Mrs. Mintz

Lately, those of us who hail from Rockmart have been enjoying remembering our school days. In particular, there have been quite a few memories related to one of our junior high school teachers, Mrs. Leonora Mintz. Looking back, I think she was probably one of the best that public school had to offer at a time when we all went to public schools and very few had any options otherwise. Mrs. Mintz taught English and seemed to love poetry. So, we all had to memorize some of what I assume were her favorites. I suppose there were some who liked it but I think most of us dreaded the thought of standing in front of the class trying to recite those darned poems. How many thousands of times she must have listened to those same lines being badly recited over the years and maybe there were times that she had a few doubts about continuing to try to get eighth graders to love something that she loved. But we memorized and we recited and we survived. Now, what's being recalled on FB are those poems and I smile to realize that of all the lessons learned, what I have mostly retained are those snippets of poetry. Those poems somehow have had a lasting impact on my life and I suspect others' lives as well. When times were tough, we remembered to be the "master of my fate and the captain of my soul" and when winter comes, we remember "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening..." and summer brings "a poem as lovely as a tree" to mind. We didn't think there would be any value whatsoever to committing those lines to memory. What possible use would they have out there in the real world? But now I look back and I realize that the poems are like old friends who wander through my thoughts and have kept me company throughout the years. Thank you, Mrs. Mintz for somehow knowing this and giving me this wonderful gift that seemingly will last forever.

"Trees" by Joyce Kilmer (1986 - 1919)
"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903)
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost (1874 -1963)

Remembering a Friend

A friend of mine, Bob, died last week.  We were co-workers for many years until he retired.  We lost touch over the years.  When I retired, he came to the celebration.  It was good to see him - so good that he came to give me a big hug along with "congratulations" and some bit of advice on how to enjoy my retirement. I could not know that it would be the last time that I saw him.  We kept in touch for a couple years but when my last email was rejected, I didn't follow up with a note or card to see how he was doing.  After all, why use snail mail when the whole world had moved to quicker electronic messaging or social networking?  I didn't hear from him for several years but then a month or so ago, out of the blue, he "friended" me on Facebook.  It didn't really surprise me as many of our mutual friends had shown up on the network over the past year.  I "accepted" and pointed him to others on Facebook to "friend".  Now I look back and realize he must have been saying "goodbye" to us in his own way.  He later sent a message saying he had cancer but was holding his own and doing okay.  Still I didn't pick up the phone and call to find out more  -- I didn't reach out to him.  I just sent along a response letting him know my prayers were with him.  Later I sent another message asking him how he was doing but never got a response.  Now I realize that he probably never got my last message and I am left to grieve for my friend and regret my own lack of initiative.  I ask myself why I didn't reach out to him.  It had been years since we spoke so it was perhaps just way too easy to let myself be distracted by other trivial things.  I ask myself how many other friends and acquaintances that I knew or grew up with or worked with over the years have died without my having gotten the chance to let them know that they had an impact on my life?  It is as if small bits and pieces of my memories are drifting off like confetti in the breeze never to be recovered again. 

But, perhaps, that is the way it is supposed to be.  I ask myself if I really knew Bob and I find myself remembering him and wondering who he was really.  And I am glad that my memories are good ones.  Per my recollection, he was a kind and caring man.  And he was pretty funny with a solid sense of humor.  We worked together for many years....maybe 12 or more years. His desk was probably never more than 50 feet from mine in the cubicle maze at the office where we worked.  i knew he had a daughter he dearly loved.  He talked of her all the time and proudly showed us her elementary school artwork and kept her photos on his desk.  He also had a son from a previous marriage that he had not seen for many years.  We knew nothing of this son until he showed up one day telling us that his son was coming to see him. We were thrilled for him when it all worked out okay. 

