Taking Our Bodies for Granted.....
We take so many things for granted in our lives that when something happens to change our daily routine, we are stunned by the changes and adjustments. I've gotten a front row seat to this experience this week.
My wife is a very active person. She normally works 12 hour shifts as a nurse at a hospital. Except when she works overtime to bring in some extra cash. She shows up for work about an hour early so she can go to the gym and get some treadmill time. At home she's usually running around cooking or cleaning. I always think she should relax more. That's my speciality.
But that all changed about a year ago. She was running through an airport when she suffered a knee injury. Since then she has been living, and working, in constant pain. Doctors visits revealed that while the knee was still structurally sound, she had severe arthritis and was now walking bone on bone. The solution: a total knee replacement.
Today, knee and hip replacements are quite common, especially for seniors. I do remember when a great athlete, Bo Jackson, had a hip injury and had to have a hip replacement. He tried to play with it in the Major Leagues, but eventually had to give it up. Bo Jackson was a superb one in a million athlete that was a star in both the NFL and MLB. Truthfully, it sort of made me wince watching him play after his hip replacement.
My wife came into the surgery with much hesitation. I told her not to worry. Plenty of people have gone through this. But you know the old joke: Minor surgery is surgery on somebody else; Major surgery is when it's on you. Surgery day came and went. She was pretty drugged up, os no real problems that day.
She stayed in the hospital/rehab center for about a week. Besides being in a lot of pain, she went through daily therapy to learn how to use a walker, how to climb up and down steps, how to get into a car, etc. Obviously, we weren't in Kansas anymore.
Her rehab sessions were eye opening to me. Here was a group of people trying to re-learn how to do things that were second nature a few days or weeks ago. In addition to joint replacement patients there were people recovering from strokes, and people recovering from severe traffic accidents. This was hard work. I'm sure the rehab work was difficult and frustrating for the recovering patients. Plus there's no such thing as keeping your dignity in the hospital.
The Physical Therapists that help these people are a wonder. Patience, encouragement, and instruction are these peoples trademark. Being friendly while being a stern taskmaster is no easy trick.
The early days of her being home have been a challenge. In addition to adapting our house to accommodate a walker and other accessories for the handicapped, she still needs help with, well, just about everything. Everything from putting on socks to taking a shower and everything in between. Getting up to our second floor is a major production. I've have had to adjust for the requests for help every two minutes, but that's just the way it is for now. It's still painful to her. I can understand now how people could get addicted to painkillers.
The bright side is this: While it's painful now in the early days of recovery, in a few weeks she will be back to near normalcy. Eventually she'll be much more pain free than she was before the surgery. For some people the problems never go away.
My oldest son is handicapped. He was born very premature, at about 2 pounds. A complication of that is blindness. So he has been blind since birth. Stevie Wonder was a preemie too. I have been told that had he been born today that he probably would be fine because medical science has developed medicines that can prevent those problems for preemies. That's great. But thinking about things like that can just drive you crazy. But that's how his entire life has been. He's had to adjust to that type of world. He has problems with mobility. But he reads braille faster than I can read print.
So the moral of the story is not to take anything you do for granted. All it takes is a small blocked artery or somebody daydreaming through a stop sign. Someday you may have to learn to walk all over again. Be thankful for every day you're healthy.
We take so many things for granted in our lives that when something happens to change our daily routine, we are stunned by the changes and adjustments. I've gotten a front row seat to this experience this week.
My wife is a very active person. She normally works 12 hour shifts as a nurse at a hospital. Except when she works overtime to bring in some extra cash. She shows up for work about an hour early so she can go to the gym and get some treadmill time. At home she's usually running around cooking or cleaning. I always think she should relax more. That's my speciality.
But that all changed about a year ago. She was running through an airport when she suffered a knee injury. Since then she has been living, and working, in constant pain. Doctors visits revealed that while the knee was still structurally sound, she had severe arthritis and was now walking bone on bone. The solution: a total knee replacement.
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| Maybe it'll be a cool looking scar. |
My wife came into the surgery with much hesitation. I told her not to worry. Plenty of people have gone through this. But you know the old joke: Minor surgery is surgery on somebody else; Major surgery is when it's on you. Surgery day came and went. She was pretty drugged up, os no real problems that day.
She stayed in the hospital/rehab center for about a week. Besides being in a lot of pain, she went through daily therapy to learn how to use a walker, how to climb up and down steps, how to get into a car, etc. Obviously, we weren't in Kansas anymore.
Her rehab sessions were eye opening to me. Here was a group of people trying to re-learn how to do things that were second nature a few days or weeks ago. In addition to joint replacement patients there were people recovering from strokes, and people recovering from severe traffic accidents. This was hard work. I'm sure the rehab work was difficult and frustrating for the recovering patients. Plus there's no such thing as keeping your dignity in the hospital.
The Physical Therapists that help these people are a wonder. Patience, encouragement, and instruction are these peoples trademark. Being friendly while being a stern taskmaster is no easy trick.
 |
| 13 steps, or a mountain. It's in your perspective. |
The bright side is this: While it's painful now in the early days of recovery, in a few weeks she will be back to near normalcy. Eventually she'll be much more pain free than she was before the surgery. For some people the problems never go away.
My oldest son is handicapped. He was born very premature, at about 2 pounds. A complication of that is blindness. So he has been blind since birth. Stevie Wonder was a preemie too. I have been told that had he been born today that he probably would be fine because medical science has developed medicines that can prevent those problems for preemies. That's great. But thinking about things like that can just drive you crazy. But that's how his entire life has been. He's had to adjust to that type of world. He has problems with mobility. But he reads braille faster than I can read print.
So the moral of the story is not to take anything you do for granted. All it takes is a small blocked artery or somebody daydreaming through a stop sign. Someday you may have to learn to walk all over again. Be thankful for every day you're healthy.
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