Little Milestones

Good news! I’m turning a new page! 

You may know that I had total shoulder replacement surgery in January. As I write this I am just passing the six-week mark. It was painful for a while, but that’s another milestone I have passed—I have very little pain except when I’m doing my exercises—then it hurts a lot. 

So, I have spent the past six weeks in my chair, reading, texting, playing games on my iPad, and being waited on hand and foot by my wonderful husband, who has been an enormous help, doing the cooking and chores, and he is also my chauffeur to physical therapy, all while he still attends biweekly cardiac rehab from his triple bypass surgery in October. He’s doing great, by the way.

I have started walking again. I just didn’t have the oomph to get outside and move. Not to mention it has been cold and raining most of the time. But yesterday I went. Just one street, and it wore me out, but I did it. It’s amazing how much energy a surgery takes to heal and, at my age, I don’t have a lot to begin with. Another factor I discovered is that it’s not easy to walk swinging only one arm. It really messes with your cadence and balance. 

Healing happens by tiny milestones at a time. Every day brings something new. For instance, today I can reach my whole head and style all my hair. Jim tries to comb it for me but I have curly hair which requires a certain amount of know-how. But every day brings a new milestone, albeit teensy. The first week I couldn’t lift my arm at all—it was dead. And that was a little worrisome at the time. Being able to pick up or reach something that I couldn’t reach yesterday brought joy and wonder. A big milestone was being able to pull up my pants without help. T’warnt easy, but I could do it myself. I felt like a big girl, I’ll tell ya. 

Here’s Paul’s torture chamber. I shouldn’t say that, he’s a brilliant therapist—doesn’t mean it isn’t painful though. 


Next on my long-term agenda is to set up my studio and start working fabric. It’s so cold in that room in winter that I don’t even go there. I’m a fair-weather quilt artist. But spring is just around the corner.

I’m also a fair-weather golfer, and I have permission to swing a short club chip-shot as log as I keep my elbow in check. This is GREAT news! When you remove a piece of your anatomy you can’t help but wonder if you made a mistake, that the surgery will ruin things forever and golf will become something you only watch on TV. But it’s looking good. 

I still have six weeks to go before I can do anything and everything, but I’m getting there. I can see the light, anyway. And that’s huge. 




Comments

Anonymous said…
Good to see you're making progress. You have been through a lot but sounds like spring and your studio are coming up quickly. Looking forward to your art again. Sue
March 9, 2024 at 9:39 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May Wrap-Up

Image
The weather—what can I say? Last week it was 88° and too hot to sit outside. One week later it was 62° and too cold to sit outside. But today it is beautiful, 72° and sunny.  We had our landscaping redone last winter and it’s looking great now. We love this cheery little corner.  Over in the other corner, the bougainvillea is going gangbusters. It was almost a goner a couple of years ago, some bugs ate it, but we nursed it back to health. I see it from my bedroom window every morning and the color makes me happy.  We had our neighbors, Cliff & Barbara, over for happy hour. Here’s Cliff and Jim looking at something in the atlas. An atlas!—How quaintly old-fashioned. I have no idea what they’re looking at, but aren’t they cute? Jim had been having chest pains, which alarmed him (understatement), so I suggested we go to the ER. We didn’t feel like we needed to call 911 as he’d had these pains for a week, so I drove him. Because of Covid, you can’t go in the ER waiting ro...
Read more

September Wrap

Image
It’s October! And the weather has cooled down. This means golf! It feels so great to be back out there enjoying the game and my group of golf friends. My new shoulder is bionic, so I’m hitting the ball well, but the rest of me is old, creaky, and stiff, and I need to lose some weight. It does help (a lot) that this course has added gold tees for us oldsters.  It’s hard to describe the joys of playing this wonderful game. Maybe I should say of being able to play this game. Tijeras Creek, Hole #1, par 5 Tijeras Creek, Hole #5, par 3 I got a hole-in-one here.  I have also been playing bridge a lot. I play with the girls on Fridays and Jim and I play with friends on the weekends. Jim has gotten back to playing duplicate bridge. What’s duplicate? It’s tournament play, and everyone plays the same pre-dealt hand, hence the name “duplicate.” The person who gets the most points out of that dealt hand gets awarded master points. In the picture below, the player plays both his hand and ...
Read more

Do You Remember?

Image
The 21st night of September?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIY   September was HOT—temperatures in the 90s and humid, thanks to Kay, a hurricane that traveled up the Baja coast of Mexico before it weakened and turned west. We didn’t get a lot of rain or wind, just clouds and oppressive humidity. And thunder, far in the distance, which rattled the windows. Thunder is rare in these parts. I am where the red dot is.  Then the weather system broke and we have been rewarded with glorious, perfect weather since. I am eager to get back to golf, but I’m not there yet.  Around here, we had railings installed on our front steps. It’s not that we need them, not yet anyway, but when we have guests for dinner, it’s dark when they leave and they may  have had a glass of wine or two. I would hate for someone to fall. Falling could be very bad. We have a wonderful young handyman, he’s very popular and very hard to get. We arranged this job in February. (Railings from...
Read more