I will sing in peace

We lost a tremendous talent and a force of nature this week when Sinéad O’Connor died at 56. Couse of death was not immediately known.

O’Connor’s four-decade career was marked by controversy, as often happens when a woman choses to speak her mind. In a 1992 guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, she sang an acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War” and then ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest rampant sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The furor was incandescent, as this was about 10 years before media pulled the scab off that global festering wound.

But furor didn’t bother her, as she explained:

The woman had a brass pair, she did.

Recent times were emotionally difficult for her and she was shattered by the death by suicide 18 months ago of her youngest son, Shane. But she was working on a new album to be released next year.

Here she is singing “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Sink into that voice and those eyes.

 

 

The hand I'm dealt

Saw an occupational therapist yesterday for my hand. This is because the orthopod finally suggested that physical therapy might be the next step (the fractures have healed).

This is a good thing because—three months out—I still can’t make a fist and I have to shift to my right hand to open anything that unscrews.

The OT kept asking me why I didn’t seek immediate treatment after the geese-induced fall. I kept telling her that it didn’t hurt all that much.

Then she asked why I didn’t get OT earlier in the process. Because the surgeon didn’t suggest it until last week. (He said the bones had healed, but the soft tissues need help.)

The upshot apparently is that I may not now recover all range of motion, because tendons require help within a couple/three months. But I can increase strength.

And maybe unscrew some wine bottle caps.

 

 

Hammered

There was this story last week in WaPo about a new invasive species in the Northern Virginia environs: hammerhead worms.

These are toxin-excreting flatworms that can grow up to 20 inches or so and if your try to kill them by hitting them with a shovel, their little segments will all spawn new worms. Evidently the only way to extinguish life is to stun them with salt, seal them in a plastic bag and freeze them.

I may never leave my house again.

 

 

It's a thing

Following up on yesterday’s post about cautious recovery optimism, I saw the surgeon for my two-month checkup. He concurs with my physical therapist that the IT band is the culprit. Evidently, when they replace your knee, they may or may not also realign things that were out of whack because your leg components weren’t working properly as your cartilage disappeared. So IT band revenge is a thing.

I’m to keep up with the exercises, add anti-inflammatories to the acetaminophen I’m taking and check in with him again in a couple of months.

Yay?

 

 

Gratitude Monday: stepping forward

After nearly a week of what I considered a setback in my recovery, I’m grateful today that I appear to be back on the rails, knee-wise. The worst thing for me was that I could not go up more than three steps in a staircase without the knee pain telling me, “Cut that out!”

On Wednesday, my physical therapist diagnosed the problem as probably my IT band, compounded by glutes not doing their job. (I hate my IT band & it hates me.) She did a lot of work on the point where it connects to the knee and gave me some exercises to make the glutes step up to the plate.

By Friday, I could go up the stairs fairly fluidly (although I’m still tentative, anticipating protest) and I was able to have a yoga lesson that did a lot of work on the glutes. (I know that was successful, because I was feeling the muscles on Saturday.)

So I’m cautiously optimistic that—as I turn the corner on the eight-week milestone—I’m going to be okay. For a while, I wasn’t sure.