Waiting to regain my balance
July 4, 2014
I sit here today, Independence Day in America ,
counting the days before I will temporarily lose a great deal of my own freedom
of movement. I am preparing for foot
surgery in less than a week, followed by an extended period of discomfort and
limited use of my left foot; no sudden turns or missteps that end in a loss of
balance and a potential fall. I've spent
these days preparing my house and myself to adapt to new or different functions. For the house, it has meant a new arrangement
of spaces for work and sleep, meals and personal hygiene. The purchase of an “on sale” twin bed with
box spring and frame to stay on the main floor; moving furniture and throw rugs
to assure open safe pathways to the bathroom, kitchen and front door; turning
half the dining room into my home office; removing the annoying front screen
door to avoid tripping.
I’ve gotten great advice from my visiting physical therapist
about how to set up the kitchen for safe meal preparation; small closed plastic
bottles to carry in the walker’s basket with water or juice; individual packets
of snacks, fresh fruit near by. Moving,
turning, walking, standing up or sitting down, I will need to give them all
complete undivided focus. No
multitasking, or impatient actions, as if this clearly logical behavior is at
all doable all the time for some of us.
I look back on a day in the early 1980’s; I was hospitalized with a
recurrence of my Crohn’s disease, and at 8 o’clock in the morning, I found
myself simultaneously changing channels on the TV remote with one hand while
raising the bed’s head board with the bed’s remote in my other hand. A full 24 hours to pass, with no agenda, no
“must do’s” and I was multitasking. So
no, I will learn from my past.
Mail and newspapers are being brought to the house daily by
great neighbors, since I cannot miss out on my daily addiction to crossword
puzzles and news on broadsheets and not computer screens.The trash pails are
being moved for pickup. Family, friends and neighbors have begun to
rally around, assuring me that I will not be abandoned indoors, bored, lonely
or hungry. I do worry that this regimen
may end up with me regaining my lost ten pounds.
The harder part of the process involves my getting in touch
with my frustration, anger at my body once again betraying me, a sense of the
loss of independence and balance so I can begin to reframe it as positively as
I can. A dear friend sent me a moving
meditation on learning to separate ourselves from our bodies, holding to the
wholeness of ourselves while allowing our bodies to heal. My son suggested downloading a meditation
called “simply being,” which I will do today.
In 1973 I had a major medical crisis; after 4 years of
successfully treating my Crohn’s disease with medication and diet, my small
intestine ruptured. I survived emergency
surgery, and was told that I would have to fully heal, limit my activities and
return for the rest of the surgery to finish the repair in 8 months. How to fill that waiting time became my major
challenge. I quit my job, spent more
time with my 5 year old daughter and we both joined the Y that fall; she to
take ballet lessons, me to learn to weave.
Amazing! In order to create a
rug or a wall hanging, or any other woven item, you need to first line up each
thread of the warp in perfectly tuned tension before threading the wool across and
around each thread. Rush, or be sloppy
and the fabric will not be aligned. I
turn today to how I managed then to slow down, be at ease, and create.
Having just written this, I have noticed that there is less
tension in my shoulders, and I find myself smiling at a cardinal looking for
seeds in my garden.