A mutual friend described Bob as a "gentleman" and I find that I agree with that.  He loved jazz and would sing old torch songs quietly as he worked on the contracts he negotiated.  I remember talking to him about music and he was blown away that I knew who Etta James was.....well, of course after that, he made sure to tell me all about his favorite musicians.  Most were from the 50's and 60's and I always wondered if his dad had introduced him to what would become a life long love of music.  Bob didn't talk much about his parents.  It was my understanding that his mom died young and he was raised by his grandmother in North Carolina until he went to live with his dad in New York City.  It doesn't surprise me that Bob also loved the city and he would bring prints of city-scapes into the office for his desk.  He never could understand why we all didn't feel the same way about city life and looking at buildings and walking down busy city streets. But he also loved talking about North Carolina and the country town where he was born and where many of his relatives still live.  His funeral is being held there so, perhaps, when he thought of going home it was to the country from whence he came after all. 

I have one last memory of Bob to share.  We all remember where we were on September 11, 2001.  I was downtown attending a conference.  Bob and the rest of the Branch members were at the office.  The building sits outside the beltway in Oxon Hill, Maryland.  Our office was on the ninth floor and had a very nice view of Washington, DC.  Bob was at work that day.  His cubicle was in a perfect position to see the Potomac River and the Pentagon.  Don sat in the next cubicle.  I remember both Bob and Don telling me that they both noticed a plane that was coming in to the airport from the wrong angle almost simultaneously.  They had seen many planes come up the river to land there at Reagan International Airport and this plane was coming from the west...totally wrong.  It was as if they both looked up just at the right moment and they watched horrified as the plane flew into the Pentagon.  Both told me that they simultaneously picked up the phone to dial 911 to report the "accident".  I cannot imagine how awful that must have been to stand there watching that plane fly straight into the building.  I wonder at times what thoughts must have flashed through Bob's mind as he watched that plane and how it might have changed his life to have had that experience.

Yes, like confetti that falls softly through my thoughts, the memories come and go.  Bob now joins those friends and family members I've lost who continue to live in my memory.  And while I didn't always find the opportunity to say "goodbye", I am glad that Bob found a way to say "goodbye" to me.  Thank you for being a good friend over the years, Bob.  Vaya Con Dios.

Gardening From The Deck

As I sat out on the deck this morning enjoying the morning sunshine before it got way too hot to sit there, I contemplated the flower beds and their sad state this fine June morning.  While I have been laid up recovering from knee surgery, my garden has survived but could use some tender loving care from the gardener.  Trouble is, I'm sort of a fair weather gardener.  I love gardening in the spring and the fall but pretty much quit altogether in summer. 

In the spring, walking the yard is such a pleasure.  Everything is so green and I get to exclaim over all the new sprouts that show the perennials made it through another winter.  There are so many surprises and new life in the spring garden.  With a little rain now and then, you do not have to lug the hose around or worry about getting the sprinkler system going and timed just right. The "growing" takes care of itself.  There are lots of weeds sprouting too but you can pretty much stay ahead of them if you do a little here and there and keep an eye on things. 

In the fall, it is cooling down again and the garden is full of seed heads and the finches that love to eat the small seeds.  And putting the garden to bed for the winter is a labor of love.  The only chore to dislike is raking and bagging or shredding all the leaves from the big oaks and sycamores on the property.  At first, it is kind of fun to rake leaves - a chore that comes with the passing of another season.  But after about an hour, your shoulders ache and your back pulls from hoisting those heavy bags out to the curb and the joy of raking leaves disappears like morning fog on a sunny day.  So that is the time to hire a kid from the neighborhood to take care of the leaves while you plant the daffodil and tulip bulbs that come in the giant economy box that you got sucked into buying once again.  A gardener is a sucker for pretty tulip pictures on a box of bulbs. Show me a red tulip in the fall and I salivate with the thought of seeing those babies pop up in the spring.  I have gotten better on that.  I have learned that the squirrels and other critters rarely leave many tulip bulbs in the ground but they do not like daffodils so much so I pore over the bulb catalogs for unusual daffodils and limit my selections in the fall....okay, I try to limit my selections in the fall.  But that is difficult to do.

But back to being a fair weather gardener.  I absolutely hate working outside in summer.  It is just too hot and there are other things to do.  Well, I do some gardening in the summer.  Why, I have no trouble at all picking a ripe juicy tomato from the plant and eating it right there in the yard in summer.  But that only can work if I have kept the horn worms off the plants and picking worms off tomato plants in the heat is not fun at all.  And, after all, those horn worms are the catepillars of a beautiful moth and who am I to deprive a moth of its chance to survive and reproduce another summer?  As you would expect with this attitude, I do not get too many tomatoes to be eating fresh in the garden.  I now grown cherry tomatoes in a pot on the deck.  If it gets too hot to take care of them, I can scoot back inside where it is cool.  Not much work in that.

