Future Echoes

Recovery is really a dress rehearsal for senility: the slow shuffle to the footlights clad in an ill-fitting costume of dressing gown and slippers, and then the hoarse delivery of your single line soliloquy: "Can someone help me with the toilet, please?"
It's not a great role. Indeed, audience members may be unpleasantly reminded of your previous performance in that other dreary, one-act tragedy: Chronic Back Pain, originally written for Lon Chaney declining years by Samuel Beckett in his most minimalistic mood. Lights, camera, medication.
This imitation of old age is the result of a doctor's stern caution not to exert oneself, coupled with anxious contemplation of the long vertical scar running down the center of your chest. Major incisions take an eternity to mend and are extremely uncomfortable during the healing process, mostly from hourly aches and pains and the tedium of restricted movement. It's like walking around with a Fed Ex address label securely stuck to your breast bone and "Handle With Care" plastered between your shoulder blades. Simple, everyday tasks are now physical problems and frustrations of the most mind-bending kind. Putting on a shirt becomes a course in advanced Tai Chi concentration and technique; threading your legs into underpants is like trying to navigate an M C Escher maze; and wiping one's backside is, well, let's just say that a friend in need is a friend indeed.
Fortunately, being a student of the Stoics, I am not grumpy or downhearted like the aged often are. I strive to play the part of a grand old man rather than a mean old one. As Marcus Aurelius said, "Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear" - which almost sounds Shakespearean, albeit a lecture to his son by the doddering Polonius.

Comments

[Giric]

It is good to hear your voice again. My concern has been growing the past few days. I knew from watching a dear friend go through this same thing that it would be an unpleasant experience for you to go through. I have been astounded by your dedication to your blog. I don't know how anyone else feels but to keep blogging through all your discomfort is truly amazing. My only advice, and by now you've probably already found this out, is, that if you need the toilet, don't wait until the last minute to summon help or you could be left in a very embarrassing predicament. When I was last in the hospital, understandably in a groggy state after surgery, I made that mistake. I called for assistance only to be ignored for the better part of an hour. By the time help arrived I thought my bladder was going to split like a summer ripened melon. Hopefully your medical personnel are better than ours. Ours have been recruited from a Russian gulag, they being unemployed since the cold war ended have sought means of employ in the medical profession, finding a happy home in the halls of hospitals throughout Oregon.
Definition: Senility a.k.a. Dementia is a non-specific illness syndrome (set of signs and symptoms) in which affected areas of cognition may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving. It is normally required to be present for at least 6 months to be diagnosed;cognitive dysfunction that has been seen only over shorter times, in particular less than three weeks, must be termed delirium. In all types of general cognitive dysfunction, higher mental functions are affected first in the process. Therefore, in conclusion, I believe you are far from the horrors of addlepated senility my friend. You still retain too much clarity of thought.
I wish you a speedy recovery and soon return to full vigor of health.

[Laurent]

'Putting on a shirt becomes a course in advanced Tai Chi concentration and technique;'hahaha!

[Tatyana]

Now you have an overall idea what women feel a week after delivering a baby...with added bonus of having to feed the sucker every 3 hrs, cook for the rest of the family, clean, and wonder every minute how others did it and survived?

[m]

A friend in need is a friend indeed..as that line from "Blood Simple " has it, delivered by the great M. Emmett Walsh: "That's the test of true love, isn't it."

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