Shingles, the senior citizen’s version of chicken pox, is a painful malady that can pop out on the body at any time because people who have had chicken pox still carry the self-inflicting virus. We learned that when we discovered Roger’s latent virus had chosen to emerge at a time that made him contagious just as we were supposed to be getting on a plane and going to Miami to board a cruise ship for two weeks. It started as what his primary care doctor thought was a bacterial infection in his left eye. Treatment didn’t work. Over the following week it took trips to InstaCare, ER, and a specialist to finally diagnose it.
We had been planning this trip for months, looking forward to spending time with family members on an adventure we’d always remember. We are mighty disappointed to be here cooling our heels and assessing hour by hour Roger’s progress toward recovery. Don’t misunderstand—I’m also mighty glad he’s recovering, mighty glad there’s a specialist willing to see us on Easter Sunday afternoon, and a pharmacy open so we can get medication going right away, and mighty glad his vision has improved in that eye from 20/50 on Sunday to 20/30 on Wednesday. But we were both looking forward to a trip through the Panama Canal.
However, with the lesions still visible on his face, he is still considered contagious, although our doctor said in 20 years he had never seen anyone get chicken pox from someone with shingles. Since the cruise line believes it’s possible, and they make the rules, we would be barred from boarding the ship, or else Roger would be quarantined to the stateroom until the lesions were no longer visible, in about a week. Most vulnerable would be newborns and people with compromised auto-immune systems—not a lot of those people on cruise ships, but you never know.
Having purchased trip insurance, we will get a refund, and we’ll have some airline travel vouchers to use before the end of the year. So we have been consoling ourselves with an ongoing discussion of how to use this “windfall.” (And with chocolate; nothing consoles like chocolate.) We’ve decided to remodel a bathroom and take a leaf tour in upstate NY this fall. And I’ve registered for a day at the LDStorymakers conference next week.
Instead of sailing, I’m doing what I always do—writing and reading and reading and writing, and struggling with the ever-present challenges of clearing off my desk and generating some interest in cooking. Roger is puttering and medicating and sleeping and sleeping and medicating and puttering. We are both dealing with the disappointment and looking hopefully, expectantly toward compensations.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Curmudgeon’s Corner: Things I Really REALLY Hate
1. Those thin skins on peanuts that get stuck on your tongue and you can’t pick them off but you can still feel them inside your mouth.
2. Chewing gum—anytime, anywhere, in anybody’s mouth (especially people who answer the telephone in an office), on any street, under any table, on anybody’s shoe (especially mine), in anybody’s hair.
3. People who drive around with their car stereo bass volume at the “deafening” level so I can hear it inside my house at 1 a.m. when I’m otherwise alone enjoying a peaceful meditation.
4. Hangnails, especially the little ones that elude nail clippers. How DID Adam and Eve deal with that anyway?
5. People who say “Okay?” at the end of every sentence to be sure you’re following them, as if you were too much of an idiot to understand simple instructions. Close second: People who say, “Oh, uh-huh” at the end of every statement you make in a conversation, as if you somehow need to be occasionally assured that they’re still listening.
6. Slow internet connections.
7. People who friend you on Facebook just to play games.
8. Junk mail. Most of the mail I get is catalogs which go from my hand into the recycle bin. They could stop sending me those things and cut out the middle man, but it practically takes an Act of Congress to get OFF a mailing list you didn't ask to be on in the first place.
9. Interminable legal language of privacy statements that come with dismaying frequency from every company I do business with, leaving me wondering what privacy they’re protecting. One statement at the beginning of a relationship ought to be assurance enough.
10. Colonoscopy prep. Now there’s something to look forward to when you get up in the morning—self-induced diarrhea.
2. Chewing gum—anytime, anywhere, in anybody’s mouth (especially people who answer the telephone in an office), on any street, under any table, on anybody’s shoe (especially mine), in anybody’s hair.
3. People who drive around with their car stereo bass volume at the “deafening” level so I can hear it inside my house at 1 a.m. when I’m otherwise alone enjoying a peaceful meditation.
4. Hangnails, especially the little ones that elude nail clippers. How DID Adam and Eve deal with that anyway?
5. People who say “Okay?” at the end of every sentence to be sure you’re following them, as if you were too much of an idiot to understand simple instructions. Close second: People who say, “Oh, uh-huh” at the end of every statement you make in a conversation, as if you somehow need to be occasionally assured that they’re still listening.