So, you can see my problem.  I was not able to get out and garden in the spring this year and it is still several months until it is cool enough to garden in the fall.  So I sit on the deck and contemplate the flower beds and all the chores that need to be done out there.  The roses bloomed beautifully but now need to be dead-headed and probably sprayed for black spot.  They are doing much better since they get more sun now that the neighbors have taken out the hickory nut tree on their side of the fence.  I had mixed emotions about that.  I am a total tree hugger and loved that tree and the shade it threw on the deck on summer afternoons but it did keep my roses from getting the 6+ hours of direct sunshine that they needed to fend off all the fungal diseases roses are prone to get when growing in partial shade.  And the squirrels did love the hickory nuts produced in abundance by the tree.  Turns out the nuts were the problem.  The nuts dropped (or were dropped by the squirrels) onto their roof all night long while our neighbors tried to sleep.  At some point, enough was enough so the tree had to go.  Since it wasn't our tree, I did not have to wrestle with the decision to save the tree and keep spraying the roses or let the tree go and give the roses and the rest of the flowers more sunshine each day.

I am easily distracted it seems so my thoughts move from the roses to the sight of a blue jay taking a bath in the ceramic pot in the top part of our pond.  Okay, it is more of a water feature than a pond but it does satisfy our need for water in the garden and gives all the critters a place to drink and bathe.  And this morning, a beautiful blue jay was enjoying a good bath in the pond pot.  And, of course, the hoytunia at the top edge of the pond has gotten out of control and just a little too high so I could only partially enjoy watching the blue jay frolic and splash and wallow in the water all over the place.  If you have never seen a bird take a good bath, you are missing out on one of life's most wonderful simple pleasures.  The birds just go a little wild when they find themselves in 1-2 inches of cool water and it appears that they cannot contain their pure joy at being in the cool water. 

But once again I am reminded that there are chores to be done - that dratted hoytunia will take over if you let it.  But also once again, I find that I can easily distract myself from the thought of the chores that need to be done.  I think of all the birds in the world and how much I love watching (and going out looking for) birds.  I am now reminded that they are descended from dinosaurs.  For those who love reading about dinosaurs and lament that they are extinct, I would remind them that the dinosaurs are still here - they just evolved into smaller and prettier and, perhaps, more manageable forms.  I read an article in National Geographic magazine recently about feathers and the article explored the questions related to dinosaurs and feathers and how flying came about.  The interesting part for me was that fossils are now being found that actually show the dinosaur bones with quills and feathers clearly imprinted on the stones.  So many dinosaurs had the feathers all the time.  Scientists are having to re-create all those dinosaur pictures to show fur and feathers and quills.  And they have discovered ways to identify the colors from the fossils so that they now know (speculate?) that the dinosaurs might have been as colorful and pretty as our backyard birds are now.   And probably for the same reasons - to attract females or to distract predators.  Fascinating.  (National Geographic, February 2011, pgs 32-57, The Long Curious Extravagant Evolution of Feathers)

So as I sit here on the deck contemplating the chores I do not want to do, I also find myself imagining a time when dinosaurs walked the earth and I imagine a great big one - a something or another "saurus" lopping on down to the estuary that is now the Chesapeake Bay - maybe down by Calvert Cliffs where fossils are found these days - and my dinosaur peers cautiously around and contemplates the cool water on a hot tropical type summer day and he looks here and there to make sure one of the big ole ugly boys with big big teeth is not watching to make a meal of some smaller unsuspecting dinosaur.  And my guy tiptoes quietly into the water and finds a good spot and settles himself belly deep into the water.  Ahh! Then with all the joy of a child or maybe a blue jay, he dips his head repeatedly into the water and feels the cooling liquid rush down his neck and over his big ole back.  Then before you know it, he is spashing and dunking and jumping and dancing around like a crazy one - enjoying the best bath of the day.  Now, that would be a sight to behold - a dinosaur three stories tall taking just a little bird bath.  Yep, that would be somethng to see.

