Pain and Thanksgiving

Here I am. I’m sitting with my little dog snuggled beside me-all cozy. I have the turkey parts cooking in the crock pot so we will have rich broth for the dressing. The bread is drying in the oven. In a couple or four hours I can go in and chop my celery, carrots, onion and bread to make the dressing. Then it will be done for tomorrow.

Rachael will soon come down and put together the cranberry salad. She will have to work today until MIDNIGHT. Then she has to get up tomorrow and work until five. How crazy is that!

And so Michael and I are going to be cooking turkey tomorrow. That should be a real trip. I’ll provide the brains and know how. He’ll provide the knees. It is so aggravating to know how to do so many things and not have the knees to take the multitude of little steps to get it done. I never realized how much stepping around was required to do something as simple as fixing a turkey!

I used to go through all the chopping and stirring and fixing without a thought. I would start from scratch and not sit down until the turkey was in the oven and everything was finished. Then I would clean up afterwards and, other than a little whine about being tired, I hardly even paused.

Now. Now I plan every step around the kitchen before I stand up. We are blessed with a very small kitchen. Rachael can practically stand in the center of it and cook a meal.  Well, not quite, but almost. Because I can’t swivel on my knees and take the necessary tiny quick steps I have to carefully plot the stages of every operation: Start here with the veggies from the fridge, scoot the plastic bowl full of those down the counter, across the stove, down the counter across the sink, pick up my favorite knife from the drawer, move all of that on to the bar where I can then go along and then around to the other side where I can sit down and do all the dicing, slicing and combining. Oh Wait! I forgot the cutting board. Now I have to get up and walk all the way around the corner and the fridge to the cupboard where we keep the cutting board. And oh yes, a couple paper towels might come in handy.. and a wet dish cloth to wipe up any smears or crumbs—especially onion juice. Now, back around to sit down and actually do the work.

Does that sound ridiculous? Yeah, it is. A normal cook would stand at the counter; pick up her instruments when she needed them, chop and slice, take the many tiny steps back and forth and around until her dish was assembled and in the oven. I never used to think about it. But now I simply cannot stand or walk that long. Some have thought, maybe still think, that my reluctance to stand and walk is due to laziness; they have never known the pain I walk with on every step. Those same people have attributed my weight to my laziness when actually the reverse is true. The weight gain came with the enforced sedentary life style after I was no longer able to walk and move freely. Oh well. What goes around comes around.

Meantime, Michael and I will  have a good time getting Thanksgiving dinner ready for Rachael tomorrow.

BTW,  Bilbo is now in Lake Town.  After the barrels floated down the channel from the elves' hall, they were collected and roped together in a raft and poled from the mouth of the channel down the river to Lake Town. I haven't had time to take him much forther...

my computer was unplugged

This morning I’m thinking about how difficult life must be for the handicapped. I am somewhat handicapped because my knees simply don’t work. I talk about them all the time because they so limit my world. I often wonder exactly what is wrong with them. I’ve never been able to afford an x-ray or CAT-scan or MRI or any of those diagnostic things.

I hurt each of them in falls. The left one I hurt when I stepped off the wrong side of a step stool while painting our 10 foot kitchen ceiling. The doctor said I ‘hyper-extended’ it. Translation: I bent it backwards. He wanted x-rays but that wasn’t something I could in anyway afford at the time. So his second option was to tell me to stay off of it for a couple weeks. Well, yeah. That was gonna happen. I had two kids and a huge old house. We slept upstairs and did laundry in the basement. I did use a cane or crutches as much as possible, but you have trouble fixing a meal on crutches so I compromised and hobbled around holding on to the counters. As soon as it stopped hurting except for ‘just a little’ I abandoned the crutches and cane completely and just walked anyway. It hurt but not more than I could live with.

The second knee I did a few weeks later. I was going out the back door with a pan full of cat food in my hand. If you’ve ever fed cats, you know how anxious they are when there is the remotest possibility that you might give the food to someone else! They were all twisting around my feet and in an attempt to avoid stepping on a cat, I danced right off the side of the back stoop. It wasn’t very high, maybe six inches, but the leg I stepped off on was my bad one, so I did a little jig and landed on my right leg, consequently doing exactly the same thing to my right knee. I’m not sure I even went to the doctor for the second one. It was a long time ago.

