My lids are looking down but I am really looking up.

I have a sister. Being older she has held the place of someone I look up to even though she is shorter than I.  She has a way of just showing up with bags. These bags always contain what I need.

She made me a gourmet meal in my kitchen. Anything with shrimp and lemons is gourmet for me. Fresh kale salad. Avocados and tart green apples. Flavor doused broccolini. Healthy. Organic. Tasty.

She sent her juicer over with strict instructions on how and what to feed me so my bowels would move.

She came and redressed my surgery wound  because it was bunching up and causing pain.

She showed up at the ER and taught me how to use a bedpan.

She coached me on the use of crutches and later my walker. Staying mobile will minimize risk of blood clots.

She sent me text messages to eat yogurt and prunes to keep my bowels moving.

She paused for a moment while preparing a meal  in my kitchen. While I ranted, she gave me one of her signature looks and shrugged. Then returned to the task at hand. She showed me how to let-it-go-and-move-on.

Everyone needs a big sister.

The Help Friends Bring

People visit.

Laugh-together friend brings food and her granddaughters. Talking. Laughing. Little girls always brighten up a room.

Close-to-my-heart friend brings food and her mom. Massage. Laundry basket. Friends help me with those little things I can't do, like carry something in my hands.

Discuss-big-ideas friend brings food and a movie basket. She caught me when I lost my balance sitting down then she recapped the weekly Bible study. Friends are life lines.

Friends brings more meals in throw-away containers.

More friends call. My message box fills with love and cheer.

Hubby-dear networks with a friend who loans us a wheelchair that fits through the door.

Friends are  like an army. Strength. Unity.

Gentle-friend drops off two walkers and an elongated exercise ball. Travel cosmetic bags full of goodies like chap stick, wipes, hand sanitizer, lotion, powder. Her shower chair awaits my first shower.

People who have danced this dance before just know things.

My church pastor waits with us before the OR.  He waits for pain to subside in the ER.  He reminds me of the word ubiquitous. Life comes out of his mouth. Love. Hope. The Designer. My Creator.

Sweet family members pay for housecleaning.

Quilting-friend brings us her daughter and a clever contraption that keeps water cold and pumps it through a flexible pad. I place this flower-shaped pad on my knee to keep the inflammation down.

Everyone has learned the steps to a new dance. People share their stories. 

Everyone has a story.

All the People I Met

 I saw more medical related professionals in one week than I normally see all year.

Tired looking ladies behind the glass in the waiting room. Bored. Handing me a clip board.

Gentle, soft spoken x-ray guys who wear scrubs and work all day in a windowless room photographing broken bones.

Nurse Practitioners with warm eyes who explain in simple language that surgery is necessary.

Ortho-pedic surgeon, whose name is comprised of two cities. One in Nevada and one in Alaska. His ruddy cheeks tempt me to ask him if his mama knew where he was. He sits on a low stool in front of me. His bent knees at my eye level. His gentle fingers and soft voice tell me how he will repair the knee cap. A tall young man whom I have just met will put a knife to my leg while I sleep through it. His ID dangled nonchalantly from his lanyard.

Nurse anesthetist, during pre-op who looks strangely familiar. This CRNA tells me the same words someone else has already told me. He tells me that since I am skinny they will only have to use a small needle. I like this guy. This young man loves his job. He shakes  my hand at the end of our conversation.

Long and tall lady with purple tulle draped all over her office. She interviews me during pre-admission. She is so interested in everything about me. She asks many questions about my parents even though I know she never met them.

Round nurse who helps process me through the system. She tells me that my orthopedic surgeon had worked on her sister's wrist last year when she fell. The round nurse nods her approval. This lowered my heart rate.

Wiry lady with lots of baseball paraphernalia in her office. She draws my blood and tells me about her foot surgery last year. She had to use a scooter for weeks. Here is someone who understands what it feels like to be the patient.

The slow moving and hard of hearing volunteer at the check-in desk. She smiles slightly and asks us to sign the clip board.

Pretty nurses wearing different colored scrubs prepares me for surgery. With a slightly distracted air about them they connect my finger to a monitor.

Anesthesiologist doctor lady. Small with a strong voice. She sits on a chair next to me. Her brown eyes focusing on mine.  She carefully explains everything young CRNA told me previously.

Surgery nurse wears her hair under a cap. Her eyes are lined in blue and she looks like she knows what she is doing. She looks like someone I would be chatting with over a cup of coffee.She wheels me into OR.

Knee Envy

It is 7:50 a.m. I wait for Hubby-dear in the foyer of a medical professional building. I sit in a wheel chair that magically appeared when we drove up.