Update and Then Some

Not much cooking here so the update will be short and sweet.

On the Joint Replacement - I'm doing okay.  Not great at this point.  The knee is healing but there is still lots of work to do and tons more physical therapy.  More on that in a later blog.  Overall, I can get around but I still have lots of stiffness and pain.  I am trying to wean myself off the pain meds so am not really someone fun to be with at this point.  Yep, there are moments when I ask myself why I did the surgery but I know the answer - I opted for short term pain in lieu of long term pain & disability.  My husband says I traded "intensity" in terms of pain for "duration" in terms of time to heal.  So I traded lifelong pain for short term surgery and pain that was much more intense.  But I am healing and looking forward to less pain and more movement in the next few weeks.  Do wish me luck and keep me in your prayers.

On the hummingbird wars out back:  Well, I think the female (Little Bit) won for the time being.  She seems to be the only hummer feeding at the feeder.  While I wish there were more hummingbirds coming to the feeder, I am happy to have the little sweetie stopping by for a drink of sugar water now and then.  My dear husband has been keeping the feeder full while I recuperate from surgery....along with keeping all the other bird feeders full.  What would I do without him?  I do not know and do not want to find out.

Til next blog - happy trails and see you later.

Joint Replacement Update - Recovery by the Numbers

It's my second time around and I am thinking recovering from joint replacement surgery is a numbers thing.  My corner of the world has gotten smaller and everything in my small world is associated with a number.  So here goes:

0 (zero) --- The degree the surgeon and therapist wants my knee to be when lying on a flat surface - that is the back of the knee touches the surface and can be measured at zero degrees.

1 ---  Times per day to take oxycontin and Celebrex although I reduced that to zero once I had experienced the side effects full on......dizzy is one thing, full blown shivers and itching like I'd been in poison ivy is another.

2 --- Times per week the health nurse comes to draw blood to test the warfarin/coumidin levels and there is a corresponding 2 times per week that the pharmacy calls to advise of the number of pills for the next dose of the medicine....so far, 3 pills 1 time per day.

3 --- Times per week the physical therapist comes to do the official therapy and exercises. This is not to be confused with the 2 times per day that I am supposed to do the exercises on my own.

4 --- Miligrams per dose of dilaudid I can take for pain as needed,  Or, is that 8 MG in up to 4 pills...will have to ask my trusty care-giver on that one.  (I have to say that I would be lost without my wonderful husband who it turns out is an excellent care-giver.  He keeps up with all the details, keeps up with the chores and meals, helps me in/out of bed, and keeps me sane.  I feel nothing but sympathy for those who have to go to a rehabilitation center after surgery or who do not have someone close to them to help with the recovery.  This is a hard thing to go through alone and I am so blessed to have a wonderful husband here to help me. He is, of course, number 1.)

4 --- Four (4) is also the pain number that the doctors say is the pain management thresh hold.  On a scale of 0-10 with 0 being no pain at all and 10 being totally intolerable and excrutiating, they figure 4 is a somewhat tolerable level and the goal is to keep the pain at 4 or below.  Personally, I would prefer to keep the pain at one and below but I am finding that there is no such thing as a pain killer; there are only pain "dullers" that kind of knock the edge off so you don't sit for hours rubbing your knee and moaning, groaning, and asking yourself if the arthritis pain was really so bad that you really needed this surgery.  At a pain point of 4, you might ask the question although you already know the answer - the pain was bad enough and the limping was problematic enough that you needed the surgery...but it is a question that I have asked myself often in this past week. But everyone feels their pain differently - four for me is not good; for others, their four might be barely noticeable.

1 --- Back to 1 as in "one day at a time" which is how I am coping.  I feel a little like this is a 12 Step Program for arthritis sufferers and I am nearing the last steps (no pun intended) with this 2nd knee replacement.  I know that, given enough time, the body heals unless you have a disease or cancer that evolves too quickly for the body to deal with.  But joint replacement, barring an infection or blood clot causing nasty problems, is one of those injuries that will heal over time.  And the therapists tell me that, given enough exercises, the knee will heal very well and I will be walking around good as new (maybe better) before long.  But in these first weeks after surgery, there is no room for too much optimism - just get through another day and I am one day closer to recovery.  And, given the body's propensity to forget the pain and dull the memory of traumatic injuries (even surgical ones), I am looking forward to the day when I will be able to tell all my friends what a great decision it was to get the surgery and all about how I should have done it sooner.  Actually, the decision was "to walk without pain" in the future as opposed to walking with pain or not walking at all...not really a decision at all.

