Shoulder Report and the Red Hat Party

I went back to the orthopedic doctor for my six-weeks-out-from-surgery checkup. He was pleased that I didn’t need or use any of the pain pills he prescribed and that my range of motion is almost to where it should be. I have a level two pain in my upper arm when I raise it out straight but he thinks that’s because of the arthritis and bone spur that was removed on the ball of my shoulder joint rather than from the labrum tear repair. I guess all the nerve ends from that part of my arm go through the area that was “sanded” smooth---I don’t know the medical term for that, but I’m sure there is one. He gave me a shot to soothe the nerves and if the pain comes back in a few months then he can shoot some jell-like stuff in there for a longer term solution. I have to go back in six weeks. In the meantime, no snow shoveling, picking up heavy stuff or bench pressing (like that’s was going to happen) but I can do anything else. He doesn’t think I’ll need therapy either but if I don’t continue to make progress on my range of motion, all I have to do is call and he’ll order it for me. I’m a happy camper. My niece’s daughter-in-law, who had the same labrum tear surgery on the same day, was leaving the doctor’s office just as I was coming in and she didn’t fare as well as I did. She’s got a frozen shoulder and has to have another procedure on Monday followed by daily physical therapy for a couple of weeks. Color me boastful but it feels good to do ‘recovery’ better than a person four decades younger than me.

This weekend, the gods of snow and ice were still on vacation so Saturday I hopped in my Malibu to go to a Red Hat Society Christmas party. I was excited about playing dress up with my friends and having a good meal at a cozy country restaurant with a huge stone fireplace. Technically, I didn’t look ‘Red Hat’ enough. I had no purple on and just one bracelet and ring. I wore (for the first time in years) a classic red sweater set that is piped with black, very expensive in its day. After my recent weight loss it fits perfectly again and who doesn’t feel kick-ass good in anything with built-in shoulder pads? I love that sweater set! It also matched my most elegant red felt hat. I threw a black crepe, fringed scarf around my neck, just to “tacky up” my look and keep my neck warmer at the same time. (I didn’t want to look too classic next to my feather boa wrapped and fully blinged out sisters.) Black pants, red shoes and a black purse with a Red Hat Society motif embroidered on the front completed my outfit. 

I tried to take some pictures at the party to share in this blog but I’m dumber than my smart phone and I ended up with photos of mostly my thumb. I wanted to show you the fur topped elf socks and booties one lady wore and the beautifully beaded red and purple collar that dipped down to our queen’s waist in the back and of course, a couple of photos of blinged-out hats. And how could anyone not smile at a purse that looks like Santa’s belted waist? There were twenty-two of us in attendance and can you believe it, twenty of us actually ordered dessert! I collect recipes for bread pudding (I have about a hundred) so when I saw it on the menu I had to have it. 

One of my very favorite Red Hat sisters has a great sense of humor. She’s ten years my senior and so fun to sit next to that I could eat her up with a spoon and ask for seconds. And she’s about as Tea Party radical as I'm a flaming liberal. She sends out these chain e-mails that are so full of hate for Obama, hate for Democrats, hate for liberals and hate for poor people. A glut of propaganda and misinformation. When I see her in person I just can’t mesh her online personality with her face-to-face personality.

At the party, as I sat listening to the conversations around me, I couldn’t help thinking about how brave (or should I say brazen) many of us are---myself included---about sharing our political views when we don’t have to worry about having a face-to-face confrontation with someone who disagrees with our thoughts. I've always subscribed to the principle that you don't talk about politics, money or religion in public, even though in recent years I’ve often wished I could do exactly that. I was also reminded of something I learned at my father’s knee: How to smoothly guide a conversation back to lighter topics with a well-chosen joke that breaks any tension building in the room. Not that I had to do that at the Red Hat party---well, just one time---but I’ve always been glad that I can list that as one of my skills. Being able to laugh and have a good time with people we fundamentally disagree with is a good thing in a world that seems to be falling apart at the seams. Isn’t it? I don’t know anymore. I'm so confused. ©

A Widow's Bones and Winters Past

The sky was ash-gray and accumulating snow is predicted for overnight but the snow that was falling this morning was so light it rose up in tiny whirlwinds as the car in front of me went down the highway.  I was on my way to my orthopedic doctor’s office for my two week post shoulder surgery appointment. I’m doing well. He offered me a shot for pain. I refused it, don’t need it. He offered me another round of Prednisone for swelling. Oh, boy! I took it. I love that stuff. It makes my bones feel twenty years younger and like I could take up bench pressing in my spare time. He showed me before and after photos of my shoulder joint taken during surgery and I asked him if it’s like playing a video game when he’s moving a camera and two gadgets around inside a person installing a labrum tear patch. “Sort of,” he answered. I have to go back in a month and then he’ll order some physical therapy. Bummer. I don’t like having appointments in the winter.

The photo above is of me and Don and that was the smallest of three front-end loaders that he used to stack snow on the malls we plowed.  We called them Poppa, Momma and Baby. He did his best to get me to love operating Baby and I did try it a few times but I figured if I didn’t put my foot down I’d be running it all the time and it didn’t have “central heat” or a radio and back in those days I listened to books on tape every night we plowed. At one point in time he had four women (and three guys) working for him and a couple of the women really loved running Baby. I’m talking 20 years ago when it was more unusual for women to be driving heavy equipment than it is now. 