6. Slow internet connections.
7. People who friend you on Facebook just to play games.
8. Junk mail. Most of the mail I get is catalogs which go from my hand into the recycle bin. They could stop sending me those things and cut out the middle man, but it practically takes an Act of Congress to get OFF a mailing list you didn't ask to be on in the first place.
9. Interminable legal language of privacy statements that come with dismaying frequency from every company I do business with, leaving me wondering what privacy they’re protecting. One statement at the beginning of a relationship ought to be assurance enough.
10. Colonoscopy prep. Now there’s something to look forward to when you get up in the morning—self-induced diarrhea.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
A Fine Pestilence
Winter is the best time to be a putterbutt.
This is a word I learned from my friend Elaine, and as a serious lover of useful made-up words, I installed it in my vocabulary immediately. It means to just fool around and sort of flirt insincerely with your To Do list, that primary source of proof that you are an adult and can be trusted with Serious Responsibilities. Putterbutting is my form of Attention Deficit Disorder, a diversionary tactic to avoid tackling a task I don’t really want to do. Somehow, when I’m trapped by winter’s tricks, there’s more opportunity, knowing the task has to be done eventually, to put my trust in eventuality and allow my attention to wander shamelessly, aimlessly, toward anything, everything else. That’s putterbutting.
Being a putterbutt helps me keep a positive attitude under gray skies and in white storms. Having been born in Oregon, and raised on nuts and berries like a bear, I have an inclination to hibernate in the winter. Sleep is a putterbutt’s hobby. For that reason, I have never found winter depressing and endless – boring maybe with its frigid sameness – but I believe spring will ultimately win. The tutoring message of winter is introspection, reflective pondering, putterbutting, while the triumphant message of spring is progress, action, resurrection.
A practiced putterbutt knows the unbridled, guilt-free joy of saying No. With experience, a savvy putterbutt knows not to wear a watch or make appointments that will certainly be sabotaged by motivated forgetting.
A putterbutt has an intimate knowledge of procrastination, which can be justified and rationalized despite an inbred work ethic and overgrown sense of duty. Slow-paced low-metabolism winter days with short daylight hours are perfect for putterbutting. Stuck with mostly indoor activities chokingly dull in any season – things like cleaning out drawers and closets, updating the address book, making an inventory of the food storage – I am desperate for interesting alternatives. Being a putterbutt helps me deny the existence of those chores, firm in my conviction that if ignored long enough, they’ll either disappear or become irrelevant. There are plenty of other days when I can prove I’m worthy of my over-21 privileges.
Putterbutting is a proud occupation for one or two, but it’s too personal to be a group activity. It is conducted by the rules of Whatever, guided only by whim and whimsy, curiosity and quizzical wonder. A dedicated putterbutt can spend hours reading greeting cards in the Hallmark store and never buy one, search through bottomless bins of Kmart clearance items she doesn’t need and won’t buy anyway, wander pointlessly the aisles of thrift stores, all motivated only by Because It’s There.
For a putterbutt all the world’s a museum, opening life to the wonders of serendipity, the unexpected discovery of delightful surprises, sweet moments that make me smile or possibly even giggle, moments that will contribute to sparkling conversation later in the telling. Things discovered serendipitously are like lovely, intriguing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that may fit together sometime in the distant future, but until they do, can be appreciated now for their individuality.
But I digress, and that’s what makes me a champion putterbutt. Wandering from place to place around the house, or the town, noticing details, nuances, subtleties, shades of differences, I ponder, dissect, deconstruct and reconfigure. I take the leash off my imagination. I ramble over unnumbered unscheduled detours to What If and Hmm. I take pleasure in the vistas on the hill above Maybe Some Day, and make mental reservations to return when I can stay longer.
An occasional day spent in putterbutt limbo can be most satisfying. It is “wasted” only if I allow guilt to intrude with its shameful Should Haves and imperative Oughts who come shaking their scolding fingers dangerously near my sense of responsibility. There will always be other days ripe for taking charge like an adult and rampaging headlong through the To Do list, masterfully checking off jobs as if they won’t have to be done over again in another week or two.
Putterbutting has a cleansing effect, decontaminating the soul from the anxiety that keeps it earthbound on tooth-gritting deadline days. At the end of a long delicious putterbutt day, not much has been checked off the To Do list, but I’ve been everywhere and thought everything and put all the problems in perspective.