I believe I tore the tendons in both knees. At any rate, my knees pretty much bend whichever way they want. It is a weird sensation to have a two year old grab you around the legs and feel a knee bend backwards or to have a big dog squeeze between your crutch and your leg and feel one bend sideways. It doesn’t even hurt exactly, just a clicking or snapping feeling. I always worry it won’t go back where it belongs, but so far, thank the Lord, it always has.

The situation has been further complicated because I’ve not been able to hike and walk and do the things I did before I hurt my knees. The lack of exercise has prompted a weight gain which has contributed to arthritis in my knees and, I’m sure, an extensive erosion of the cartilage.

I don’t know what the x-rays must have looked like when the Social Security office required that I be examined by their doctors for my Disability application. It must have been shocking because my application was approved the very first time. That is unheard of in the annals of Social Security bureaucracy.

So, I’m ‘disabled,’ but not to the extent that many are. This morning it came home to me what their lives must be like.

I’m forced to keep my knees and feet elevated most of the time with pillows supporting my knees and lower legs. Propping my feet on a foot stool or hassock for any length of time doesn’t work because it allows my knees to flex backwards. After a while that becomes extremely painful and I have trouble bending or straightening my legs. Standing is difficult and yeah, that hurts, too. Walking is nearly impossible until I have allowed my knees to adjust to just plain standing. Sitting with them bent in a normal position results in the same kind of problem but with added swelling in my knees and subsequent circulation difficulty in my feet.

Anyway. I finished my trekking around with the dogs and my breakfast and my clean up and so forth this morning and finally I sat down in ‘my’ recliner. (It’s not really my recliner, but Notah’s family didn’t have a recliner until I came to visit. Then he made it a point to get one. While I’m here it’s ‘mine’ because it is the only place I can sit comfortably. ) I got myself set down and settled with my pillows in place and my laptop propped up in front of me. When I reached for the cord I discovered it was unplugged! How much trouble is that for you? You twist around and plug it in, or if you can’t reach you jump up, turn around duck down, stretch back and stick it in the wall. It takes what? Two minutes, maybe?

For me it was a major undertaking. First I had to maneuver my recliner to the upright position. The handle doesn’t work to lower the foot rest. It is designed to just go down with lower leg pressure. Well, I can’t apply lower leg pressure. My knees have no strength in them to press my calves onto the foot rest. So I have to lean forward and pull with my hands on the armrests until I can shift my body weight forward enough to counterbalance the foot rest, which then goes down. I remove the two pillows I use to support my knees and put them to the side. I reach for my crutches, always propped within arm’s reach. My knees won’t just ‘stand me up’ like a normal person’s do. Standing up is again a process of counterbalancing my weight over my knees. I can’t describe how I do it—just a way I’ve developed to continue leading a semi normal life. It isn’t graceful, I guarantee.

Once I’m standing I use the crutches to maneuver the couple of steps around the arm of the chair and back in the space between the chair the window and the wall. Then I put the crutches behind me against the window frame and hold to the chair and the wall while I stretch back, keeping my knees straight, barely able to reach the plug. A normal person would stoop down and lean back and plug it in.

Getting up and turned around again is another studied procedure. I used my hands and arms to ‘walk’ along the chair arm until I am upright. Again I reach for my crutches and duck-walk with them in the little semi-circle until I’m again in front of my chair. Sitting down is easy. Leaning back in the chair is easy. Situating the pillows under my knees and lower legs is a bit of a hassle, but once it is done my knees stop hurting.

I lean back, put the blanket over them (if there is any draft across them, they ache) and pick up my computer. I prop it on a long tubular foam pillow and plug the power cord to it. I’m ready to go. A two minute process takes me at least eight or ten.

Wild isn’t it. But I didn’t write this to make anyone feel sorry for me. I do just fine. My kids love me and help me constantly. My daughter-in-law loves me enough to come 1800 miles to get me in the spring and my daughter loves me enough to come and get me on her vacation in the summer or fall. I’m good. BUT, the next time you see someone on crutches or in a wheel chair remember this little discourse. Think how the simple process of plugging in a computer takes me longer than it has probably taken for you to read this. Think how involved such a simple action is for me and imagine how vastly more difficult it must be for someone who doesn’t have a loving family to support them and is even more handicapped than I am.

