarter end and all, i thought i could handle going into the office.

went to the doctor yesterday and thankfully he took off all my bandages. ahhhh freedom. my knee is swollen like a log, and the incision that he said he'd have to make slighty bigger so that he could drill in the screw better looks to be like three times bigger (although i can't clearly see since there's still all those white strips on it. but by the blood stains on the white strips, it sure appears to be a lot longer than before). the three other scars he reopened for the scope aren't quite fully closed yet although he took out the stitches, so they're still bleeding a little.

i can't really tell yet, but so far my knee feels SO MUCH better. don't get me wrong, i'm still on crutches and stuff, my flexion has been set back some, and i have to work on my darn quad muscles again, but i can still fully extend, and it's so much less painful to do so! my doctor told he he basically just drilled in the screw all the way until it was flush to the bone, and then he didn't see anything wrong during the scope but cleaned out my knee. cleaning out my knee sure makes a big difference.

so now i have a month to work extra hard on my PT so that i have a fighting chance to make it to spain. it's funny how if you asked my six months ago, i would have said - 4 months after ACL surgery? no problem! i can totally make it! i was fine last time 4 months post-op! hrm. who knew all this would happen. let's hope... no, let's pray that my PT goes a lot faster this time around!!

okay, coming to work wasn't the brightest idea. i don't feel too good right now...

i'm back at work.

i drove this morning. i probably shouldn't have - i truly had to brake with my left foot.

it feels like it should be the weekend. having a surgery on tuesday really throws off the rest of my week.

i also somehow got a fat bottom lip. it's not that obvious just from looking at it, but i can definitely feel it. i'm guessing it's from the tube they stuck down my throat for the anesthesia? dunno.

the knife beckons my knee today.

(well, pending all my lab tests are okay and i don't have any kind of infection.)

**Update**
the knife beckoned my knee. i'm super-doped up and very unstable right now because they loaded me up big time on anti-nausea medicine. (patch behind my ear, four bottles into my iv, plus pills). but hey, i haven't thrown up today, so it's worth it.

not quite sure what the doctor did to me since my dad & o were waiting in the wrong room and didn't get to talk to my doctor. i'll find out on friday when i see my doctor again.

otherwise, i'm good. nothing like the pain i had after my first surgery. of course, i could take vicodin this time since i'm not throwing up everything.

can't wait until my knee is FULLY HEALED! i hope this scope & fixing of the screw is the last.

random mish-mash of thoughts:

-apparently parking in handicap does not protect my car. (although i don't necessarily always park in handicap, and i don't know when this happened). because someone who drives a brown car decided to scrape my car and leave brown, black, and white streaks all along the bottom left side of my car! GRRRRR. by the looks of it, it looks like someone was making a turn and scraped my car with the license plate/bumper and decided to just take off. SUPER annoying, and my poor car is getting beat-up like none other.

-because not only do i have those new paint streaks, but apparently it's been SO hot lately that my crutches, which i've left in my back seat, MELTED onto my car seat leather! i'm not kidding you. there's a permanent crutch imprint (the part that melted onto my car is the rubber part where my hand grips the crutch) in the backseat of my car. ask arex, he saw it. there's no way to fix it. it's like the rubber and leather fused together... the only lucky thing is that my crutches are gray rubber and my car seat is gray leather, so at least they're kind of the same color.

-went to the beach on saturday morning, and came back with a sunburn on my scalp. it hurts to take a shower.

-saw the CUTEST puppy ever at the beach. i couldn't stop watching it. when i first saw him, i thought he was maybe a 4-6 month old lab puppy. so i went up to play with him and asked his owners how old he was. apparently, he's two years old! so not a puppy. he's not a pure lab, and they think he's a half lab, half beagle, but he basically looks like a lab puppy for life! small, short snout, big eyes. SO CUTE. i think geo only got one shot of him, but when he uploads it, you all can see for yourself. :)

-went to jason/marcia's after the beach and got to see my old aacf buddies. i was exhausted from sitting in the sun at the beach all day, but it was good to see everyone.

-kind of getting tired of getting poked by needles. got poked by some more today in the pre-op clinic again... in preparation for me to get poked by more needles tomorrow when i get my knee opened up again. my doctor decided to open up the scar on the right side of my knee to drill in the screw more (he said he'd have to make a larger incision) as well as do a scope. so four out of five of my scars will be reopened.