If there were some magic elixir that would cure my seasonal bouts with putterbutting, I would tear up the prescription. I look forward to the appearance of this welcome coping mechanism every winter, my capitulation to the animal hibernation instinct. It’s a disorder that doesn’t strike very often, but when it does, I plan to indulge completely. I refuse to be cured of this fine pestilence.
(essay written 2005, revised 2009)
This is a word I learned from my friend Elaine, and as a serious lover of useful made-up words, I installed it in my vocabulary immediately. It means to just fool around and sort of flirt insincerely with your To Do list, that primary source of proof that you are an adult and can be trusted with Serious Responsibilities. Putterbutting is my form of Attention Deficit Disorder, a diversionary tactic to avoid tackling a task I don’t really want to do. Somehow, when I’m trapped by winter’s tricks, there’s more opportunity, knowing the task has to be done eventually, to put my trust in eventuality and allow my attention to wander shamelessly, aimlessly, toward anything, everything else. That’s putterbutting.
Being a putterbutt helps me keep a positive attitude under gray skies and in white storms. Having been born in Oregon, and raised on nuts and berries like a bear, I have an inclination to hibernate in the winter. Sleep is a putterbutt’s hobby. For that reason, I have never found winter depressing and endless – boring maybe with its frigid sameness – but I believe spring will ultimately win. The tutoring message of winter is introspection, reflective pondering, putterbutting, while the triumphant message of spring is progress, action, resurrection.
A practiced putterbutt knows the unbridled, guilt-free joy of saying No. With experience, a savvy putterbutt knows not to wear a watch or make appointments that will certainly be sabotaged by motivated forgetting.
A putterbutt has an intimate knowledge of procrastination, which can be justified and rationalized despite an inbred work ethic and overgrown sense of duty. Slow-paced low-metabolism winter days with short daylight hours are perfect for putterbutting. Stuck with mostly indoor activities chokingly dull in any season – things like cleaning out drawers and closets, updating the address book, making an inventory of the food storage – I am desperate for interesting alternatives. Being a putterbutt helps me deny the existence of those chores, firm in my conviction that if ignored long enough, they’ll either disappear or become irrelevant. There are plenty of other days when I can prove I’m worthy of my over-21 privileges.
Putterbutting is a proud occupation for one or two, but it’s too personal to be a group activity. It is conducted by the rules of Whatever, guided only by whim and whimsy, curiosity and quizzical wonder. A dedicated putterbutt can spend hours reading greeting cards in the Hallmark store and never buy one, search through bottomless bins of Kmart clearance items she doesn’t need and won’t buy anyway, wander pointlessly the aisles of thrift stores, all motivated only by Because It’s There.
For a putterbutt all the world’s a museum, opening life to the wonders of serendipity, the unexpected discovery of delightful surprises, sweet moments that make me smile or possibly even giggle, moments that will contribute to sparkling conversation later in the telling. Things discovered serendipitously are like lovely, intriguing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that may fit together sometime in the distant future, but until they do, can be appreciated now for their individuality.
But I digress, and that’s what makes me a champion putterbutt. Wandering from place to place around the house, or the town, noticing details, nuances, subtleties, shades of differences, I ponder, dissect, deconstruct and reconfigure. I take the leash off my imagination. I ramble over unnumbered unscheduled detours to What If and Hmm. I take pleasure in the vistas on the hill above Maybe Some Day, and make mental reservations to return when I can stay longer.
An occasional day spent in putterbutt limbo can be most satisfying. It is “wasted” only if I allow guilt to intrude with its shameful Should Haves and imperative Oughts who come shaking their scolding fingers dangerously near my sense of responsibility. There will always be other days ripe for taking charge like an adult and rampaging headlong through the To Do list, masterfully checking off jobs as if they won’t have to be done over again in another week or two.
Putterbutting has a cleansing effect, decontaminating the soul from the anxiety that keeps it earthbound on tooth-gritting deadline days. At the end of a long delicious putterbutt day, not much has been checked off the To Do list, but I’ve been everywhere and thought everything and put all the problems in perspective.
If there were some magic elixir that would cure my seasonal bouts with putterbutting, I would tear up the prescription. I look forward to the appearance of this welcome coping mechanism every winter, my capitulation to the animal hibernation instinct. It’s a disorder that doesn’t strike very often, but when it does, I plan to indulge completely. I refuse to be cured of this fine pestilence.
(essay written 2005, revised 2009)
Monday, March 14, 2011
Who's of Your Board of Directors?