I'm blessed.

this and that and the other

Well, my second son is off to work. Maxim and Mika have had their early morning potty break and gotten sent back to bed with their ‘mama’ (Rachael doesn’t go to work until 1:30 today) My little boys have had their potty break, begged for a couple bites of my breakfast and they’ve gone back to bed to nap away the next few hours. My cats are up and are playing nicely on their cat tower. Everything is quiet in my world.

I don’t remember if I mentioned it on here, but for a couple months I was in a quandary over the Medicare supplemental insurance situation. I have never had any medical insurance to speak of in my whole life—a few months when I was teaching in public school I think, but other than that I’ve not been able to afford it. Now that I’m 65 our benevolent government told me that I had Medicare. Well, dandy. But the catch was that I needed to buy supplemental insurance because, wise and kind as they are, the Congressional Fathers do not pay all of our medical costs. They only do 80% of any expenses that might be incurred. Phooey. Who designated the US Congress as my Daddy anyway?

I was sorely tempted to chuck the whole thing in the trash. The only thing that kept me from doing just that was the same thing, partly, that sent my father through two surgeries and many trips to the Roswell Cancer Center. I felt responsible for saving my kids grief. I knew that if I were to become sick or be hurt, my kids would want to see that I had medical attention. And that would cost money neither they nor I have. So I began reading all the reams of information sent to me by the SS system and all of the insurance companies anxious to provide me with assistance. And it just got me more confused.

Our government is so good at double talk and excessive explanation-that-leads-only-to-more-confusion. I am not a stupid woman, not exceptionally brilliant, perhaps, but far from stupid or thick-headed in the intelligence department. And here’s the point of the whole thing. They STILL didn’t tell me what I needed to know. The talked and talked about supplemental insurance and what was needed and what was available. In a very short paragraph they mentioned the Medicare Advantage Plan. It was presented in such a way that I discounted it immediately. It seemed that I would need to buy private insurance that would cover all my medical needs and then I wouldn’t need to go through Medicare. Oh yes. I couldn’t afford THAT when I was working. Now that my income was reduced to ¾ of that amount how exactly could I afford it now?

Here’s where the blessing comes in. About 30 years ago I met a young man in our congregation who sold insurance. God is absolutely AMAZING. He planned 30 years ago to solve my problems in 2010! Is that not fantastic!

Okay, to go on. My entire Medicare dilemma began in December when I received notice that I would be eligible for Medicare in March (my birthday). That is also when I began getting more mail than anyone else in the house because of all the insurance solicitations that started coming to me.

About that same time or a little before, I got an email that said, “Are you the same Vondi that used to go to church in Dover? You had a pretty little girl whose dad was Navajo.” ( I don’t think that is an exact quote, but it was something like that.) Here it was the young man I had known thirty years ago. Brother Steve! It was good to hear from him and catch up on the years in between, but I didn’t connect him with my Medicare dilemma immediately. As the mail kept piling up, I remembered that he sold insurance! So I asked a couple questions about the whole thing.

As it turned out, he was involved right then in the end of year turn-overs in Medicare coverage insurance. Bless his heart, he was willing to drive up from Cincinnati to explain the whole thing to me! Aren’t the people of God great?!

I will talk about the whole Medicare situation later. If you are close to 65 email me, leave a comment or get in touch with me otherwise. You need to start thinking this through a LONG time before your birthday.

Is iron sharpening iron really a good thing?

For some reason the verse, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” (Proverbs 17:17) is popular among many in the religious community. For some reason this has been presented as a good thing and advisable thing. Men come together to ‘sharpen’ one another. For the life of me, from the first time I read it, I could not see that it was good for one man to ‘sharpen’ himself against another.

