Week Twenty-Three

(Header:  Two cats contemplate going outside at Echo Lake cabin)

 

Okay, it’s nine weeks post-surgery, and it’s about time some things started happening…but I’m still waiting…

It’s a slow process, I know.  I’m just impatient.  But I do have a few things to report.  On Monday I had my first meeting with the physical therapist.  He’s going to get me back in shape to do those ten mile hikes, swim like a fish, and hit the golf ball 250 yards.

We had a nice long evaluation session as he assessed my condition, and I told him about the treatments and operation I went through, and what my physical condition was like before all those medical procedures.  He gave me a number of exercises to do, 10 reps per set, 3 sets per exercise, 3 times a day, 5 times a week. The exercises don’t seem like much, but after I get into them a ways, I get very winded.  But it’s a beginning, and here we go!

A couple nights ago, I got up to tend to the cats…as I do several times a night, and felt a little light-headed as I got out of bed. I took a few steps toward my dresser and leaned against it to give my head a chance to clear. The next thing I knew I had tumbled backwards and was on the floor.  Fortunately I didn’t hit anything on the way down, and landed softly on the carpeted floor.  I guess I fainted for just an instant.  A very strange sensation.

I saw the doctor two days later and told her of the incident.  She didn’t seem too concerned as we chatted about it, and we concluded I was probably dehydrated.  So I need to drink more water…which I’ve been doing since then, and without a repeat instance of dizziness.

Aside from the fainting incident, she is very pleased with how I am doing.  Although she does share my concern about my weight.  I’m working hard at it, but it is so difficult to get to 2000 calories a day with the small portions of food I am limited to.  When I filled my plate at Thanksgiving, I looked around at how much other folks had on their plate.  They were all loaded up!  Easily twice what I had on my plate. I gotta get that stomach stretched out!

However, on the weight side of things, I am very pleased to report that I weighed in this morning at 122.8 lbs, the second up-tick in a row.  That’s very exciting, but I must keep an even keel…I don’t want to get in the dumps when the next down-tick occurs.

So, I think that’s about it for the excitement of the past week.

And here’s a little something folks of our generation should be thinking about:

Economics

We’ve reached that stage of living

Where we start to think of dying

Not just about the great beyond

But of the stuff we’re buying.

 

These thoughts are not the cosmic ones

But rather are more tactical

As in…will we live long enough

To make that purchase practical.

 

The knee or hip or dental work

The roof, the car, the backyard fence

Will they all last us as they are

Or does replacement make more sense.

 

Time is more finite at this stage

And life is measured vis-a-vis

What we might need, or want to do

Before our ship sets out to Sea.