Last Thursday, I tripped over a box I was trying to kick across the room and landed very hard on the left side of my body, esp. my left knee, before I finally stopped when my head made contact with the China cabinet.
I didn’t go to the doctor. There was obviously no concussion, nothing broken. My dignity was sprained, but I was recovering. My left arm hurt so badly that the only way I could get relief was to keep a frozen bottle of water inside my shirt against the arm. But everything was getting better, slowly.
Then, about four days in, I woke up with a new, severe pain in my shin. This new pain was followed by some new swelling in my knee and I was worried enough to see the ortho people who had put in my artificial knee.
And everything was fine, nothing on the X-ray, etc., but my pain was so bad I had to get an ultrasound of my knee to rule out a blood clot. There was no blood clot.
But within one more day I was in more agony than I could bear. On a Friday at that. So I will have to wait for more treatment on Monday. But I am holding my own. The doctors want to do a bone scan with contrast, which I had not heard of before. Then I see my pain specialist on Tuesday.
I am almost convinced that this is nerve pain, which I seem to be prone to. I developed severe nerve pain syndrome after my second knee implant surgery, so I know what it feels like and this feels just like that did. It burns. It itches. It sparks like naked wires under my skin.
I am very fortunate to have a husband who takes good care of me. And I am very, very lucky to have had leftover pain meds from my pain specialist. And incredibly lucky to have had some extra gabapentin so I could start taking more of it right after I got off the phone with the nurse yesterday. The extra dose made an immediate difference.
But you know what bothers me more than the pain, more than not being able to do all the things I normally do? What bothers me is how this fall, this recovery, this inability to do things, is affecting my Identity. My sense of self.
For a long time I have been less and less capable of doing things, but I kept thinking that I would reach a point where this would change. And then it would change. I would feel better, more capable.
But then something ALWAYS happens, mostly I injure myself without meaning to. But after I had my first knee replacement a friend at the gym told me “just wait until you fall,” and I set out on the mission to NEVER FALL AGAIN.
And I didn’t fall. Until last week. And now here I am. And I honestly don’t know if I will be able to fully recover from this injury. I don’t feel defeated exactly, but is very clear to me that I spend a lot more time down than I do up. I have been getting a few things figured out—I got custom orthotics because one of my legs is ¼ inch shorter than the other. I’d quit going to the grocery stores anymore because every time I would go, I would get injured. Things were looking up. I was walking better. But then I fell.
And I feel like the rug has been jerked out from under me. And I figure the rugs will just keep getting jerked out from under me until I’m down for the count. And maybe this is aging. Maybe this is old age. Maybe marching toward death is a series of falls and crumples and whimpers and what the hells. Maybe that all it is.
But for this moment I bless the tv gods and streaming gods and i-pad gods and laptop gods and recliner gods and carpet gods and skylight gods and bread-and-butter gods and popcorn-in-bags gods and bagel gods and coffee with milk gods and being-married-forever gods and sleeping in an excellent bed gods and the water, water, water everywhere but don’t get it in your ears gods.
And the light in the morning. And the light in the evening. And the light inside the refrigerator. And the light inside my toothbrush. And the light inside my phone. And all the kingdoms of forever and always. And all the small gods who come to snuggle around me while I sleep.
~r.
