Steri-strips, swelling, stick-shift, soaking

The steri-strips are still attached to my knee, covering the two arthroscopic incisions, even though tomorrow it will be three weeks since my knee surgery!  This is unusual: typically they fall off within a few days.  Mine are curling up at all the corners for sure, but still firmly stuck in place.  I'm told not to peel (yank, tear, rip) them off, by the surgical assistant who put them on when removing the stitches, and also by the physical therapists I've seen four times in the past two weeks.  I'm curious to see how things look under there, and even Becky the PT was surprised today.  But okay.

Today my leg is very swollen, so badly that  Becky had me do fewer exercises and a lot more lying around with an ice pack on my knee.  The swelling has multiple probable causes:

1. carrying heavy bags (garbage, recycling) to my car this morning from the house, and then from the car to the various bins at the Lincoln Transfer Station;
2. the weather: higher humidity --> more swelling;
3. my original leg injury (Nervy) causes my leg to swell every day anyway;
4. carrying many loads of firewood into the house yesterday afternoon (temperature going down to 41 tonight and 36 on Friday night = wood-stove season is not yet over)
5. carrying heavy bag of books to car for last night's Hebrew class, and from the car back into the house after class.
6. the major DVT (blood clot) I suffered in 2004 wreaked havoc on circulation in the leg, which is not helping my knee any. 
7. not icing knee enough after challenging it with all the heavy lifting.  Icing is a habit I have yet to develop.  Going to get it out of the freezer right now!

Driving my stick-shift car has suddenly become very painful in the last two days, a result of the swelling.  It was downright scary trying to figure out how to drive for 15 minutes at speed limits varying from 5 to 55 mph without shifting gears too much; I'm lucky I didn't have an accident.

Today I asked Becky what more I could do to speed up the healing process.  She says I'm doing all the right things (exercises, staying active), which is great.  However, I should try to lay off carrying all the heavy loads (seems obvious), and I need to rest more (no kidding).   But I don't know how else to get the firewood in here, and grocery shopping leaves me no choice. 

On a positive note, I'm allowed to go in the pool.  Hooray! (Hot tub still verboten.)  Even though it's just very gentle aqua-jogging in the exercise lane, and limited to 15 minutes, it still feels great to be in the water again and have a way of ambulating that doesn't hurt.  I moved my arms a lot, too, which helps keep me vertical in 4'6"-water and also gets my heart rate up at least a tiny bit.  I've had practically no safe method of getting aerobic exercise these last couple of months and I'm going crazy for the lack of it.

Maybe a little more soaking in the pool will get those steri-strips to come off...