A Journey of Discovery (Or How I Spent My Time While Laid Up From Surgery)

I have been on a journey of late.

A journey of great distance. A journey of discovery.A visionquest of sorts.

I have sojourned far these past weeks – traveling from the sofa to my desk, occasional forays into the kitchen, the restroom, even going to the bedroom several times. Every day I've made these little trips countless times.

And I have learned much during this time.

My right leg, a couple of hours post surgery.

Six weeks ago, I had surgery on my right knee to repair a torn meniscus, which the doctor tells me is a rather important piece of cartilage. I injured the knee several weeks earlier, at which time I had to start using crutches, with a doctor-imposed ban on driving. All totaled, I've been more or less housebound for close to 12 weeks. Prior to the surgery I could get out some, as a passenger in the car, but after the surgery my leg was locked in this torturous contraption made of metal and plastic and Velcro. The purpose of this brace was to keep my leg locked in a straight position, and I was prohibited from putting any weight on the leg.

Other than showering and working at physical therapy, the brace never came off.

I haven't been just sitting around the house. Well, okay, I have been doing a lot of sitting around the house, but that's not the only thing I've done. Other than taking off four days for the surgery, I've continued working, just doing it from home.

One of the curious effects of all of this is that during my work-from-home period, I discovered lots of extra time—probably close to four hours a day – compared to my old schedule. I lose close to an hour a day with my round-trip commute; I generally go to the gym five days a week, and workout time combined with drive time was another hour.

Every day, when working from home, I essentially roll out of bed, change into a pair of shorts and t-shirt, get some coffee and that's it – prep for the day is over. I suspect I gained 30 to 40 minutes here.

And, in many ways, working from home is more efficient from a time perspective. I start a bit earlier – around 6:30 or 7, when I get up – work for a few hours, maybe take a bit of a break, then get back on for the afternoon deadlines. I don't get any less work done (on the contrary, I get more done), but I can start earlier, break it up during the day to keep my focus sharper, and I don't have to deal with the constant interruption of folks sticking their head in my office, or answering phone calls (most of which are from people who don't even want to talk to me, they were just incorrectly funneled to my phone by our answering service).

I've also been giving up a bit of sleep. Trying to sleep with that big leg brace on isn't pleasant. I have to be really worn out to finally fall asleep, I can go 5, on good nights close to 6 hours, then I'm awake and not getting back to sleep.

Add it all up and we're between 3 and 4 hours every day (though I don't recommend skipping gym time or sleep for more time in the day)

Having this extra time most days, combined with the four days off around the surgery, I have been able to explore, study, contemplate the many mysteries of life, and I've come to these wide-ranging discoveries:

-- I really don't mind being stranded at home, never going anywhere. For the past six weeks the only time I've left the house is to go to physical therapy or a follow-up visit to the surgeon. That hasn't bothered me in the least. There have been a couple of family get-togethers I missed that I would have enjoyed, and I do miss going to the gym to workout, but otherwise I'd be happy as a clam to work from home, hang out at home, watch movies at home, and...well you get the idea.

-- Working from home really can be more efficient. In my line of work – I'm a newspaper editor – doing that on a full-time basis wouldn't be practical. Editors need to be in the office, accessible when someone from the public wants to visit with the editor. As a department head, I need to be visible to my staff as well as to other department managers, to have real-life face time with them. And the truth is, while I say folks sticking their heads in my office for a brief pow-wow sucks away time, it's usually worth it. I enjoy most of the conversations I have with my colleagues, and I enjoy most visits with the public, and the few unpleasant conversations are generally ones that really need to be done face-to-face, with all parties sitting in the room together. So not being there in person at least some of the time is a non-starter. But, in my opinion, working from home at least a couple of days a week is far more efficient.

-- The Jesse Stone movies, made-for-TV affairs from earlier in the 2000s based on Robert B. Parker's novels, aren't so bad. I always thought the first three or four, taken directly from his novels, were good and the rest – original screenplays based on Parker's characters – weren't so good. But watching them all together over several days, they're all pretty decent.

-- The old Magnum PI series is still kind of fun. It's terribly dated, relying heavily on stereotypes and old tropes (some of which would never fly in today's television world), but it's still kind of fun. (No, I didn't watch the whole seven-year series, just a few episodes).

-- HBO's Six Feet Under really isn't that good. It was critically acclaimed at the time it was released, and to a degree rightfully so. The acting is superb, the writing was certainly strong and, for its time, groundbreaking. But once you get past the first season or so, it's just the same old people making the same stupid mistakes over and over, and growing more unlikeable with each passing episode. Every time one of them showed a hint of growth, appeared as if they might have shown a redeemable quality or gained some new level of self-awareness, he or she would quickly revert to an even worse version of who they had been before. No matter how strong the acting is in individual doses, that got tiring real fast.

Having said that, the closing ten minutes of that show's finale is among the greatest show-endings I've ever seen. Just those ten minutes almost made up for the insufferable episodes between the first season and the finale.

-- C.J. Tudor is a good writer and story-teller. I'd never read any of her work before this, but I really enjoyed The Gathering and The Burning Girls (though the latter really did what I considered not entirely fair character and story manipulation to push a few supposed surprises on the reader). They're not so much horror, which is what I was looking for, as they are really dark crime/bad secret stories with some decidedly supernatural elements. Still, I plan to read more – she's an engaging writer.

My next blog will be about my discoveries while bouncing around in the world of hospitals, doctors, surgeons, and the rest of the medical world.

Thanks for reading!