Hi my friends. I’ve been a bit distracted lately, not my usual self. You may not have even noticed, what with everything else that’s been going on, but this is what happened: Two weeks ago I was walking on our marina pier, heading home after watching a spectacular sunset, when I felt a sharp pain in my left knee. When I tried to put weight on that leg it hurt so much I thought I was going to faint. I knew I couldn’t move. A couple behind me asked if I needed help, and, while my normal response is, always and dumbly, “No, thanks, I’m fine”, this time I would have begged them for help if they hadn’t offered.
Somehow they got me off the pier through the parking lot and into my car. I assured them I could drive home, since it was my left knee that was affected, but I had no idea how I was going to get from the car into the house. I did it, though. I got in and went straight to bed, hoping it would be better in the morning.
It wasn’t. My grandson drove me to the ER the next morning, where x-rays showed bone-on-bone arthritis, but no broken bones. That was good, but x-rays can’t detect a ligament tear. That would require an MRI and my insurance wouldn’t cover MRIs from the ER. (I know. Every other country, right?) So I went home, determined to get better on my own.
My daughters came up the next day to help, driving four hours and staying for more than a week, until it seemed I could manage without them.
And I might have if I hadn’t twisted it again, just standing there. I swear. One slight move and there I was again. Not as bad, but bad enough that I had to stay home, had to order my groceries delivered, had to ice my knee, had to raise it above my heart for 20 minutes at least three times a day, had to mildly exercise it according to my cousin in California who is a physical therapist and was trying to help me through it via text messaging. Not something he wanted to do, but since I wouldn’t go to the doctor…
I delayed going to the doctor, mainly—and this is the truth—because I’m so utterly sick of doctoring. I’d been seeing doctors at least once a week since last October, when I began chemo and then had a radical mastectomy this spring. All of that, along with a few other problems I don’t need to get into, took too much out of me. I wanted some peace.
I didn’t want to have to think of ligament damage and the subsequent therapy or surgery or whatever it might bring. But it still hurt, it still kept me from doing anything more than carefully moving around my house with my cane, and I realized this wasn’t good. So I finally agreed to find an orthopedist who could tell me what was ahead for me.
Well, I went to see him yesterday, and now I wish I’d gone sooner. He felt around and assured me there was no ligament tear. He didn’t need an MRI to tell him what he, with all his experience, could readily feel: the ligaments were doing what they were supposed to do. He said they were ‘strong’.
The X-rays, on the other hand, showed him what I already knew. The cartilage in that old knee is ground right down to the bone. He suggested a cortisone shot. I agreed. I’d had several in years past and they’re temporary miracle workers, but so, so welcome as a pain reliever.
So here I am, taking it easy but moving about, not quite as well as I was before that sunset mishap, but moving without the kind of unwelcome pain that flattens me and shuts me down. I can’t have that. I simply don’t have the time.
I talk sometimes about my age, but I don’t talk enough about how it affects me beyond the physical limitations. I’m flabbergasted that I’m this close to 90. It’s unreal. It feels now as if I’m living on the edge, one slight slip away from disaster. There’s something unnatural about being this old. As much as I want to celebrate it, as fascinating as it is to contemplate, it’s a real downer to think there are only, at most, maybe 10 years left. If I’m lucky.
When cancer showed up again, and before I knew I might survive it, I found myself coming to terms with my death. I acknowledged that I’d lived a good, long life and I couldn’t expect to live forever. I would do this gracefully. I would go out shining, unafraid, ready and able to convince my loving family that we would do this together and find things to smile about right up to the end.
When I found out I could beat this cancer with chemo, all bets were off. Living was and is my top priority. I did everything I needed to do to get through it because I didn’t want to waste a moment of the time I have left being a sick person.
Well, things have happened and since October I’ve only had two weeks without some kind of doctor appointment, sometimes more than one during a week. Sometimes two in a day. But lately I’ve weaned them down and it felt good. Then came the knee sprain. Out of nowhere. So you can imagine how pissed I might be.
NO! I need to move. I need to walk. I need to be that 88-year-old who defies all the odds and goes on to live to be 100. At least. I’m finding it’s a battle and I’m constantly being challenged. If it’s my stubbornness that keeps me going, I’m fine with that. I have ‘stubborn’ up the wazoo.
What I don’t have is time. I’m watching my peers fall around me, dying off before their time, too, and here I am, still standing. (Well, mostly sitting until yesterday.) I’m keenly aware. It’s now or never. Most of my dreams are behind me, never to be accomplished, but many of them did come true. Who knows what’s next? I need to be ready.
Of the many things I love to do, writing is right up there. These past weeks have distracted me enough to limit that, too, but I need to be writing. It’s my thing. It’s what I do. I need to walk, I need to exercise, I need to enjoy the things I tend to take for granted, and I need to sit at my desk and write. So here’s hoping I can do all of those things and stay out of the doctors’ offices.
All this to tell you I think I’m back. I’m going to keep on trying. I haven’t forgotten about trying to save the world. I didn’t want to outlive Dolly Parton. Dammit! She should have lived far longer than me. But her goodness rubs off, doesn’t it?
I’m in that mood now, that warrior mood where there’s no pretending that’s not pure evil out there. It is, and the leader of that pack is a juvenile whacko with only one thought: what can he grab next.
So my stubbornness kicks in again and I’m thinking there’s no time to waste. I and I alone can’t save us but I can join the pack that’s trying. Now that I know it’s just bone rubbing against bone and nothing worse, I feel like I can be off and running again—not literally of course. But passionately and aggressively, because I want to be alive to see all of those odious creatures shuffling along in ankle chains and orange suits.
And I want to see more sunsets.
Constant Commoner revolves around my thoughts as a woman who has aged and grown and learned by a process that feels miraculous considering I have no formal education or unique abilities. We the people are all commoners. We believe based on our own past and our own feelings. We choose a path we can live with and if we’re lucky we get to share our lives with people who care in ways that match our own.
That’s what I aim to do here. I want to build a community where anyone can come and sit on our porch and grow along with the rest of us.
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