Of Toes, Recovery, and Flying to Las Vegas

To pick up where I left off in the last update, I did indeed have a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in my left arm below the PICC line. As a result, I’m going to be on a medication called Eliquis for about the next 6 months or so. Eliquis is a blood thinner, so I have to be careful not to do anything that might cause myself to bleed. What a pain.

Anyway, my antibiotics eventually ran their course, my toe pain subsided, my PICC line was pulled, and I was discharged from Kindred. Way to wrap things up, eh? I came home on the 9th of August – a grand total stay of about a month across two hospitals. It took at least a week for me to re-adjust to life at home. I’ve since learned that almost all the gains I made in physical therapy for my left knee replacement have been lost. But, at least I’m no longer in a hospital.

This moves me along to the next portion of my update: a trip to Las Vegas to see the taping of the BattleBots tournament for the Discovery channel!

I did my best to keep my health in stable shape in the time between the hospital and our departure date, September 1st, 2021. I had to deal with a bout of Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs) in my heart, but my doctor put me on a medication that reeled them in. On the packing side, we hemmed and hawed over whether we were going to bring my monster i9-10850K laptop, since it and its packing case just barely met Spirit Airlines’ extreme outer dimensions (we did, and Spirit complained nary a bit).

The flight out was uneventful, although getting to it was anything but (pun intended). You see, I have learned that my butt sets off the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) bomb-sniffing booth at the security checkpoint. (It did this both going out and coming back.) I had to submit to a pat-down search – a rather personal one, at that – before I could go on to the boarding gate.

Arrival at Las Vegas was similarly uneventful, but then there was the walk from the gate to the exit. Ye gods, what a walk! If you’ll remember from above, I’ve lost all my physical therapy gains in my left knee replacement, and my feet complained similarly, not being used to such a grand distance nowadays. By the time we reached the taxi stands, I was thoroughly worn out and ready for some air conditioned seating on the road to our destination, Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.

Of course, once we arrived there, there was more interminable walking just to find our way through the casino maze to the well-hidden elevators. Everything seemed to be spread out for proverbial miles in Las Vegas.

When I continue in my next installment, I’ll cover the rest of the trip, including what I can of the reason I went – the BattleBots tournament!