Driving with the Engineer

Wednesday 28th October

Had hydro at 9 this morning, got my self down and in the pool using the steps and started walking around. I was doing laps of the pool at the deep end again with out using the handrail which was working well until my knee started to hurt again. Which then limited me to do doing squats and sitting on the hoist moving my lower legs back and forth against the water for resistance. I then walked back up the steps and had a shower to get the smell of chlorine off my body. Had a quick chat to the Doc about getting some pain meds for the knee as it really starting to hinder my recovery. Its looking like I'll have to get it operated on sooner rather than later. Maybe back in Wagga.

After lunch I had my first driving lesson. The car is a new VE commodore, one of the newest cars I've ever driven I think. I won't be going back to the old VL....sorry mate!! It turned out the instructor is an Ex Qantas engineer, so we had a great chat all the way around for the two hours. We drove around some back streets and then headed straight into multi lane traffic along Victoria Road. Over the Bridge and into Parrammatta and on to Homebush Olympic Park and did a few laps of the place. It was so good to get out of the Hospital and have an interesting conversation with someone about aircraft. I'm really looking forward to my next lesson! We did 2 hours in all, which only leaves 6 hours more to go. He said we will head over to Mascot Airport have a coffee and come back one day for a nice little drive which will be really good.

Didn't have tea at the Hospital tonight. Rob, his parents and I headed to Macquarie for a meal and to watch a new Bruce Willis movie. Once again it was great to get out of the place for a bit.



Tuesday 27th October.

Spend the morning walking around the grounds and then up and down the ramps, followed by a 6 minute walk test where I managed 190 meters. At the end though my knee was really playing up so I had to stop. I then put the FES (electronic muscle stimulation) on my hamstrings and calf to help with the strengthening of the muscles. Tis good also as it does not hurt my knee.
I spent the afternoon with Rob trying to get his petrol remote control car running. We ran into so many problems in the process. Flat batteries everywhere in the starter box and a few other things. When we finally got it going we broke a shock absorber, somehow it had unscrewed itself and the spring was lost. I got my cardio workout then as Rob and I wheeled around the grass out the front trying to find it. Just as we were leaving we spotted it in the grass right in front of where we started looking. Managed to get it back together after about half an hour of mucking around. Am still waiting for my batteries to arrive to get my car up and running as well.

Stu