I watch the people approach the automatic doors and walk in. So cavalier. Talking on the cell phone. Trusting their legs and feet.  Looking one way and walking in another direction. Texting. Eating their breakfast taquitos. Loaded down with their Vera Bradley lunch bags and other bags that I don't recognize.  Walking unaware. Skinny jeans with strappy summer sandals. Slip-on clogs. Neon color running shoes. Sensible shoes out of my reach.

I see the faces. They think about their agenda for the day. They think about the problems they left at home. They think about the bad news they heard on CNN.

None think about their knee.

None are awestruck with the engineering of three leg bones connecting behind a small saucer-shaped bone called the patella. None marvel at the design of movement and balance. None wonder over the strength of the joints to sustain the 175 pounds of human flesh. The bending of the leg is a wonder.

I have knee envy.

The Morning Routine

At the sink in the bathroom, I am so messy and clumsy because I hold my weight on one leg and lean on the wall. Ignoring pain, I wash up. That means the floor gets wet. I drop a towel or drop a crutch. The floor is no-man's land. Once something falls, it is gone until another mobile bi-ped can come to the rescue.

With the rubber of my crutches stuck into my armpits, I concentrate on the location of the things I need.  Everything must be within reach. How do I carry a bottle of shampoo with both my hands holding crutches?

I left everything I needed at the bathroom sink: toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, facial soap. But someone moved the mouthwash back to the linen closet. And the toilet paper is out. Oh well, I try to do what I can do and go on.  If I take too long at the sink washing up, my "good" leg starts talking to me.

Fatigue is my saboteur. Sometimes I have to go back to bed to rest between the bathroom and the kitchen. At the kitchen I wash my hair over the sink, careful not to bump my left leg. Right leg is screaming "Why do I have to do all the heavy lifting?" My younger family members assure me I will build quads, gluts and triceps.

All I want to grow is a left patella.

Hubby-dear must hug my middle while I stand on one leg and lift both my arms to towel dry my hair. (I think this part is romantic. I look forward to washing my hair tomorrow morning.)

Towels. If you don't spread them out they will sour. I am using up a lot of towels  in my personal hygiene. I can't leave them on the floor and I can't carry them. I'm out of breath from the exertion of standing like the Karate Kid. I'll think about the towels later.

My wash up time in the morning is quick and in stages. I've become more efficient.  After washing my hair, I swing myself on my crutches over to the table to where my makeup bag awaits. Hubby-dear makes me coffee.

I Love My Shoe

Last night I left my shoe by the recliner in the den. I just woke up and  I must go from my bed to the bathroom barefoot. I am thinking about objects on the floor and focusing on not stubbing my toe. A tennis shoe on my one "good" foot adds stability.  Not that my other foot is "bad", it simply is no good for walking at the moment.

I have new admiration for my shoe. A closed shoe protects me from running into things. My entire weight is on one foot. If I stub my toe I don't have the other foot to compensate. A shoe has increased in value and importance in my life. The rubber sole helps me grip the floor and not slip. A shoe with  good arch support helps my foot hold all the extra weight it is now required to hold.  My crutches and my one shoe are my friends.

A shoe is no longer an accessory. I now view shoes  like my husband views his shoes, on the merits of functionality.

A New Dance

Over the last fourteen days I took a fall. Rode in an ambulance twice. Spent two different days in two different ER's and one day in an out-patient OR. Lots of pain and lots of pain meds. My life took a turn. Here's my story.

Pain is a strange experience. Medical people ask you "On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt, what level of pain would you say you are at right now?"

I fell on my knee onto a concrete surface. My entire weight fell onto my left patella. After rescuing the iPad from the water, I grabbed my knee and could feel the pieces. When the EMT guy asked me about my pain level I thought about different pains in life and determined that this was a mere 6. My face said otherwise. They have a little 1-10 chart with a smiley face progressing to a grimacing face.  My face said 10.

I was out-of-state when I fell. Far from home, I received wonderful care. The EMT guys, the ER staff and the radiologist were all kind and took good care of me. I am thankful.

We decided to drive on home. I was drugged up and my knee was stabilized in a brace. Nauseous and loopy and exhausted my husband and I began to learn the first steps to a new dance. This dance routine is called Get-in-the-car. Being in pain with one none-working leg takes getting-in-the-car  to a whole new level.

Hubby-dear and I have learned many things on this new dance routine. One thing we learned is that when the Nurse Practitioner at the ER in Tennessee writes a prescription for pain medication, the Walgreen's in Arkansas cannot honor it. We  crossed back over the Mississippi and found a Walgreen's in Tennessee.

Heroic hubby-dear drove the many miles back to our Texas home. At 2:30 a.m., we practiced more steps to our dance routine called Get-out-of-the car. Hugging and cheering me on, hubby-dear managed to get wobbly me and my crutches into bed.