89 -- This is probably my favorite number.  Absolutely everyone I know or have met or talked to about my surgery knows at least one 89 year old woman who was back on her feet in no time and shopping at the Super WalMart within 2 weeks or back to working full-time within 3 weeks after surgery.  It is astounding how many 89 year old women are out there roaming the aisles testing out their new joints and not having any trouble at all.  I imagine that every 89 year old woman I will ever meet will have had a joint replacement and we can share stories around the camp-fire.  I suppose the intent in telling me about this possibly fictitious Super Woman is to encourage me and remind me that I too, being nothing more than a wimpy 58 year old who cries at the drop of a hat, hates physical therapy, and who struggles to push the walker around the living room let alone a distance equal to the Indiananapolis Speedway, will also heal.  But, as you may surmise, it doesn't encourage me at all - it annoys me that I cannot measure up to this Walmart shopping Super Woman (and why particularly the Walmart - don't they ever shop at Super Fresh or Home Depot?)  I will say that mostly I try to smile and offer congratulations and best wishes to all those 80-something year olds who recover so quickly.  Maybe there is something about turning 80 that gives us all super powers to heal...sorry, I couldn't wait to find out - my knees were shot at 50-something. But I am looking forward to experiencing the healing powers that will envelope me on my 80th birthday!

300 - 500  ---  Speaking of walking.  I received a joint replacement handbook from my surgeon that provides all the information you need to know but were afraid (or too ignorant of the whole process) to ask.  It shows all the exercises one should be completing 2 times a day for up to 12 weeks after surgery.  Right now, I am in weeks 1-2 and the exercises are appropriate for me at this stage....more or less.  I actually think this handbook was written by an over-achiever (perhaps 89 years old) or someone who is just mean.  During this period I should be walking (with my trusty walker) 300-500 feet 6-8 times per day at a pain level of 4.  Now, my math is rusty but, let's see, if I carry the naught and cipher on this a bit, that works out to be 1800 to 4000 feet per day (broken up into bite-size chunks, of course).  Now if 5380 feet equals a mile, then I should already be walking almost a mile per day and the staples are not even out yet. At this point, when I am awake enough (since the pain killers also put you to sleep rather nicely), I can maybe get out to the mailbox and back maybe twice.  Then I try to work through the other exercises (leg lifts, quad crunches, and such) and then I try to sleep through the pain all that movement caused.  And by the third week - lo and behold, I will be adding more distance and exercises to the plan and moving from the walker to a cane.  Stick with me, folks, by the end of this program, I might be running marathons.....according to the handbook.

90 -- This is the range of motion number.  The knee should "flatten" to 0 degrees and, in the beginning, bend to 90 degrees.  Ultimately, the goal is 120 degrees.  I learned the hard facts with my first knee replacement.  The numbers seem innocuous enough but you do not want to know what the therapists do to help you achieve these goals.  They put the "pain & tortune" in PT.  I will, no doubt, have another opportunity to experience the thrill of having to do it all over again in future so I will leave that posting for another day.

I am running out of numbers to share so I will end with two final ones -

25 --- the number of staples down the front of my knee holding it all together.  There are inside stitches for the muscles that will dissolve over time and who knows how many but the skin on the outside is held together by the staples that will be removed at my 2 week check up next week.  And, I have to say, that with all the pain otherwise associated with this procees, the staple removal is practically painless - the nurse had about half of them out last time before I even knew it.

AND finally, "As many as possible" - yep, this is the number of naps I try to take during the day (and night).  If I can get comfortable at all during these first two weeks, then I fall asleep.  One must sleep when one can.  And, you guessed it, I feel the timing is right for a pain pill and a good nap coming on.

