Cnewbert

This coming Monday, March 6th... the day after my 74th birthday... I will undergo a minimally invasive, quadriceps sparing, robot assisted unicompartmental knee replacement at the University of Florida Health Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Institute. I had a snow skiing injury 30 years ago where I tore the meniscus in this knee. I did nothing about it for 10 years whereupon I finally had arthroscopic surgery to repair the tear as the pain had become nearly crippling. By then the damage was done which I am paying for now. The orthopedic surgeon I had been seeing for the past year or so and who had been administering the increasing ineffective hydrocortisone injections was recommending a conventional total knee replacement following X-rays and an MRI. That would involve an 8"-10" incision down the middle of my knee, cutting my quadriceps muscle tendon and installing a full knee prosthesis. But understandably I sought some second opinions and I had the opportunity to consult with a few leading knee surgeons who all believed I only needed a partial knee replacement. I was particularly impressed with a surgeon at UF who I have chosen to perform the above mentioned procedure as an alternative to the conventional full knee option as the other surgeons were in Houston and Alabama and I live in FL only an hour away from UF. My surgeon has cautioned that until they open the knee up and look inside, he can't be 100% sure the partial knee replacement is all that will be necessary and I appreciate his honesty. But if things go as he anticipates he has told me I could be skiing in as little as 6 weeks. The fact that with this type of surgery they only need a 4"-6" incision on the inside of my knee and they go in under the quadriceps as opposed to cutting through the quad tendon as they would with the conventional approach, post op pain is greatly reduced and recovery times are greatly accelerated. Once I know which brand implant gets used and any other details of interest I will post them, as well as an update on my rehab progress following this type of minimally invasive surgery.

@bracemaker as I understand it, all else being equal, precise alignment of the prosthesis is critical to the long term successful outcome for knee replacement, and I believe there is no debate on this fact. As described in the abstract, incorrect alignment leads to a host of long term problems with the replacement. So the more precise the better. In other words, precise alignment is the common denominator for long term success, whether the knee replacement was conventional or otherwise. This study focused solely on how well robot assisted arthroplasty alignment compared to conventional knee arthroplasty alignment. So the fact that cadavers were used is not relevant. Alignment is alignment, whether the "patient" is alive or not, and if the study showed that the robot assisted surgeries demonstrated superior alignment of the prosthesis (which it did) then clearly the long term result would be improved on living patients, for all the robot does is assist with the alignment. The study was not examining different brands of prostheses, different techniques of attachment to the bone or anything else where a living patient would obviously be necessary to study the long term result. The fact that this study was done in 2011 is relevant insofar as the robot technology only continues to improve along with the familiarity and skill with the technology by surgeons employing it. Whereas conventional knee arthroplasty is, well, conventional. By definition, nothing of substance has changed or it would no longer be considered coventional. Yet even over 10 years ago the robot assisted technology demonstrated superior alignment results in this study. And while the skill of surgeons may vary, the conventional technique is essentially the same as it has been. This I learned first-hand when discussing the options of knee arthroplasty with the knee surgeon I was consulting with, very much a conventional surgeon. His recommendation for me was a conventional total knee replacement, stemming from a snow skiing accident 30 years ago where I tore my meniscus and waited 10 years for arthroscopic surgery to fix it. By then the damage was done and I now have some bone on bone arthritis in this knee. So my conventional guy was ready to cut through my quadriceps in the conventional fashion and replace my entire knee. However after consultation with pioneer knee surgeon Dr. Stefan Kruzer in Houston and Dr. David Moore at Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center in Alabama (where Regina had her knee surgery), I became convinced that the conventional route my doctor was prepared to go down was not the best choice and that knee replacement surgery has advanced by leaps and bounds. One of those advancements being the robot assisted prosthesis alignment. What I will undergo in a week is a unicompartmental quadriceps sparring minimally invasive robot assisted knee arthroplasty. My quadriceps muscles will not be cut, thus dramatically speeding up my recovery, I'll have a 4"-6" incision vs. an 8"-10" incision, and only the medial compartment of my knee will be replaced vs. all three in the entire knee. The wisdom of my decision to reject the conventional total knee replacement surgery my former knee orthopedist was recommending is of course to be determined. But my now surgeon at the University of Florida Sports Medicine says I should be able to start skiing in 6 weeks post surgery unless he finds more extensive knee replacement is needed once the surgery is in progress. If you can find one among the "loads" of studies you refer to that compares the precision of alignment between robot assisted knee arthroplasty and conventional knee arthroplasty that shows a superior result obtained by conventional knee surgery, please post it. I did a lot of research on this and could find none.

Well, then there is this study published in the National Library of Medicine. It's pretty technical, so I've cut to the chase by skipping the middle portion detailing all the actual measurements and incomprehensible medical jargon. The study was based on 20 total knee replacements Abstract Introduction: A functional total knee replacement has to be well aligned, which implies that it should lie along the mechanical axis and in the correct axial and rotational planes. Incorrect alignment will lead to abnormal wear, early mechanical loosening, and patellofemoral problems. There has been increased interest of late in total knee arthroplasty with robotic assistance. This study was conducted to determine whether robot-assisted total knee arthroplasty is superior to the conventional surgical method with regard to the precision of implant positioning. Conclusion: Robot-assisted total knee arthroplasty showed excellent precision in the sagittal and coronal planes of the 3D CT scan. In particular, the robot-assisted technique showed better accuracy in femoral rotational alignment compared to the conventional surgery, despite the fact that the surgeons who performed the operations were more experienced and familiar with the conventional method than with robot-assisted surgery. It can thus be concluded that robot-assisted total knee arthroplasty is superior to conventional total knee arthroplasty.

