July 30, 2021
Dear Everyone:
Well, I’m back.
Where have I been?
For those of you not hooked into the family grapevine, I’ve been in the
hospital, then in “post-acute rehabilitation”.
What happened?
I’ll spare you the gruesome details.
Back around the beginning of last month, I started having some
difficulty with what I assumed was my left knee.
I visited my Primary Care Physician (PCP), who sent me to an
orthopedist. The orthopedist
looked at the x-ray, pronounced that I had arthritis, gave me a
cortisone shot and a prescription for pain relief, and told me, if it
got any worse to go to the ER.
It got worse.
Within days, my whole lower left leg exploded in a kaleidoscope
of pain.
Went to the nearest Emergency Room.
They took more x-rays, and an ultrasound.
They determined that I did not have any broken bones or
potentially lethal blood clots.
They kept me around for about two days.
Then they pronounced that it was no longer an
“emergency”. They gave me a
list of nearby Rehabilitation Centers and said, “Pick one.”
So I did.
The next two weeks were a maelstrom of pain,
therapists, “hospital food”, and helpful suggestions by phone from
“Frankie” and “Alice”. And
occasional visits, usually at inopportune times, by various doctors.
And more tests. All
inconclusive.
I would gladly have disclosed the deployment of
all my troops except for two things:
a) nobody asked; b) I ain’t got no troops.
Through it all, “Jeannie” came to see me almost
every day. Of course, she
still had to make a living.
Nevertheless, she made the drive from her place in Concord to the Rehab
Center in nearby Danville whenever she could.
I had her go to my place and grab some
comfortable clothing and “talked her through” logging onto my computer
and printing out the pattern to crochet a bunny.
The bunny is the easiest pattern to crochet, and I needed
something to do with my hands that wouldn’t take up as much room as a
sweater or blanket. She also
rooted out some leftover yarn from one of the many bins of yarn in my
second bedroom.
So I sat, first on my hospital bed, later in a
wheelchair, and crocheted.
People walking past the room would see me and stop to ask what I was
doing. There was one
dietician who would stand at the door, mesmerized just watching the
crochet hook going in and out through the yarn.
I finished the bunny, then started on another
one. Had “Jeannie” bring me
more copies of the pattern, and more yarn.
Then, by some miracle, things stopped getting
worse and started getting better.
Around the end of the second week and the start of the third
week, just moving a little didn’t cause more mind-searing pain.
I could even get into and out of bed without screaming.
It got to the point where I could get into the wheelchair and
clunk my way into the bathroom without help.
Things were definitely looking up.
One of the doctors ordered yet another test,
which required getting my body back over to the hospital.
“Jeannie” “volunteered” to take me.
As we were wrestling me into the car, I suddenly realized that I
could hop a little on my good leg, something that was impossible the
week before.
From then on, it was “Katie bar the door”.
I was “off to the races”, figuratively speaking, of course.
Once I proved to the physical therapists that I could “walk” with
the aid of a real Walker, I was able to check out of the Rehab Center.
By that time, I had finished three bunnies and
was working on a fourth. I
left the three completed ones with the Center.
Two were adopted immediately.
I don’t know what happened to the third.
As far as I was concerned, they had done their job, keeping me
sane. I never wanted to see
them again.
“Jeannie” brought me home and stayed with me
for just over a week after that.
I am currently well on the Road to Recovery,
moving forward a quarter-inch at a time.
Or, as “Jeannie” put it, “Moving at the speed of sludge.”
Seriously, if I got into a race with a glacier
and a somnolent snail, the snail would come in first, with the glacier a
close second and me a distant third.
Nevertheless, things are improving tremendously.
And I’ve come to some conclusions:
·
Eating
spaghetti in bed, regardless of the reason, is always a bad idea.
·
Happiness is being able to wipe your own ass.
·
When
it comes to recuperating, there really is No Place Like Home.
Love, as always,
Pete
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