Spring New Shoulder Moon
The new shoulder moon has gone from new to full and over the course of its transition Kate’s new shoulder has begun to heal. Still a long road ahead but her pain is better, her overall spirits, too. She still has some nausea, which is tough for her because it makes her very uncomfortable. On the whole though her recovery is on track after those first four days post-op.
The routine of caregiving has become easier. I’ve learned how to alter my routine so it makes things simpler for her and for me. I even did two loads of laundry yesterday. Now, this may not seem like much, but Kate is a laundryhead and as a result it’s something I’ve done only rarely in all our years of marriage. Before we were married, yes, but she likes laundry. General picking up, cleaning up, something we might both do, is now my responsibility so I just do it. Cooking and shopping are mine now; as is doing the dishes, though I hope our very expensive dish drainer will actually wash the dishes, too, after Monday.
Kate’s has two post-op appointments this week, the one I mentioned on Monday at Panorama Orthopedics and Wednesday with Dr. Gidday. By the time the new shoulder moon wanes her recovery will be well advanced.
Surprising, sophisticated, jawbreakingly awful sign on a conservative church sign board: “Anxiety is just unbelief in disguise.” If you live in Christworld, there is a certain sense in which this appears to be true. If only your belief were strong, you would need have no worries. Look at the lilies of the field.
Friend Tom Crane sent me a book, he does that every so often, “
We have elaborate protocols for people with pulmonary issues like COPD or emphysema, cardiac issues of many nuances, joint replacements for tired and painful knees, shoulders, hips; but, what do we have for a part of our lives that constitutes a third of our time use each 24 hours? Yes, there are sleep centers, but they’re not on offer often and besides it seems that cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard. Problem is not many CBT folk specialize in sleep and we’re certainly not referred to them anyhow.
Kate has slept well, mostly, her first two nights home. She’s controlling her pain with tylenol and the occasional tramadol or vicodin. She had a bout of nausea yesterday; but, unfortunately, that’s not really unusual. Her weight is up, thanks, she thinks, to good intravenous hydration in the hospital. Prior to surgery she’d had trouble keeping water down. She’s on the mend.
Snow. While the rest of the nation east of the Rockies has been pounded with storm after storm this land of ski resorts and mountain passes has been dry, one of the 14 driest winters in the state’s meteorological history. Last night though, maybe 9 inches of heavy, wet fire dampening snow! Welcome.
On Thursday, the day of Kate’s surgery, I left Rigel and Gertie outside while I was at Ortho Colorado. Staying outside that long, several hours, is unusual for them. When I let Rigel inside, she ran to the couch, jumped up on it, jumped in the air a couple of times, then flopped down into her usual position. Ah.
Beth Evergreen has reached out to us in several ways. Individual members have offered to bring food or otherwise help. Leah, the executive director, called, wanting to know if we needed anything. Several folks from our mussar group responded to my e-mail on Thursday with love and concern. For both of us. A thought that keeps going through my mind: beloved community. Christian churches aspire to this, Beth Evergreen achieves it. I’m proud to be a member of the congregation.
As one of Dr. Agronin’s youngest informants said, even when physical decline and losses restrict one’s options, there remains the capacity to appreciate and approach each day with a sense of purpose. “It’s all about how you frame what you have,” she told him.
Hopefully, our children, the millennials among them, will look at us and come to that phase of their lives with a different image. My hope is that they will see that aging is the accumulation of years, not a time of diminished hope and diffuse fear, but life continuing. If that image can become dominant, it will look like the diverse approaches people have to their first and second phases. In other words the third phase will have as many distinct trajectories as there are people who enter it. It will not be dormancy, or a pause before dying, but life itself.
I like Robert Hill’s definition of positive aging: (It’s) “affected by disease and disability, but not contingent upon avoiding it.” Rather, it is “a state of mind that is positive, optimistic, courageous, and able to adapt and cope in flexible ways with life’s changes.” 
Not only in children, I think. Resilience can allow us to accept the changes of the aging body without losing hold of the power of our own lives. With a resilient personality even ALS will not cause us to stop growing. Just look at Stephen Hawking.