-this time i made sure my doctor prescribed me some anti-nausea medicine so that i don't puke all day after my surgery like all my previous ones. i'm getting better at preparing myself for the slicing and dicing :)

**edit. thanks to george, a picture of my puppy! ok, not MY puppy. i wish george got another shot of him since he looks like he's growling or snarling in this picture. he might have had something in his mouth since he was playing fetch.

okay, i know i've lagged big time in posting this. so without further ado...

ms. chiu & mr. satake's bling. actually, i guess it's really al's bling, but it belonged to hideyo at one point :)


okay so this picture is really more to show off the new mini ipod that she had gotten for her birthday from her family :)






















so hopefully these other two pictures will do. please note the burn mark on her finger that accents the ring beautifully.










































maybe this will give them enough incentive to finally post their story. congrats to the happy crazy i'm-getting-married-in-five-months couple!

there's this guy at another company that people in my group and our sales team have to talk to. i laugh every single time one of their email threads get forwarded to me, even today. i just can't get over his name. especially since all the people in our company who talk to him are guys. one of our sales guys is having a baby boy in a few months, and he told us "i'm thinking about giving my son that name!" (jokingly, of course).

His name? Maybe it's best to show an email example. I'd take a screenshot instead except I can't find a program on my work desktop that lets me create jpegs or any other picture file type.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter xxxx
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 7:40 PM
To: Handsome P.C. Lee [mailto:handsome.pc.lee@xxxx]
Subject: xxx

Hello Handsome,

The price is quoted xxxxx

Thanks,
Peter xxxx

HAHAHAHAHA. If anyone you know is having a boy... try suggesting this name!

well, went to the doctor. not terrible news, but he still has to go back into my knee. from the MRI he can at least see a screwhead that's sticking out and rubbing against some tendon (forgot the name of it) which he thinks is causing my pain. so he needs to drill in the screw more or shave it off. he doesn't know if there's anything else unless he does a scope, but he thinks the screw is the main culprit. so a full scope is not necessary, but i'm debating whether to do it or not. i don't want him to fix the screw, find out something else is wrong, then have to go back to the hospital again to do a full scope.

spain is still up in the air though because of my recovery. it's been hampered so much by this pain that i'm far behind, and although him going back in won't delay my recovery much, i already had a lot to recover from. unless bob and mike want to push me around in a wheelchair for two weeks. :)

but if logisitics work out this time (please no nightmare of my last hospital visit) then i'll be going in on tuesday. yes, in five days. and yes, as in the last week of our quarter-end at work. um, yeah.

:( I got my MRI done on Monday, then called yesterday to make an appointment at my doctor's office. They didn't have anything available for 2 weeks, but the office lady was like - wait, you're the one with the pain problems? So they squeezed me in for this upcoming Monday.

Anyway, I just got a call today saying my doctor now wants to see me ASAP. They got my MRI results yesterday. I have an appointment tomorrow - and the doctor is usually in surgery on Thursdays so he normally doesn't see patients on Thursdays.

Sigh.

Spain is now teetering toward the I-can't-go side. :(

holy cow!

i told some people how i was confused about why my surgery was so cheap... i had only seen a charge of a little over $5k plus $1k for the anesthesia. i thought to myself that it seemed awfully cheap, especially since i used a cadaver which is supposed to be a lot more expensive than using my own graft. but insurance covers 100% so i didn't think much about it.

until... today. when i got another envelope from my insurance.

and then... BAM! a whopping additional $30k charged to my insurance! eegads! that's $36k for my outpatient surgery, $2k for my first MRI, $2k for the MRI i just got done today, $205 x all my doctor visits (4 pre-op and so far 4 post-op and still climbing), $200/session for PT x 20 sessions, (i actually need more than 20 sessions - my pt clinic said they'd try to ask my insurance for an extension, but i doubt i'll get it since my coworker was denied it. so i'm going to have start paying out of my pocket $200/visit... and i go twice a week. ouch.) not to mention the fact that i'll probably need another scope done (i can only guess how much that'd cost. another $10k at least??)... the numbers are swimming in my head. all i can say is...PRAISE THE LORD FOR HEALTH INSURANCE! especially ones that cover in full. that $20 i pay per pay period doesn't seem so bad anymore. having a messed up knee that doesn't heal properly sure costs a lot. actually, having a messed up knee that does heal properly also costs a lot. but one that doesn't heal properly costs a lot more.

YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! good news this morning. thanks, God! :)

(although i wish this was regarding my knee... it isn't)

i don't know what i did in PT yesterday, but something aggravated my knee. i cried myself to sleep last night and i can barely walk today. actually i think it's the step - they have me step onto the step (you know, those long rectangular plastic steps that ppl use for exercise) with no risers, so it's at the lowest, and then bend my knee to step back down. i can step up fine, but trying to bend my knee to step down causes this searing pain in my knee. it's the one exercise i dread the most, so i've been kind of cheating it in the past. i told my PT yesterday that it was hurting me a lot to do the exercise, so she had an aide watch me do it. so i actually had to do the exercise without cheating. the aide had me try various things to make it less strenuous on the knee, but everything hurt. finally she told me stop - she said my form and everything was correct (i guess sometimes ppl use bad form, etc and that can cause pain) so she'd tell my PT.

anyway, i see my doctor again today, and if my complaints about my pain fall on deaf ears again, i'm about ready to throw in the towel with him and find a different doctor. anyone know a good orthopedic surgeon in the south bay they can recommend to me?

**edit: update. went to the doctor, and finally he listened to me. no deaf ears this time, thank God. he can't figure out why i still have so much pain in my knee - i'm two months post-op and he told me i shouldn't be having this much pain (yeah - real helpful, like i didn't know that). anyway i have a lot of pain in the two areas where the screws are, so he tried to numb those two areas (which freaking hurt. the needle poking didn't hurt, it was the intense burning from the numbing medicine as it went into my body) to see if that helped. it didn't, so basically there's not much else he can do just by examining my knee in his office.

so now what? he told me the only other thing he can do is to go back into my knee... so i asked him if there were any other options before that. so here i am, with another prescription to get an MRI again. another $2k dinged against my health insurance (which I now believe is the best thing on the face of the earth). he told me to cancel all PT again until after the MRI results come in since PT seems to be aggravating me so much. he doesn't think MRI will show much, but it's worth a shot. and if the MRI shows nothing, he'll have to do a scope and open my knee again. fun. the knee saga continues...

SKIING IS EVIL.

this post is solely for the hyuns.

links courtesy of bob.

saratoga is the 26th best place to live in the country.

as a side note, saratoga also places 7th in the country as the biggest earners.

saratoga details here.

take that! I sure don't see LA above saratoga. ha.

andrew hyun: "i was SO PROUD of the taiwanese that day. i took tons of pictures." (in reference to the fact that he watched some NBA summer league games and the Taiwanese were playing the team pretty well.) wow, never thought i'd hear him say that.

andrew hyun: "dude. i'll go ANY BOWL game Cal gets into this year."

drew - i'm blogging this for the record. come november, i'd better see a ticket in your hand. no fair-weathered fan like last year when you claimed you'd go to cal's bowl game, but ended up ditching when they got into the holiday bowl instead of the rose bowl.

finally took pictures of her ring this morning. will post it eventually. our house is now wedding madness. i came home to wedding magazines all over the floor. between alinna and olivia, this will be one fun year. but alinna wins because she's trying to do it in five and a half months.

anyway, on saturday i went with some people to the los altos wine & art festival. realized later that it probably wasn't the brightest thing to do... it was hot and i'm still not able to walk long distances. i used my crutches, but still. that made my non-injured leg very tired and sore. maybe i should have tried not using crutches? go figure. started up at PT again this week. haven't been using my crutches even though walking on it is still very painful. the worst is when i sit for over an hour - when i try to stand up, it hurts so bad. on sunday we went to starbucks and sat around for a couple hours. when i got up, i would have fallen over if i didn't have my crutches with me. anyway, what else is new. my knee saga continues. i'm starting to worry about our spain trip, though :(

on sunday, arex received the great pleasure of being the first person to drive my car other than myself. so you can ask him how it drives :) i realized that we should take my car more often when we go out - it has the GPS, it's fairly roomy and comfortable. i'm all up for it as long as i don't drive. i hate driving. so if anyone else wants to drive my car when we go on road trips or day trips, my car is available. of course, i have to screen the driver first :) i'm a little sketch on letting like... andrew ng drive it. ;)

another bites the dust...