I do all my regular Ilmor manual scheduled maintenance on our '20 Prostar at the factory recommended intervals. That would include oil and filter, PRV replacement, raw water impeller, plugs and wires, serpentine belt and transmission oil and filter. With another 600 hours left on the warranty, anything requiring any legitimate mechanical knowledge and skill I'd have done at Action in Polk City. I did also replace the thermostat when troubleshooting an overheating issue after assuring that there were no weeds or crud in the water intake, raw water filter or the trans oil cooler filter. It was the low hanging fruit at that point. Turns out that all it was was that the clear see-through elbow at the raw water filter had loosened slightly and was sucking in a bit of air. It wasn't leaking water so it was not an immediately obvious problem, but it was an easy fix in the end.

@lpskier you're right of course. Obviously I don't think like an actual young single guy.

The newly crowned Miss America, Grace Stanke, is also a skier. She was on the University of Wisconsin waterski team with a couple of friends of ours. We’re told she tricked at the Nationals for Wisconsin in 2021. Apparently she’s also a nuclear engineering student and plays violin. But I know what you young, single guys are asking… can she drive a boat??? ??

Nate has said he has run 19041s.

@dleenhouts I’ve never skied either lake, but I suck as well. Must be something else. I’ve surfed in Maine, but never skied there like she did. Could that be her secret weapon?

@Than_Bogan I don’t get it. I grew up next to Wellesley in Needham, yet I’ll never ski remotely as well as Chelsea. What gives? There must be something more to it.

Dry suits International (DUI), manufacturer of the top diving dry suits, repairs all brands.

@MikeDunlap thanks! Interesting prospect.

@MikeDunlap thanks! Interesting prospect.

@MikeDunlap is the pasture horse fenced?

@MikeDunlap is the pasture horse fenced?

@mbabiash you left out Nate, who has run 41 about 190 times.

@Maxsend I modified my ski doc so it both tracks the skier marginally better and it puts the optical axis of the lens in the center rather than off to one side, eliminating parallax. The result is I can use a little higher digital zoom on my GoPro 9 and get equal coverage left and right.

that’s a bonus I never thought of. What a great solution for your situation! I’ll give serious thought to how that might work for us and run it by the course owner. Thanks!

how cool is that! If I owned the course I might follow that up. But I only helped install this one, contributing just time, labor and some minor components and expense. The pool in our house we just sold ran off my iPhone. The app controlled the temperature, the lights, the waterfall and the bubbler. You could run all this from anywhere with WiFi, so I’m partial to that kind of solution.

thanks for the recommendation. $55 now. Still cheap. Worth considering for sure.

kind of what I was thinking re: the cheapos. Even if you just get a couple of years out of one, it’s probably worth the money. I thought this one might be serviceable. It’s AC or DC. The flow rate is about 5 gallons a minute and has a digital auto pressure shut off feature. At 80 bucks it doesn’t have to last forever. We have an older Wally pump that can remove water if/when necessary. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VWKMMJV?psc=1&ref_=cm_sw_r_mwn_ct_GT0TE55G7RY7GWC6VTF6

looking for without. Currently we inflate it using 2 seven gallon portable air tanks which we previously had to carry out to the course in the boat to the air line fill valve. Recently the owner extended to fill line to his dock. But it’s a long walk to the house to the air compressor to carry the tanks. So we’re just looking for a simple diaphragm air pump to inflate the course directly from the pump, something small and compact that we can keep at the dock. The MN guy’s system sounds overly complex as you noted. Seems like a simple and cheap tire inflation pump would do the job. we have one of Wally’s older 12V pumps for inflate/deflate. Works well, though slow, but can be used from a boat. Slow is good, but only to a point. Since the dock has AC and the air line has now been extended to the dock, we’d like to find an AC diaphragm pump that would take less time to raise the course. For the reason you stated, we’re not looking for a compressor.

Does anyone use an AC powered inflation pump for their submersible course, assuming the air line fill valve is located on a dock with AC power available? If so, do you have any specific recommendations regarding a reliable make and model? Thanks.

@drago. The 6,0 became the base motor in 2020.

$75,000 in 2015 is equivalent to roughly $94,000 today, so the price has exceeded the inflation of the dollar. I suspect the cost of vendor supplied equipment like motors, transmissions, LCD screens, fiberglass etc. might have increased at a higher rate than inflation, as well as labor and management. I only know two things for certain: these Prostars are simply gorgeous boats and secondly, I could own a brand new Prostar for every day of the week for much less than the cost of a single upper level competition horse in any of a number of different equestrian disciplines. So it’s not the cost of new boats that is holding the growth of the sport down.

I recall it had both port and starboard ski racks, plus it had Deckadence floor covering and one of the very expensive $900 mirrors. I do believe the stereo systems are now standard. I wouldn’t call it stripped.