Saturday, September 20, 2014

3 Weeks of, Post Knee Surgery, Physical Therapy completed / Sudoku Solver

Three Weeks of, Post Knee Surgery, Physical Therapy completed .. how many more??

Compared to my entry before this, my first page of record keeping is full and today started a new page. And the photo of my knee .. not a whole lot different (no stitches now, maybe just a little less swelling).

At two weeks, the Dr removed the stitches and said it looked good. I was told that some of the swelling that is still present will likely stay until I'm able to put weight on my leg and start using the muscles - which will work the fluid out of the area. The first 2 weeks I was seeing the Physical Therapist twice a week, but now it will be 10 days when I visit again. (Part of that is insurance related - they only cover a limited number of visits, and the visits once I can put weight on are more important than now as long as I continue doing what I've been told to do).

I currently have a routine that takes about 60 minutes. That formal routine I like to do twice a day, with various other informal exercises sprinkled throughout. My normal routine is:
  1. - heal prop for 5 minutes (can and sometimes do for longer)
  2. - calf stretches (6 sets of 16 seconds with 5 seconds rest [6x16,5r])
  3. - hamstring stretches (6x16,5r)
  4. - front leg raises, squeezing the knee with quad muscles (6x16,5r)
  5. - side leg raises, squeezing the knee with quad muscles (6x16,5r)
  6. - hip raises (6x16,5r)
  7. - passive stretching (letting leg hang over table and go through 0-90 range) (5 minutes)
  8. - using a green band around my foot, working the foot in all 4 directions (20 each dir)
  9. - standing leg raises (move left leg front, side, back)(20 reps, 2 sets)
  10. - electrical stimulation on quad muscles while heel propped  (10 minutes)
  11. - ice treatment (10-15+ minutes)
I am able to remove my brace when I sleep now, that helps, but sleeping is still not always very restful. I've driven myself in our mini-van to a few places, so I can drive when necessary.


For the next 3 weeks, I've kind of got the routine that I need to follow down, with possible changes when I see my physical therapist this Friday.

What have I been doing with all this time at home and not really able to 'do' anything that requires walking of carrying anything? Well ... as a long time software developer ... I'm drawn back to writing software. My wife has become quite the Sudoku Master, so I'll do games with her occasionally on her Kindle, but have found myself writing a Sudoku solver. So far what I've got written will solve all the puzzles I've thrown at it.

Today I looked for very difficult puzzles and found one that my solver didn't solve. It turns out this puzzle requires the use of a technique called XY-Wing. I think I understand the concept now, but, the difficult part in this program, isn't just understanding different solving techniques, but in the ability to understand it well enough to be able to come up with logic and data structures to duplicate what we so easily process in our mind. As time allows, I will be adding some logic to handle this technique and then hope to be back up to 100% on my solve rate. (If you've got a puzzle for me to solve - send it my way. :-) Currently the program runs on my Windows desktop, but I am considering porting it from C# to Java and putting it on my Android phone, ... we'll see. I like the Android environment and have considered writing software again for it specifically. Just need to come up with the 'killer' app!


It's important to keep my mind active ... even if my body is not!

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