Courage
Arriving home, I triumphantly announced that I'd found an Injured Persons' Support Group and would be attending the next Friday afternoon. The disinterested sneer told me that my partner was biting her lip to avoid a sarcastic remark.
She'd told me I should get out and meet people in the area before. It was only once or twice, and I had tried to explain that I just didn't have the energy only once. I knew she didn't want to hear it. There was no use.
The relationship had deteriorated as rapidly as the cartilage in my hip in the last two years or so. Most of it was that no one wanted to believe how tiring and depressing it was -- not even me.
About two years before, the hip had swollen and sealed off the main vein in my leg. The leg billowed and turned blue. The pain down my leg increased over the weekend til it was literally indescribable, then I was transferred to a private hospital. Rolling in pain, I managed to get myself put under the care of a talented vascular surgeon.
Emergency experimental surgery relieved most of the clotting and pain, but left the bottom half of my leg discolored and disfigured.
What struck me later, after I was out from under the losing a leg, dying -- or worse -- was that my partner was at once attentive, and argumentative. I was too busy dealing with the physical problems to really notice at the time though.
I returned home to find that walking across a room was remarkably painful. Nothing compared to what I'd experienced for a couple of days in the hospital, but enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I had been told that I was to walk off the clotting and swelling in my lower leg. The doctors somehow didn't realize that my hip was deteriorated. They were giving me the standard orders. It's a little difficult to walk off a blood clot when you don't have much cartilage in your hip.
Cynically determined, I found a simple way to know what was too far each day: When my eyes watered from the pain, it was time to stop.
No one around me wanted to hear about my small victories. All anyone wanted to hear was that I was "just fine." I learned to silently congratulate myself. I was surprised to find that I had such courage.
She'd told me I should get out and meet people in the area before. It was only once or twice, and I had tried to explain that I just didn't have the energy only once. I knew she didn't want to hear it. There was no use.
The relationship had deteriorated as rapidly as the cartilage in my hip in the last two years or so. Most of it was that no one wanted to believe how tiring and depressing it was -- not even me.
About two years before, the hip had swollen and sealed off the main vein in my leg. The leg billowed and turned blue. The pain down my leg increased over the weekend til it was literally indescribable, then I was transferred to a private hospital. Rolling in pain, I managed to get myself put under the care of a talented vascular surgeon.
Emergency experimental surgery relieved most of the clotting and pain, but left the bottom half of my leg discolored and disfigured.
What struck me later, after I was out from under the losing a leg, dying -- or worse -- was that my partner was at once attentive, and argumentative. I was too busy dealing with the physical problems to really notice at the time though.
I returned home to find that walking across a room was remarkably painful. Nothing compared to what I'd experienced for a couple of days in the hospital, but enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I had been told that I was to walk off the clotting and swelling in my lower leg. The doctors somehow didn't realize that my hip was deteriorated. They were giving me the standard orders. It's a little difficult to walk off a blood clot when you don't have much cartilage in your hip.
Cynically determined, I found a simple way to know what was too far each day: When my eyes watered from the pain, it was time to stop.
No one around me wanted to hear about my small victories. All anyone wanted to hear was that I was "just fine." I learned to silently congratulate myself. I was surprised to find that I had such courage.
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12:01 AM
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