My son Jordan works at a facility for troubled youth. When they take in new students, they have orientation sessions to help them identify the thinking and communication patterns that led to the choices that landed them there in the first place. One of the concepts they introduce is that we all have an “itty bitty mind committee” made up of people who influence us the most. It got me thinking about my choices and the greatest influences on me. At some periods of my life, I've had some pretty negative people and attitudes dictating my behavior.
A few months ago I was in a meeting where a presenter challenged us to think of our life as a corporation. She asked us to name the twelve people who have influenced us the most and who might be called our board of directors. Like a board of directors guides the course a company may take, friends, families, philosophies, principles and values influence each one of us. Christians would list Jesus Christ, of course, on their board of directors. I also listed family members and particularly influential teachers. I am who I have become because of them. Whether we're shy or outgoing, an optimist or a pessimist, we all make judgments about the world according to our own experience, and those on our board of directors are most often the people we trust to help us interpret and make sense of the world.
We could all probably find specific areas of our personal lives where we have a board of directors, too - work, volunteerism, family, parenting. As a writer, I include my alpha readers and my editor as people who influence me the most. My board of directors changed with changing circumstances of my life - when I left home, when I married, when I had children, when we moved to a new neighborhood. That's the ebb and flow of life. But we don't pass through this life in isolation. Consciously or unconsciously, we are always influenced by our belief system as well as who and what is around us.
Who’s on your board of directors? Is it a large group or a small one? What standards do you require of them? Who needs to have more or less influence on you? How can you dismiss someone from that position of influence? When we stop to think about it, we're all on somebody else's board of directors, too, and the inevitable question is: are we doing a good job?
A few months ago I was in a meeting where a presenter challenged us to think of our life as a corporation. She asked us to name the twelve people who have influenced us the most and who might be called our board of directors. Like a board of directors guides the course a company may take, friends, families, philosophies, principles and values influence each one of us. Christians would list Jesus Christ, of course, on their board of directors. I also listed family members and particularly influential teachers. I am who I have become because of them. Whether we're shy or outgoing, an optimist or a pessimist, we all make judgments about the world according to our own experience, and those on our board of directors are most often the people we trust to help us interpret and make sense of the world.
We could all probably find specific areas of our personal lives where we have a board of directors, too - work, volunteerism, family, parenting. As a writer, I include my alpha readers and my editor as people who influence me the most. My board of directors changed with changing circumstances of my life - when I left home, when I married, when I had children, when we moved to a new neighborhood. That's the ebb and flow of life. But we don't pass through this life in isolation. Consciously or unconsciously, we are always influenced by our belief system as well as who and what is around us.
Who’s on your board of directors? Is it a large group or a small one? What standards do you require of them? Who needs to have more or less influence on you? How can you dismiss someone from that position of influence? When we stop to think about it, we're all on somebody else's board of directors, too, and the inevitable question is: are we doing a good job?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Generosity
My mother would have been 90 years old on February first, and in March it will be 20 years since she passed away. I miss her profoundly in so many ways, but one of the greatest ways that she influenced me is that she was one of the most generous people I've ever known, both with her hands and with her heart.
Mother was a child of the Depression. In 1930 her father took his family to wait out the bad economic times living off the land on a homestead in Southern Oregon. Mother's memories of that time read like "Little House in the Cascades," complete with carrying water from the creek, going to a one-room school, and picking wild berries. Grandma, one of 14 kids, had grown up on a ranch in Idaho and knew how to sew and can. She made underwear for the girls out of flour sacks and scrimped and made do. Grandpa sold cord wood in town and did odd jobs to earn money when he needed to buy things at the general store. Knowing Grandpa was out there with four little kids, the storekeeper kept an eye on him. Once he gave Grandpa a case of unlabeled cans that he couldn't sell, but not knowing what it was didn't matter when the kids were hungry. Mother said she'd never forget the smell when the can opener pierced the tin. It was spinach, and it tasted good.
For Christmas that year, the family got a box of used clothes and toys and were so grateful that someone remembered them. Grandpa, orphaned at eight, had grown up in a Masonic Home where the thoughtful matron saw to it that each child had fifty cents to spend for Christmas every year. Likewise, Grandpa took his children to Woolworth's in Roseburg and gave them each fifty cents to buy gifts for their siblings and parents.