CONGRATULATIONS! i've been waiting for this! i'll post pictures (with ugly burn marks on finger and all) once she comes back.

omg, this picture cracks me up so much, i had to post it on my own blog. one of my favorite puppies, oski, sleeping:



see the rest of the pics here. SO CUTE!

if there's one thing that i love about my knee, it's this:

9:00 pm: googled fireworks, and found out that of the very few cities in the bay area displaying fireworks, one was in our own backyard in cupertino .
9:05: looked up where we could watch the fireworks from since i was afraid all the trees and houses in our neighborhood would block our view.
9:10: jenie and i leave the house hoping we could find somewhere to go for the 9:30 showing, even though we knew it'd be packed, traffic-y, and crowded.
9:13: approached the stevens creek and wolfe/miller intersection, saw that all the parking lots for vallco and all plazas along stevens creek were jammed pack, and hundreds upon hundreds of people walking around. noticed everyone was walking down miller, so we decided to turn right onto miller.
9:15: miller was packed with cars, police cars, policemen, pedestrians, all the side streets were blocked... looked like prime viewing for the fireworks, especially the park on miller.
9:17: the park was blocked off (i read online that it was a location where there would be disabled parking), so we decided to drive past it. turned into a church parking lot instead to see what we could find.
9:18: church parking lot was obviously full and packed, but lo and behold, one handicap parking spot available! we took it.
9:20: walked to the field right next to the parking lot, which happened to be the middle school (which was adjacent to the church)'s field. walked amongst all the people spread out on the grass, picked a spot, and settled in. thankfully the city provided huge spotlights so that we could see where we were walking.
9:30: had the most awesome view for the fireworks show. probably the best view i've ever had. show was a lot better than i expected - i thought that since cupertino was not that big of a city, the show would be small - but i was wrong. highly entertaining, and was quite long. the finale was so big and long that this huge black smoke cloud ended up blocking part of the ending.

not bad for leaving the house at 9:10, eh? ;) tons of traffic driving back - pedestrians, cars, policemen as pedestrians, policemen on motorcycles, policemen in cars, even helicopters with huge search lights everywhere. but since we lived so close, it actually wasn't too bad to get back home. all made possible thanks to my handicap placard. a light in my tunnel of a world. :)

so how did fireworks equate to independence day anyway?

finally uploaded pics from andy & jenny's wedding! as usual, since i played the piano, i didn't get any shots of the ceremony.

pics are here:
andy & jenny's wedding

some pics -

the bridal party:




the cake:



our table at the reception:




and last, but not least - if you want to see why there are cheetos at the reception, check out the pictures here:

i went to my doctor today... i still think he brushes off a lot of my complaints about my knee - at first he said i'm fine and everything is normal, but he decided to take xrays of my knee. as i was walking to the xray room and back, i guess he saw how i was walking without any crutches or canes, so we went back to the room, and he told me the following:

-i'm going back on crutches
he would rather me be on crutches and have to put some weight into my hands than limp around without bending my knee properly like i do now.

-he gave me a prescription for anti-inflammatory pills to help reduce the swelling in my knee

-he had me take blood tests to make sure i don't have an infection
at the lab they took a whopping four bottles (two from each arm for some cultures) and two vials (both from the right arm) of blood from me. i think i'm a little blood-deficient right now...

-he had me cancel my PT appts for next week (thank goodness since the only appts i could get next week that didn't conflict with my working hours were 7am!)
since they've been working mainly on muscle strengthening (basically strengthening my quad muscles), he wants me to stop PT for a week and work on my range of motion on my own instead because my knee gets super-stiff and super-sore after every PT session. he said he's not worried about strengthening my muscles yet and wants to see if reducing the stress on my muscles will help with my pain.

anyway, at almost seven-weeks post-op, i feel like i'm severely behind on my rehab. at least the above is a start, and hopefully it'll help. i seriously think i have a lot of scar tissue built up but my doctor didn't really take a look that closely and didn't say anything about it.