Thursday, June 20, 2019

Some things just kneed to be done

“You’re having BOTH done at once?” I have heard twelve-dozen times since I scheduled my long-overdue double knee replacement. 

“Uh, yeah,” I say, with an uh-duh tenor to my retort. 

I know that if I did them one at a time, it would be another decade before I’d go back to get the second one done. 

It’s not that I’m afraid of surgery. After all, I’ve had three c-sections, one hip replacement, one gall bladder extraction, one hysterectomy, two mastectomies, two reconstruction surgeries, not to mention one ICU-bout with pancreatitis, one cataract surgery, one dental implant, three root canals, one infected bunion, and countless other un-countable conditions.

My friend, Laura, saves emails. She recently forwarded me what may have been the first documentation of my knee issue. I had just returned from an orthopedist who confirmed that I had not one, but two bone-on-bone knees. Ten years ago.

In the decade since, I have done everything possible to avoid the surgery. I dropped enough poundage to ease the pounding pain and have managed to ride my bicycle over 1000 miles a year, walk circles through parks and towns, swim miles of laps, attempt yoga, cheat in spin class and lift weights. Very light weights. And, I have said 10,326 times a year, for a total of 103,260 utterances, “Oh, my aching bones.”

I’ve done physical therapy, gotten shot up with chicken combs, tried expensive topical creams, over the counter pain killers, prescription anti-inflammatories, CBD products (legal ones, of course), and both cheap and expensive bourbons to keep my knees alive.

Last month, in search of the anti-diagnosis I went to yet another new doctor. I explained that I would be spending the summer working on a food truck, standing on my feet for up to 12 hours a day and was wondering if I could get cortisone shots to get me through. 

The good doctor smiled and said, “Tell me more about this food truck.” And, so I launched into all the fun and joy it brings, thinking he had genuine interest in the ups and downs of my food service career. 

He smiled again. 

And then said something on the lines of, “Considering the deteriorating condition of your mind, body and soul, did you ever think it might be prudent to get your knees replaced sooner than later?”

Hmm. Interesting question. 

My friend, Kathy, had her knees (plural) replaced four years ago and it changed her life. About 3 ½ years ago she gave up trying to convince me that it just might change mine as well. 

My spouse used to corner my friends and beg them to persuade me get my knees fixed, knowing I was more likely to listen to them than to him. It wasn’t until I threatened to make him go on a cruise with me that he finally retreated. 

Last year, when visiting my sister, Nancy, in Charleston we took her Prozac pooch, Otis, for a stroll through the neighborhood. Among other exciting topics, I told her how good my knees were feeling. Later, when I did the backwards shuffle to get into the passenger’s seat of her car, manually uncreaking the left knee, dragging the right one in behind it, whooing and sighing until I was in position, she simply looked at me and said, “You’re right. Why would you rush into getting your knees replaced?”

While in Maine, unable to do the annual cliff walk past Homer Winslow's house, unable to tolerate Portland's cobblestoned pavements, unable to navigate a simple trip to Walmart, my friends said, 'enough is enough,' deposited me in a wheelchair and pushed me through the store.

My friend, Grace, who I walk with, and one of the kindest people I know, looks at my limp and my bow-legged in the same direction knees, and wonders with sympathy and confusion, why in the world I would choose to live this way. 

So, no. It had never crossed my mind to get my knees replaced. 

I was born defective. I spent the first nine months of my life in a hard cast that splayed my legs apart to re-socket my dislocated hip. By the time I hit my 40s, that quick fix wasn’t so much of a fix anymore. I was (once again) bone-on-bone in the left hip. Which means, of course, no cartilage and tons of pain. So, I got the hip replaced. 

While in the hospital, I had a nurse who rolled her eyes so blatantly every time I rang the bell that I finally asked her, yes I did, why she chose this particular profession. She laughed and admitted that she hated being a nurse and was in night school, studying to become an accountant. 

I went to rehab for ten days following the surgery. Even my insurance provider knew it wouldn’t be the smartest idea to send me home to five, seven and nine-year-old children and a big barking dog. While in rehab, or perhaps while at the hospital, (culpability denial), I contracted C-Diff. Google it. And multiply it by 100. That’s how pleasant it was. 

Between trips to the bathroom, I did my physical therapy. I was young. Oh, so young. And, was determined that no one 40 years my senior was going to outdo me. I excelled at PT. But, while panting through my ankle pumps and abductor slides, I watched grown men crying real tears as they tried to bend and stretch their brand-new knees.

“Knees are a thousand times worse than hips!” my therapist admitted.

I stored that information in my brain. 

In rehab, I was in a room with five other people. One was a thirty-something woman who had been paralyzed in a skiing accident. One was rehabbing a reconstructed shoulder. And one was a 60 year old woman who, in the prime of her active life, suffered a stroke. She didn’t lose her speech or cognitive functions, but the left side of her body needed a lot of work. When I checked out, Marcia presented me with a fake red rose. 

"Remember," she said with a right-armed hug goodbye. "Hope springs eternal."

On my bulletin board, amidst pictures of Jamal as a baby and as a graduate; Anthony as a baseball player; the girls in the back room of The Post; Patty, Madge and I laughing our fool heads off on a cruise; my favorite birthday card from Margaret; and a tear-off French calendar entry from Emily that translates to “My sister is stronger than I,” that red rose dangles. And, has dangled for 18 years. 