For the rest of her life, Mother tried to make life better for other people. She appreciated what she had and though my parents were never wealthy, they shared their blessings. Mother gleaned apples from nearby orchards and made sure her widowed or financially struggling friends had a box of apples. Every year she bottled a thousand jars of fruits, vegetables, juice, jam and sometimes meat. She made sure all the kids in the family had coats and boots for the winter if their parents couldn't afford it. When she took me to school at BYU, she'd stop on the way home at a dry bean warehouse in Idaho for a couple of sacks to divide up among friends and family in Portland. She noticed when other people needed something and was always on the lookout for a way to satisfy that need. When something came into her hands that she couldn't use, she'd pass it along to someone who could. Other people might have been insulted and thrown the thing in the trash, but not Mother.
Growing up with this kind of mother, I never resented the treasures she brought home from the Good Will store. I understood what it meant to have a generous heart. Our children will never forget the trips we took with my parents, full of adventure and laughter and good food and endless interesting information (Mother was a walking encyclopedia). When we moved in 2009 and downsized, I had the kids come and help me clean out closets so they could take away what they wanted. They can enjoy their "inheritance," such as it may be, and I have the pleasure of watching that.
In our world of selfishness and narcissism and "what's in it for me," a generous person is a rare find, even a treasure. I could do a lot worse than to be like my mother.
Mother was a child of the Depression. In 1930 her father took his family to wait out the bad economic times living off the land on a homestead in Southern Oregon. Mother's memories of that time read like "Little House in the Cascades," complete with carrying water from the creek, going to a one-room school, and picking wild berries. Grandma, one of 14 kids, had grown up on a ranch in Idaho and knew how to sew and can. She made underwear for the girls out of flour sacks and scrimped and made do. Grandpa sold cord wood in town and did odd jobs to earn money when he needed to buy things at the general store. Knowing Grandpa was out there with four little kids, the storekeeper kept an eye on him. Once he gave Grandpa a case of unlabeled cans that he couldn't sell, but not knowing what it was didn't matter when the kids were hungry. Mother said she'd never forget the smell when the can opener pierced the tin. It was spinach, and it tasted good.
For Christmas that year, the family got a box of used clothes and toys and were so grateful that someone remembered them. Grandpa, orphaned at eight, had grown up in a Masonic Home where the thoughtful matron saw to it that each child had fifty cents to spend for Christmas every year. Likewise, Grandpa took his children to Woolworth's in Roseburg and gave them each fifty cents to buy gifts for their siblings and parents.
For the rest of her life, Mother tried to make life better for other people. She appreciated what she had and though my parents were never wealthy, they shared their blessings. Mother gleaned apples from nearby orchards and made sure her widowed or financially struggling friends had a box of apples. Every year she bottled a thousand jars of fruits, vegetables, juice, jam and sometimes meat. She made sure all the kids in the family had coats and boots for the winter if their parents couldn't afford it. When she took me to school at BYU, she'd stop on the way home at a dry bean warehouse in Idaho for a couple of sacks to divide up among friends and family in Portland. She noticed when other people needed something and was always on the lookout for a way to satisfy that need. When something came into her hands that she couldn't use, she'd pass it along to someone who could. Other people might have been insulted and thrown the thing in the trash, but not Mother.
Growing up with this kind of mother, I never resented the treasures she brought home from the Good Will store. I understood what it meant to have a generous heart. Our children will never forget the trips we took with my parents, full of adventure and laughter and good food and endless interesting information (Mother was a walking encyclopedia). When we moved in 2009 and downsized, I had the kids come and help me clean out closets so they could take away what they wanted. They can enjoy their "inheritance," such as it may be, and I have the pleasure of watching that.
In our world of selfishness and narcissism and "what's in it for me," a generous person is a rare find, even a treasure. I could do a lot worse than to be like my mother.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Camelot - NOT!!!
With the jetstream pumping Arctic air into the Rockies and a massive storm paralyzing the Midwest and Northeast, there's a lot of complaining now about the weather. In parking lots we drive past the piles of dirty snow, reminders of our heavy December storms that will still be there a month from now.
Yesterday morning the faucet in our kitchen was frozen. Since the sink is on an outside north wall, and the temperatures were subzero, of course something's going to freeze. Duh. Why didn't we anticipate that. Roger called the plumber, who was having an insane day and would not be able to get here until 6 o'clock. Fine. In the meantime, we didn't have a spare space heater to aim under the sink, so Roger went to Home Depot to get one. "Sorry," they said, "the only heaters we have left are the ones on display." And they weren't what he wanted. So he bought some insulated sleeves for the outside faucets and Home Depot employees went on unloading the summer fans that have just arrived. Don't you love irony?
