WHO AM I?
I was a landlubber who was “free” but not adrift in
any way. I lived in New England, inland, far from the sea. I was not a sea man,
I was a land man. My longtime love and joy was hiking in the beloved Green Mountains.
I loved the forests. I felt free. Expansive. The Appalachian Trail. Now I have
been captured. My freedom to ramble was taken away from me by a War Lord. Like
the War Lords of the 1600s who came ashore in New England to “impress” or
imprison landlubbers through force, and compel them to work on sailing ships,
Lord Arthritis captured me, took away my freedom, and bid me do his service.
For more than a year
since I was impressed into Lord Arthritis’ service, I have been bound on a sea
of pain over which Lord Arthritis is commanding Admiral. My once, joyful earth-bound
gait, became a lumbering, painful, awkward side-to-side cartoon across the deck
of my life. Arthritic grit and bone spurs in both knees grinding together, took
the wind out of my sails, and held me painfully captive day by day. Pain foamed
and swirled through my knees like sea water drawn in and squirted out of
feeding bi-valves. I heard later that in the same way that sand polishes the
inside of bi-valves, my hinge joints had been polished smooth and shone like
mother of pearl as the bone began to wear
through the bone.
Lord Arthritis’s physical
war on humanity offers a grand opportunity for Pain Pirates. An armada of
large, brigantine, regional hospitals anchor in the major cities. These larger
vessels deploy small, specialty clinics, like quickly moving attack sloops to
combat each War Lord - Arthritis, Cancer, Cardiology, Urology, Surgery. You can
see a virtual armada of these sloops lying in the lee of the larger hospitals.
They ply the social coastline which connect the surrounding villages, the community
islands: the club, arts guilds, community centers, libraries and elder-care
facilities to find and capture patients. The large hospitals provides the big
guns, the technology, surgery suites, hospital beds, the cannons of warfare to
protect the sloops. But, the specialty sloops are where battles are waged and
prisoners taken.
In the physical battle, specialty
sloops Lord Arthritis had stopped me, captured me in pain. Then I was sent aboard
an Orthopedic Clinic Sloop manned by hardened, experienced fighters. You can
see it in their swagger. They offer me an array of battle plans which I must
take “or else!” I had to pay them, and handsomely,
or they would not do battle with Lord Arthritis. They would maroon me to the
War Lord’s tortuous work. “Take it or leave it!” they smirked. And, I knew what
“leave it” meant. My blood ran cold with fear. It took a treasure chest of the
booty.
WHY AM I HERE?
Before the surgery I was told that having a knee
replacement would take “20 years off your life”. But, what kind of change can a
metallic peg-leg contain? The brochure for the new, replacement said that many
people have surgery and are up and walking with support “quickly”,
“independently mobile” within several weeks it said. Maybe.
Less than two weeks after
Medicare funding was granted, the tide changed. Pain Pirates no longer
threatened me. I was prepped. I was given a cocktail of pain relievers which
had me floating on a sea of imaginative warmth and sunshine. My life floated
away from me. I am sure that the anesthesiologist launched me on a small boat
which took me over to the side of invisibility where I could not physically
see.
Then the Pain Pirates,
like a small, assault group, followed a captain armed with weapons that were sharpened
to precision, lit special lights and wielded saws, cutlasses and drills. I was
ripped and had one of my arthritic knees sawed off. They replaced Lord
Arthritis’ playground with a new, titanium & plastic knee. Lucky me!
I was marooned in time. I
viewed the my past as a vast continent. In the foreground, a land of gnarled
and attrited experiences. I did not want to go back there. Then further away,
the brighter it became. I arrived in the sunny days of youth with a longing for
bright sandy shores. I was on a new island - my Treasure Island.
Does one really recover? Go
back? I remember coming to in the recovery area looking around wondering who were
these smiling, friendly people? They had put pulsing, swelling plastic sleeves
on my legs, like something breathing me. I was sweetly told they were going to
get me up and out of bed so I could walk behind a walker down the hallway – down
the first path of my Treasure Island.
Like a drunken Long John
Silver between my wife and a nursing aide, with my rear sail a’flappin’ we
pulled an i.v. pole along behind us down the hallway. “See, you can do this!”
But what am I doing? Oh, yes, I’ve replaced my old pain with my new pain.
WHAT DO I WANT?
In
the end, there is no recovery, really. You can’t recover and go back to where you started. You are changed. It is precovery.
My
old days were filled with teeth-gritting movement dealing with Lord Arthritis.
My days are now filled with teeth-gritting therapy. I wake in the night and
lumber cartoonlike to the kitchen to get plastic bags of frozen English peas to
ace bandage atop ice my swelling knee. My freezer is a treasure chest of frozen
peas and corn. Booty call.
The
Pain Pirates have been replaced out patient Physical Therapists and exercise regimens.
“If you don’t do the exercises,” they warn, “you’ll never walk.” What happened
to 20 years off my life?
Oh yes, that 20 years is
out there! You just have to go get it. Being set adrift on your life. Being
marooned in time. Going at a different pace. Being alone until, as you walk
down the beach of Treasure Island, you find footprints of someone else. Someone
new. Not the Pain Pirates, not Lord Arthritis, someone else because you are someone
else.
Aaarrg!
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