The hope of the world lies in the rehabilitation of the living human being, not just the body but also the soul. – Vaclav Havel
Old age is terminal, but it can take its own sweet time. Nothing about this is easy.
Comes a time you might ask yourself, am I injured or am I crippled?
Young professional athlete get shot in the chest; he’ll likely miss four games. Me, been almost a year. Too painful to compose a worthy report, imagine The Myth of Sisyphus as lived by Kafka’s giant bug.
Long story short. The knee blew up a second time, just as I was scheduled for my rehab evaluation for the first insult. New physical therapy company, last winter’s team closed up shop. Instead of plotting recovery, we try to imagine me walking without a painful limp.
“Perhaps, Mr. Welch, 0.9 miles in twenty-two minutes is simply too fast.”
You should see my face.
“Maybe, you should let your wife carry that gallon of milk up those three steps.”
She’s been carrying the heaviest load the whole time already.
My left foot is dark purple.
Left leg bigger – coulda been the three blood clots – from my third gonad to my fused toes.
Gonna punch the next person who asks me if I play pickleball. Not funny.
At my last semi-annual check-up, six months ago, I suggested an MRI perhaps.
The doctor listened carefully and said, not out loud, one more test and she’d lose her bonus.
This time, took my shoe and sock off, in that order, and what do you know, now awaiting an MRI at OMG Diagnostics.
Where even good news is scary.
Can almost hear the diagnosis now – oh, dear, if you’d only come to us six months sooner.
Big supporter of government healthcare, but there could be less insurance and more caring.
Definite fear I might look back on this as one of those good old days.
I am old enough to remember my mother’s adventures.
Dinner is served early at Rehab.
But for a few, apparently not early enough.
Someone hollers in a whisper, “Wake up and eat!” I look behind me to see a woman, maybe two hundred years old, slouched over in her wheelchair. The snoring goes on.
The good news is, I’m just visiting.
Mom is wide awake, watching the entire room like it’s a Broadway drama, fully aware she plays a supporting role.
The media is always promoting one healthy old person or another. But for every Betty White, there’s ten thousand old ladies, whose bodies have fallen apart or whose minds have run off without them.
From what I can surmise, it’s better not to lose your mind. They have replacement parts for your body.
That’s why I’m having dinner with my mother. The next day she’s scheduled for her third knee replacement. This will be her ninth or tenth surgery on that one leg. We have actually lost count.
Her new surgeon confides that ninety-eight percent of patients don’t have these problems. Wow. I tell my mother, you are a lucky woman, forty-nine to one this doesn’t happen to you.
I notice Mother isn’t eating. “Oh, I never eat dinner,” she explains.
And I am thinking I drove by a hundred perfectly suitable restaurants to have dinner with her.
Rehab cuisine compares favorably to airplane meals, except for the frequent flyer miles.
Mom can’t walk. She wants this next knee replacement, so she can have “two or three more good years.”
After forty-five years of battling a crippling disease, you have to admire her spunk.
Mom is leaving rehab. And she is so happy with her parting gift – a T-shirt. On a light blue background, there’s the slogan: You Arrived As A Patient, But You’re Leaving As A Friend.
That is so nice. Much better than my suggestion:
You Came As A Rich Person, But You’re Leaving As A Poor One.
At the hospital, preparing her for surgery, I watch and I listen and I am completely confident.
Third time’s the charm, right? Odds got to be better.
As Mom is being wheeled into the operating room, I hear the candy-striper tell her, “Have a nice day.”
She had five more good years.
But she’d be the first to tell you – Nothing about this is easy.