Just a Little Note about a Little Bird

Our hummingbirds are back.  I say "our" because we've had two (boo hoo, only two) hummingbirds to spend the summer with us for the past few summers.  A male we have named "Buster" and a petite female we call "Little Bit".  Unfortunately, they are not the least bit interested in each other and appear to be sworn enemies.  Each has claimed the feeder we hang off the back deck as his/her own.  And each guards it vehemently.  A couple years ago, I hung two feeders on either side of the deck assuming that the fight would end and each would have a feeder to call his/her own.  But that didn't work.  That year, the female laid claim to both of the feeders. She found a perch in the oak tree that allowed her to see both feeders and she attacked any creature, large or small, who dared to taste the sugar water for themselves.  I finally took one feeder down - neither hummingbird seemed to be in a sharing mood.  This year Buster seems to have the edge.  He sits up in the tree and comes zooming down like a bat outta hell if Little Bit so much as flies by the feeder. I have seen her slip in and catch a quick drink but she swiftly flies away at his approach.  Having seen these two birds have at it and dive bomb each other and tussle all the way to the ground, I find myself wondering about their ferocity.  Do you suppose God made hummingbirds fierce because they are so small or did He make them small because they are so fierce?
 Guess that is a question for the hereafter.

Little Bit (top) and Buster (bottom)

Joint Account

Arthritis.  I have it.  I am not sure how one "gets" it but it seems to have affected the daughters in my family and not the sons.  And it seems to prefer our knees.  And knee replacements seem to be the remedy of the day. I had (and continue to have some problems with my neck) but it is the knees that have given me the most problems.  My pain started sometime in 2006 and maybe a little earlier. But in 2007, I really ran into trouble when somehow or another I tore the meniscus in my left knee - both sides.  I had arthroscopy to clean things out a bit and to trim the meniscus.  It gave me relief for the moment.  However, my orthopedic surgeon told me that when he looked inside, things were much worse than he had thought and that I would eventually need replacement surgery.  Well, I wasn't really up for any of that kind of talk...after all, at that moment, I was feeling pretty good and walking just fine.  But it wasn't long before I was feeling the pain of "bone on bone" with every step I took.  It was really hampering my style and my activities.  I love gardening and poking around outside pulling weeds and planting flowers. And I absolutely love birdwatching.  I've gotten so much into birdwatching that we plan our vacations around birding hotspots.  But birds live in the woods and in parks and that involves some walking so the arthritis was more than annoying.  And then there was work. The commute downtown involves waiting on the platform for the train, then changing over to the metro at Union Station, then changing metro trains, and then walking three city blocks to get to the building where I work.  Lots of opportunities for knee pain and stiffness. By evening when I got back home from work, I was seriously limping and hurting.  You can only take so much Advil and all those joint remedies just do not fix the problem.  But I kept putting things off.  I would see the doctor occasionally and he would give me the same ole story - you need a replacement. What I needed was more gumption - guess the pain wasn't bad enough to get me to risk the surgery.   In December of last year, the right knee got involved.  So now I had pain in both knees but hoped that the right knee had not deteriorated so much and could be saved.  Of course, arthritis cannot be cured so much as treated and tolerated.  At the end of January, I had surgery for the left knee.  The surgery is not so much a "replacement" as a "re-surfacing" to add titanium and plastic to the bottom of the femur, the top of the tibia, and the back of the kneecap.  This is not a tutorial on the subject and I am not an expert...you'll have to look it up if you want to know more at this point. There are tons of videos on YouTube that show the procedure very graphically that I dare not watch.  This was, by far, the most traumatic medical procedure I had ever had and it pretty much kicked my butt.  Recovery has been slow at times but I am recovering.  Unfortunately, the surgery and therapy for the left knee has further aggravated the right knee so here I am again heading for replacement surgery.  When I got the left knee replaced, I sent out email updates to my close friends and family.  For the right knee, I will take you with me.  Why have a blog if you cannot share experiences?  The surgery is tomorrow.  I am nervous but not so much as I was the last time.  This time I know what to expect.  That is good and bad.  I know it will be hard and there will be lots of pain.  But I also know that the body heals and I get stronger each day. And I know I will need lots of naps - sleep helps when you're healing. So the surgery is the event; the healing is the journey.  Stay tuned - we're in for a ride.