Instead, Roger went to Sears and found a small space heater. Good ol' Sears. In the meantime, the line unfroze itself and water started running again. We canceled the plumber and left the faucet dripping overnight with the little heater aimed at the pipes underneath.
But it got me thinking. No fact of our lives - not love, not genius, not even babies - provides more immediate proof of the existence of God than does the weather. He gave us rocks and trees and autumn and Eagle Creek Falls, and we do nothing but complain about snow and cold and the serendipitous randomness of the world. Come on, people - He never promised us Camelot, where the rain may never fall till after sundown, but we can be sure of this: our world is never boring.
On the contrary, we should be grateful that the seasons change and the world renews itself in spite of whether we've lost ten pounds or apologized or taken down the Christmas lights by Valentine's Day. Seasons of planting, growing, maturing and harvesting are gifts we take for granted. We remain reticent and skeptical while all around us is proof that God loves us and believes we can straighten things out.
According to people who have studied the phenomenon, spring starts at sea level and moves up eleven miles per day. You see? God loves us. He gives us time to adjust and change.
Yesterday morning the faucet in our kitchen was frozen. Since the sink is on an outside north wall, and the temperatures were subzero, of course something's going to freeze. Duh. Why didn't we anticipate that. Roger called the plumber, who was having an insane day and would not be able to get here until 6 o'clock. Fine. In the meantime, we didn't have a spare space heater to aim under the sink, so Roger went to Home Depot to get one. "Sorry," they said, "the only heaters we have left are the ones on display." And they weren't what he wanted. So he bought some insulated sleeves for the outside faucets and Home Depot employees went on unloading the summer fans that have just arrived. Don't you love irony?
Instead, Roger went to Sears and found a small space heater. Good ol' Sears. In the meantime, the line unfroze itself and water started running again. We canceled the plumber and left the faucet dripping overnight with the little heater aimed at the pipes underneath.
But it got me thinking. No fact of our lives - not love, not genius, not even babies - provides more immediate proof of the existence of God than does the weather. He gave us rocks and trees and autumn and Eagle Creek Falls, and we do nothing but complain about snow and cold and the serendipitous randomness of the world. Come on, people - He never promised us Camelot, where the rain may never fall till after sundown, but we can be sure of this: our world is never boring.
On the contrary, we should be grateful that the seasons change and the world renews itself in spite of whether we've lost ten pounds or apologized or taken down the Christmas lights by Valentine's Day. Seasons of planting, growing, maturing and harvesting are gifts we take for granted. We remain reticent and skeptical while all around us is proof that God loves us and believes we can straighten things out.
According to people who have studied the phenomenon, spring starts at sea level and moves up eleven miles per day. You see? God loves us. He gives us time to adjust and change.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Counting My Blessings Again
It's been two years for me and Barack. He only got sworn in as President of the United States. But I got my life back.
Two years ago today I had my left knee replacement surgery. I'm doing much better with simple things like walking, but not so much with more complicated things like kneeling. These days I sit to say my prayers, but mentally I'm kneeling. I'm not doing 5K races and I'm not sprinting all over big box stores like a teenager, but I am out there and into life. My second surgery was February 17, meaning the left one had to be the "good" leg I could depend on. It sort of worked that way.
Now I note the milestones – doing stairs, shopping without riding the motorized cart, even just standing around talking is progress. I'll never take for granted the ability to walk without pain.
I'm so grateful for modern medicine. And plastic and steel and the way the human body adapts. I've catalogued my experience here before so I won't repeat it, but today I'm thinking about where I might be if I hadn't done it - in a wheelchair.
Two years ago today I had my left knee replacement surgery. I'm doing much better with simple things like walking, but not so much with more complicated things like kneeling. These days I sit to say my prayers, but mentally I'm kneeling. I'm not doing 5K races and I'm not sprinting all over big box stores like a teenager, but I am out there and into life. My second surgery was February 17, meaning the left one had to be the "good" leg I could depend on. It sort of worked that way.
Now I note the milestones – doing stairs, shopping without riding the motorized cart, even just standing around talking is progress. I'll never take for granted the ability to walk without pain.
I'm so grateful for modern medicine. And plastic and steel and the way the human body adapts. I've catalogued my experience here before so I won't repeat it, but today I'm thinking about where I might be if I hadn't done it - in a wheelchair.
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