Is It Worth It?

[JPA Cate]

BrokenSailor,

Relative to my knees and how it has affected my abilities on the boat, I have found that the loss of the proprioceptors that are part of your grown knees has negatively affected my balance, even on land. I am extremely careful on the boat. And I have the benefit of having lived aboard and sailed for the past 28 years. In my present condition, I would not endeavor to singlehand a boat as small as you are able to afford on a trip northbound from Panama to Calif.

What you need is a seaworthy boat you can afford, but you may have to give up portions of the dream. Sometimes our bodies purely don't cooperate with what we want. Maybe the biggest hurdle you'll have is your lack of experience with boats.

Ann

[Cheechako]

Yes. Another thing to watch for a you age is; if you wear bifocals/trifocals etc... your depth sight is different.
I once stepped casually off my 44 footer, which I was very accustomed to, onto a nice dock... and fell flat on my face cracking my wrist..... The Depth thing fooled me....

[JPA Cate]

In addition to my original bilateral total knee replacement surgery, I later required bilateral knee revision surgery, which was very lucky to *only* be replacement of the plastic inserts between the titanium bits.

If you are interested, PM me, and I'll write to you the regime I followed which left me in better shape following the surgery.

My friend, who calls herself Sapient Sue on CF, gave me some good advice: to not think about what I cannot do now, but on what I can. It's a discipline, 'cause it's way too easy to sit on the pity pot.

Cheechako is right about the trifocals: the division places between the properly corrected bits can hide all kinds of foot traps. And after a TKR, you're told to never fall! HAH!

FWIW, progress is never as fast as we want it to be, so just keep on plugging along at your therapies, which at this stage are just to keep you from losing more muscle tone, which we lose because the pain makes us become more sedentary.

I'm afraid this all sounds kind of down, and I am sorry for that. I have to say that the knees I now have are better now than before either of the surgeries. I am able to get around, whatever the down sides.

Good luck with it all.

Ann

[TanzerTom]

Methinks a chain is being pulled here by Broken Sailor... but cruisers sometime need something to wile away the hours. I personally cannot take all this seriously but do appreciate how nice everyone is being... and some of the pearls of wisdom have been enlightening 😏


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[Broken-Sailor]

Originally Posted by TanzerTom

Methinks a chain is being pulled here by Broken Sailor... but cruisers sometime need something to wile away the hours. I personally cannot take all this seriously but do appreciate how nice everyone is being... and some of the pearls of wisdom have been enlightening 😏


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

No chain being pulled. Just a dream that may or may not come to past, but I am slowly working on getting on the water and learning to sail. I have to get my health issues to the point of doing it. In the past few years I have had more surgeries than the rest of my life combined. In my first 40 years of my life I had a total of 3 surgeries, in the last two years I have had 5 and having another one here in 3 days. I have had 3 of those in the last 10 months. I know what boat I want know I just have to get the money saved up so that I can buy one. Till then I am getting myself in shape and repaired. Since the right knee surgery in Nov I have lost 35 lbs and after the left knee is done I'll lose more and will be in better shape to sail. I'm also working on getting out on the water in the lake to learn more so that by the time I have the money to by the boat I want I'll know more about it.


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