The man who first presented this to me taught that men (He got it from a men’s group devotional.) were responsible to “hone” themselves against one another that their Christian experience and witness should be sharper. I was horrified! We have no responsibility to be abrasive and grind away at one another. There is no verse in the bible telling us to treate one another in this way! If there is any revision or ‘grinding away’ of false impressions or feelings, it is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit, not us. There is no spirit of competition among the saints. I don’t care if it is a man or a woman. (The implication of the devotion was that this was something for men, not women)

To interpret the iron sharpening iron as a good thing, the verse must be lifted entirely from context and even from the real context of the remainder of the sentence! It is great from a humanistic point of view to interpret it in the popular manner. It sounds like a good thing for a person to do: to sharpen one’s senses and understanding and actions against those of another. It endows the flesh with great responsibility for, and authority over others. And conversely it makes others responsible for us. This view fits in very well with the modern attitude of shifting blame for any wrong or sinful behavior: “It isn’t my fault, it is my brother’s because he didn’t grind it away!” Come on folks! Does that really sound like Christ?

Here in Proverbs is a series of admonitions and proverbs instructing men in unwise avenues of behavior. (27:14-17) Let’s look at the context of the paragraph immediately preceding the verse. Consider the meaning of verse 14: He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him. Although it is written as a flat statement it isn’t something we should do. It is a warning: If you stand outside your friend’s house at six in the morning and tell the world at the top of your voice how wonderful he is, he will NOT appreciate it! This is NOT a good thing. Don’t stand outside your friend’s house before he's awake and bless him at the top of your voice. He’s sleeping, for Pete’s sake! He won’t like you for it! He’ll think you have ulterior motives for stealing his rest.

Verse 15 is another thing to avoid: A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. How wearisome is a drippy gray rainy day? How tired of it we get! Is this implying that we behave as a contentious person? Of course not. A contentious woman (or man) is just as tiresome and wearisome as that. Don’t do it! And don’t marry a woman like that!
It goes on to say that whoever “hideth’ her or tries to control/restrain her has a task like ‘hiding’ or restraining the wind. It can’t be done. The control slips through the fingers as though they were oiled. No one likes a whiney, quarrelsome person: Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself [or” betrays itself by slipping”]. Again this is an illustration of something we wouldn’t do.

Now we come at last to the one that is so popular for allowing people to feel justified in ‘sharpening’ (read this “critique, but in a concerned and caring manner”) their brother (or sister). Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. My envisioning of this is the knife against the butcher’s steel. (That’s the round rod which comes with those very expensive sets of carving knives… You know, the funny looking thing like a long fat ice pick that no one knows how to use. It’s designed to sharpen knives to a razor edge). The sound of a knife being honed against it hurts my teeth as the edge is filed by the fine grooves in the steel. It sounds painful. I don’t want to do that to my brother or sister in the Lord. Why would anyone who calls themselves a Christian want to do that? The steel is used because it is hard enough to file the edge on the corresponding knife. I'm reminded of scholars 'sharpening their wits' against one another in debate and criticism and excessive scholarship as they meet to ponder weighty issues.

Being harsh and hard provokes returning harshness and hardness. If we are hard as ‘as iron” to him, our friend will either be ground away or respond in kind and no longer be a friend. And the opposite is true, if our friend is ‘hard as iron’ toward us, we are either ground away or we become equally hard toward him. The hurt can go both ways!

Now consider the phrase “sharp countenance.” A person with a ‘sharp countenance’ is someone who is unfriendly and angry looking. Why would we want to do something that would 'sharpen our friend’s countenance'—make him angry and unfriendly looking? Rather than recommending a way to act, the Preacher is stating something that produces a negative effect. “Just as iron grates against iron, so can a man grate against his friend.” Or “ Iron grating against iron causes friction!” He is telling us exactly what happens when hardness rubs against hardness. Being harsh and hard provokes returning harshness and hardness. We aren’t hard on our friends!

The Amplified translation clarifies the meaning of the entire paragraph. 14.) The flatterer who loudly praises and glorifies his neighbor, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted as cursing him [for he will be suspected of sinister purposes]. 15)A continual dripping on a day of violent showers and a contentious woman are alike; 16.) Whoever attempts to restrain [a contentious woman] might as well try to stop the wind--his right hand encounters oil [and she slips through his fingers]. 17.) Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend [to show rage or worthy purpose]. ( Amplified)

Let’s stop using the verse to justify polishing one another at our mutual expense as the astute scholars do in a debate. Let’s stop setting ourselves up almost in competition to one another because we are envisioning ‘iron sharpening iron.’ Maybe we should let the Holy Spirit do the sharpening and let us dwell together remembering that God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. I John 4:16