Now, on the cusp of going under the knife once again, I look to that red rose and remember to put it all into perspective. It’s not cancer. It’s not an amputation. It’s not brain surgery. It’s nothing more than getting two more bionic parts implanted into my body. It won’t be pretty, and it won't be pleasant. But I have full intentions of dancing with my walker at Michael and Kristen’s wedding in July and climbing the Rockies with the Chapel Hill gang at Lauren and Rob’s nuptials next fall. 

After all, hope springs eternal.

And if nothing else, I've got high hopes.











Thursday, June 13, 2019

pomp, circumstance and m&ms: a throwback

“Are you all excited for Leo’s graduation?” my friends Ann and Gail asked me today at lunch. 

And in typical Betsy fashion I answered in a typically unconventional way.  I went on a long-winded rant about how jaded I am when it comes to graduation ceremonies. After all, I’ve been to fifteen of them between the three kids and their pre-school, kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school and college graduations. It should have been sixteen but I was blessed with acute pancreatitis and was in the ICU for Leo’s pre-school ceremony. I don’t have a valedictorian like the adorably brilliant Deijah Lee-Carroll and so what if my kid gets to wear Student Ambassador and Honor Roll sashes, I never saw him open a book the entire four years so it makes me wonder if he really earned them or maybe he paid someone, and on and on.

Poor Ann and Gail. They are two of the kindest friends I have and all they did was ask a simple question to which a simple, “yes” would have sufficed. I do this to them all the time and am in constant wonderment of why in the world they continue to open their hearts to a psycho like me. 

I came home from lunch and started a half-hour texting rampage with the daughter who is riddled with anxiety over her upcoming move to New Orleans that we are forcing her to do alone. Not by choice, but by logistics. If I could, I’d be there. I am always there. But, alas, I have to be on a cruise sipping Mai Tais on the Lido deck with my friend Patty while Molly is driving. Alone. To New Orleans. Where she could get lost. Or get a flat tire. Or get held at gunpoint. Or break her ankle. Yes, she said that. 

Which led me to start thinking about packing for my trip. In making my lists I realized I never bought the shoes I absolutely have to have and now it’s too late to mail order and I can’t possibly go to the mall between now and Sunday because I have way too much work to do and it’s the Hearts Tournament in Philadelphia on Saturday and Leo has to go to orientation at Rutgers on Thursday and should I wear white pants to the graduation or will they get dirty on the bleachers and the spouse is going out of town and who will remember to give the dog the Lyme’s disease pills when I’m away and I have to book a flight for Max back to Los Angeles and who’s going to do the grocery shopping when he goes back and my sister is moving to Charleston and where are we going to have Thanksgiving dinner and where is the hidden stash of M&M’s?

M&Ms never lie. When I inhale massive amounts of chocolate without tasting them, without getting a stomach ache, without breathing between gulps, I know it’s time to stop and figure out what’s going on. 

And when I did, that’s when it hit me. 

Tonight is Leo’s graduation. 

And, no I’m not excited for my last kid to graduate from high school. But it has nothing to do with the pomp and circumstance I profess to abhor. 

Actually, I kind of like the ceremonies.

I love seeing the kids. I love their white-toothed smiles. I love when the parents scream “That’s my Baby!” despite being repeatedly told to hold their applause. I even love their stupid balloons they bring to block our view. I love the speeches and the flipping of the tassels and the kids taking pictures with the grandparents who came from Florida even though the Project Graduation buses are beeping their horns the minute it’s over to get going to the overnight party that I love to chaperone. 

I love seeing the future in those graduates’ eyes. I love seeing their hope, their joy, their ambition. I love remembering the shy kindergartners they once were and seeing how they’ve blossomed. And I love thinking about who they’ll be and where they’ll live and what they’ll be doing ten years down the road.  

I love the memories these kids have made. The secrets they have. The friends they cherish. I love the lessons they’ve learned. The heartbreaks they’ve had. The scrapes they’ve escaped. The things we parents will never, ever know.

I’ve loved the slamming of the backdoor as the kids paraded into my house. I’ve loved the pounds of pasta I’ve boiled on the stove. I’ve loved the empty water bottles strewn all over the basement (and yes, I will continue to believe they were never filled with anything but). I’ve loved the hundreds of high school sporting events I’ve watched and the multitudes of PTA and Board of Ed meetings I’ve attended. I’ve loved helping dozens of kids write their college essays and reading them the riot act when they’ve done something they shouldn’t have done (you know who you are).  I’ve loved the commotion, the chaos, the complaining. 

Yes, indeed, just as I once sang along with Billy Joel’s record spinning round and round and round on the turntable in my bedroom, 

“I’ve loved these days.”

And so, my friends, when you asked how I felt about Leo's graduation, I hope you know my lunchtime rant was just for my own protection. 

I’ve had three kids and many, many years to prepare. But now that it’s here, somehow, I’m just not ready. And there's not a thing I can do about it.

So, I’ll snap a picture of my handsome son in his cap and gown, post it on Facebook, swallow another handful of M&Ms and head off to his graduation.

I’ll be the one in the back, wearing the sunglasses to hide my tears.