Spider Battle

Ok I’m sure you could go without hearing this story but I’m feeling inspired. I just got done chasing down the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life that wasn’t in a zoo. The body was the size of the end of my thumb. Its legs were long and skinny and spread out about the size of my hand. It was chilling out on the wall above the couch next to a carpet hanging. I had just come out of my office and when I saw it I just about ruined my drawers. Normally insects don’t phase me much, if they’re encroaching on my living space I just schwack em, dump em, and go about my business. There was a moment where I thought maybe I should try to capture him and turn him over to the spider authorities but with me being gimped up I wasn't sure I could pull it off safely. Besides this guy was so big I really had no idea of how I was going to get him. I knew I couldn’t just ignore him therefore I finally came back around to the only choice: he had to go (I’m assuming it was a ‘he’ because if it was a ‘she’ and ‘she’ put a nest in my house, I’m going to be very cross when they start hatching).

After staring him down for a few minutes and considering my options (especially with my limited mobility) I decided to tape a Tupperware lid to the end of one of my crutches to try to crush him. So now I was armed and ready for this thing to go down. I knew I had to be Kool & the Gang when I made my approach because I didn’t want him to get spooked. He was only a couple of feet from a very nice Persian rug that I had gotten in the Middle East and the last thing I wanted was to get spider guts on my nice rug. So I eased up with my Spidey-Whacker-2000 and called on my inner Chuck Norris. A quick poke out with the crutch and it was on. He fell off the wall, sped over towards my dining table, and took refuge on the wall behind a dining chair. He was really really fast. He was just below the drapes behind that chair but I still had a clear shot at him. The lid had fallen off, no biggie, I just gave him another whack with the end of the crutch. This just knocked him off the wall again and he scampered across the room and went under my booze bar. There wasn’t any way for me to get to him down there and I didn’t feel like waiting around for him to poke his head out. I have one of those cans of compressed air that you use to clean out computers so I shot several blasts under the bar to flush him out. He shot out from under the bar and started up the wall between my office and the sliding glass door that goes into my backyard. I have a box of garden trash bags that has been sitting next to the sliding door for eons waiting for me to put them out in the shed. The box has been opened so I stuck the crutch into the box, picked it up with the end of the crutch, and used it to annihilate the 8-legged jihadist. Victorious.

It was not a fun time. I‘m still really keyed up, that thing really freaked me out. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not a spider hater; outside we’re cool and I'm all about the circle of life. But in my personal space it's a health and hygiene issue and simply a matter of principle. Big spider in the house just ain't right.

Knee surgery

It's been exactly 6 weeks since I had knee surgery. I've had many people tell me I should put something about my ordeal on my site so here it is. A little background: this was the first time I’ve ever had any kind of surgery or hospital stay in my life. I have all my wisdom teeth, tonsils, appendix etc. I’ve only ever had a couple of stitches here and there and that’s about it. So this whole experience was new and entirely filled with unknowns for me.

I completely ruptured my left knee patellar tendon while playing softball on Friday, June 29^th. I was chasing down a foul ball and was sliding to make the catch to break my momentum since I was approaching the fence. However I was closer to the fence than I realized and I went knee-first into the fence post pretty much at full speed. And no, I didn’t catch the ball; the ball was in my mitt but schwacking the fence with my knee was a bit distracting and it popped right out. Strangely enough it didn’t hurt but I knew something was wrong when I was laying there on the ground and couldn’t move my leg, plus I could see my kneecap sitting up on my thigh; not cool. So blah blah blah, my kneecap wasn’t attached to the tendon and I needed surgery. I met with my surgeon on Monday the 2^nd. He went over the whole situation with me and was very clear and concise. The surgery was conducted at the Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan on July 3^rd and I was released from the hospital on July 4^th. So my 4^th of July was not all that much fun.

Even though this was a major procedure, it’s pretty routine and went well. The surgeon used Kevlar fiber-wire to reattach the tendon to the kneecap and sewed up the other damaged tissue around the area. Fortunately I didn’t do any damage to any of the other ligaments or tendons in my knee so that helped make the procedure fairly straight forward. I was in pretty bad pain for the first few days and I was thankful that I had a friend to stay with who lived right next to the hospital. Yokosuka is over an hour drive from my house and I don’t think I could have handled that long of a drive in the condition I was in.

Fast forward several weeks and here we are. I’ve been doing physical therapy for the past few weeks now and have been making significant progress. I just came off crutches this past Monday (Aug 13^th) and am using a cane. My flexibility is coming back slowly but steadily and I’m just on the doorstep of the 60° threshold. Right now the goal is getting to 90° of flexibility. All my physical therapy up to this point has been focused on flexibility but I should be starting on regaining strength within the next few weeks.

So what else can I say? This has been a major life experience for me. I can’t say enough how thankful I’ve been for the support from my squadron-mates here in Japan. They’ve been driving me to work and on errands and making sure I have food and groceries. Getting around on crutches was a huge pain in the ass so I’m happy to be using only a cane now. I’m really looking forward to getting rid of the leg immobilizer as well. At least I don’t have to sleep with that thing on anymore, that was wearing me out. So I’ll try to do a better job of keeping updates coming on this site. Thanks for all the good wishes, positive vibes, and support. Beat Army.