He liked having women snow plowers for several reasons, one of which was he claimed it was easier to teach women to plow because we followed instructions and didn’t try to re-invent the wheel. Another reason he loved having women plowers was for the shock value we brought to the table. It was pretty funny. From what we heard from the snowplow repair places Don was the first person in town to hire women to plow snow, and it put a dent in a few male egos of guys who didn’t believe a woman could or should do that kind of work. He was probably the only guy I ever knew who read Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique back in its day and he took it to heart. But before that, he watched how hard his mother worked feeding and washing clothes for four sons, a husband and two hired hands. She had a hard life. Her garden put food on the table. She raised chickens, sold eggs to the local grocer. She canned and did all the other things expected from a farm wife and with no daughters to help.

I think back to my snow plowing days and I wonder how I got to be such a chicken about driving in Michigan winters. Since Don died, I pick and choose the days I drive and it makes me nervous as all get out when I can’t avoid going out on unplowed roads. I was a good wintertime driver. I could do control skids and bank snow at the end of a runs without even stopping which is hard to master and I won more rat hockey matches than anyone else. Yes, real rats that would venture out on a parking lot in the middle of the night got escorted across the lots with two or three trucks chasing them, turning our plows back and forth to make the rat fly across the icy surface. We’d “steal” the rat from each other when it was sliding and we’d score if you were the one to run it into a snow bank. Rat hockey didn’t happen often but it sure was fun when it did and it’s a wonder none of us ever collided with our silly game. But I lost my wintertime driving confidence after Don died and I sold our four wheel drive Traverse. Cars feel so wimpy after decades of driving heavy, four wheel drive trucks and SUVs. Maybe having physical therapy appointments to force me out on winter days when I’d rather stay home is just what I need to get my confidence back, says the lady who always tries to find the up side of any given situation.

After the doctor’s appointment I went to the first of a series of classes on genealogy research that I signed up for at the senior center. I really don’t need a class but for only $3.00 a session I figured I can get something useful out of them. There were sixteen there today and we all shared funny stories about oddities we’d found while poking around the family bones so I got my money’s worth in laughter. ©

The Morbid and the Sublime

I had a terrible time sleeping last night. I woke up at 2:00 AM and didn’t have a prayer of falling back to asleep and it was too late to take a sleeping pill and still get up at 7:30. I hate nights like that! My brain wouldn’t turn off. It drifted from one topic to another but mostly I obsessed about my upcoming surgery. Is it really a necessity? Could it have waited until spring? Will the pain and time involved to rehab my shoulder afterward be worth it all in the end? The cortisone shot the doctor put in the joint makes it hard to remember how miserable I was last summer---all the sleepless nights because every time I’d roll over on my side I’d get a shooting pain, the trips to the chiropractor that only gave me relief for a week or so, and the shooting pain I’d get every time I’d push myself up from a chair. I felt like I was 105 years old before the orthopedist gave me the cortisone with a prednisone pack for a chaser. I wish you could live on that stuff, but you can’t without deteriorating your bones and the doctor says labrum tears can't get better on their own.

My youngest niece’s daughter-in-law is having the same labrum tear surgery on the same day as mine, at the same place and my niece is bringing her in. The DIL will be coming out of surgery as I am going in. My other niece will be with me and I’m glad the two sisters will be able to keep each other company for at least a few hours in the waiting area. I hear this surgical center has the best waiting area in town with La-Z-Boy chairs and even a movie theater. I’ll never know. My days of taking people to surgical centers is over now that Don and my dad are gone. Now, I’m on the receiving end and that is a bittersweet place to be. Sweet because someone is willing to do that for me but bitter because I need the help. As we age, aren’t we all afraid of situations like this where we can’t be self-sufficient? I suppose people with children worry less about these things than those of us without.

My ducks are all in a row. I’ve tried to anticipate everything I’ll need over the winter that is up high or down the basement and I brought them to where I’ll be able to get at them. I’ve bought birdseed for the entire winter. Driveway salt and dog food, too, so I won't have to wrest large bags one-handed. My kitchen counter is cluttered with appliances that are usually stored when not in use---toaster, blender, coffee maker and crock pot. I've practiced putting my bra on one-hand. And I've ordered three pair of elastic, no tie shoelaces. The outside work is done. I’ll even have daffodils in the spring. About the only thing I won't be able to with my arm in a sling is get safely on my exercise bike. That and the snow shoveling issue is not resolved. I'll work on that next week, but I've got my little electric snow blower working as a plan B.

Like I said, my ducks were all lined up. Then I got a call from the surgical center asking me to bring a copy of my Living Will with me the day of surgery. Damn it, I don’t plan on dying on an out patient surgery table! Why did they have to bring me down! And what the heck did the medical community do with the three copies they’ve gotten in the past? Supposedly, all the doctors and hospitals in town can share patient information via computers these days. But I played their game and scanned all eight pages of the document, trying not to read the details of my worst case scenario should things go terribly wrong.

Just so you know, I'm not giving away my body or any of its parts after I’m dead. At my age, my body would probably end up laying out in a field for weeks on end so CSI students could study the different types of bugs that crawl all over rotting flesh in different time frames. Bugs help date the death of crime victims. You do know places like that exist, don’t you? They’re call Body Farms. Nope. All medical donations don't end up leading to a cure for some dreaded disease or give would-be surgeons practice time. And that old dog you had as a kid didn't ended up on a farm where he could chase butterflies in the fields either. So this paragraph is the ‘morbid’ in the title of this post...and the sublime? That would be the love of both of my nieces who were both willing to babysit me on surgery day and considering how far away they live this is no small gift of time offered and deeply appreciated.

See you all on the other side of my 'little' event. ©