I was released from the Beebe Hospital in Lewes, DE at 6:00 pm this evening and I am now Home !!. On Wednesday morning the Ortho Doc opened up my left knee - literally - I have a 6 inch incision running North to South directly over my knee cap. This is the same sort of opening they do for a complete knee transplant. He drained the infected fluid, etc from my knee and inserted a drain. After the surgery ALL the pain I had experienced for the last 10 days or so was GONE !! They gave me numerous bags of IV Antibiotics - about one every 8 hours for the 2 1/2 days I was I the hospital. I was able with a walker to walk about 1000 ft. around the hospital both yesterday and today. They will be closely monitoring my incision for the next couple of weeks - home health care Nurse and Doctor's appointments as needed.

I am doing much better - but not entirely "out of the woods" - will be taking high dose antibiotics 4 times a day for the next 14 days. Limited activity - no lifting, etc. If the infection is NOT totally gone in 2 weeks I may have to endure additional procedures and treatment. At this point I think things are as good as could possibly be expected.

Once again - Thanks for all your concern and well wishes. The bright side of this is -I will have lots of time in the next 2 weeks to sort chips and get ready for my trip to the Convention in June.

Take care,
Jerry "On the Mend" Birl