Moving Right Along

 Today one phase of moving into seminary campus housing will begin.  But it's a slow motion move.  I will be back in North Carolina next week, and then again the week-end after Labor Day for Crafts for Christmas at Lutheridge.  But after those trips, I won't likely be here again until November.

It's a big life change, but readers of this blog know it's not the only one.  I talked to one of my college friends who has known me longest, and he said, "Wow, this has been quite a year for you guys!"  In his voice, I could hear that he understood both the negative and the positive.

I want to remember the progress I've made in healing from my broken wrist.  A month ago, I was still having trouble getting into and out of my clothes, which means I was doing it mainly with my left hand.  A month ago, I still had only 3 positions in which I could sleep because I still had so much discomfort in my right arm and shoulder.

And here's a milestone which I want to record, though most people won't understand the significance.  My driver's license now lists my hair as brown.  The very nice DMV employee said, "Hair color.  Brown?"  I thought, yes, it really isn't blonde.  I can't even claim strawberry blonde.  Rust probably isn't one of the options.  I said, "Brown is fine."  Will I color my hair again?  It's hard to know.

On a less mundane note, I had 2 different Zoom sessions last night.  One was with my Mepkin journaling group; we're discussing Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, and we had a vigorous discussion of Merton's view of Mary.  I also met with my small group from my spiritual formation class that I took across my first year of seminary.  I thought about how long it had been since I've been deeply engaged with theology and how much I'm looking forward to diving in again.

But first, the packing of the car, the getting settled in a new place.  Onward!

Camp Dispatches

I am continuing to write while the choir practices.  I'm staying at camp lodging with no internet connectivity, so I sit here and type.  It's progress--2 weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to type at all.  Still, my internet time is limited.

Here are a few brief snapshots from Music Week:

--When the choir first started rehearsing the music, I thought, I bet I could do this.  As I've continued observing, I've been glad I decided to sit out this experience.  I have a serviceable voice sometimes.  This choir is for people who are much further along than I am.

--The time when choir rehearses is the best time to do my required internet activities:  checking in with my online classes primarily.  Today I did my applications for the 5 jobs that the unemployment benefit process in Florida requires.

--The drumming has been fun--much more my speed.      

--I've been able to be part of the team that decorates the chapel for worship.  Here's a picture of what we created for Tuesday night, with it's theme of Psalm 23 and the Jeremiah passage that talks about return from exile:

--I could be so happy having this kind of ministry--working on creative responses each week to the Gospel.  That could include a written meditation for the newsletter, a visual image for meditation, the altar space . . . I would like to be the specialist that does such things.  Could my ministry be just that and not visiting the sick, tending the building, etc?

--Today is my birthday.  Perhaps the whole camp will sing the song to me.  But if they don't, that's O.K.

--Was the dining hall always this noisy?  It's impossible to have any sort of conversation over a meal.  And I am missing hot chocolate on cool mornings served in battered aluminum pitchers.

--Music Week is much more scheduled than I remember as a kid.  But we are finding time to get some stuff done to get ready to move (a week from today the moving van will have come and the loading of possessions will be underway!).  We've unpacked 2 cars' worth of stuff, and we've bought a mailbox and a post.  This morning, we washed a load of clothes in the washer and dryer that came with the house.  Judging by its avocado color and smaller size, I'm fairly sure it's a circa 1975 washer/dryer all-in-one unit.  And it still works!  In fact, it looks like it hasn't been used much at all.     

--I am trying not to rhapsodic about the weather.  It's been gloriously cool in the morning.  In the afternoon, I can walk from a building to a car without sweating a drop.  Amazing!  We've slept with the windows open (we're in Bacot, not in our new house that has no furniture).

--And on a non-camp note:  this morning was the first time that I woke up without my wrist feeling like a wooden block.  It's not normal by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a sign of progress.

Of Wounded Wrists and Other Poetic Possibilities

Yesterday I went to the dentist, an appointment I dread.  I usually leave a routine cleaning with a bloody mouth and sometimes worse.  I have very hard teeth, very prone to plaque, and also, very prone to pre-gum disease conditions.

Yesterday I left the office feeling no pain, and it's not because I was given a sedative.  I am saddened to announce that two weeks before we move, I've met the best dental hygienist I've ever had in over 50 years of going to dentists and orthodontists.

I came home, made and ate an early lunch because I hadn't eaten before my dentist appointment, and settled in to file my unemployment claim for the past 2 weeks.  In order to get the puny amount of unemployment money that is due me, the state of Florida requires me to log onto the clunky online system to apply.  I have to list the five jobs I've applied for each week and to let them know if I've earned any money from other sources.

Yesterday was the first time I had money to report, which led to an interesting experience with the clunky online system.  I couldn't make the pull down menu work, the spot where I was to choose from past employers.  I figured out a work around, but it took time.  And this was after the website crashed at an earlier point, and I had to log on again--happily, the information already entered wasn't erased, but the log on process takes time.

It seems a metaphor for modern life somehow.

I know that lawmakers have made this process harder than it needs to be.  I am trying to claim unemployment benefits, not charity.  I am entitled to these benefits because I was let go from my job.  This shouldn't be so hard.  Because I am entitled to this money, I keep trying however.  I will be interested to see if these weekly amounts of money will be reduced in light of what I earned.  At that point, I may change my mind about whether or not this is worth it.  

Then it was off to the physical therapist.  As we work on getting more mobility to my wrist, these visits are harder, both physically and emotionally.  We measure progress in very tiny increments, and I'm making progress, but there's still a very long way to go.

I had a lot of pain through the night.  I probably should have given in and taken some ibuprofen, but I don't always have that presence of mind in the middle of the night.

I am thinking of my trip to LTSS (Southern Seminary) and how strange it was to be surrounded by images of Christ with nail marks in his hands/wrists while I had my own hand and wrist in a cast.  And this morning, I'm thinking of all of those stories of Christ after resurrection, when showing the nail marks established his authenticity.

I'm thinking there should be a poem in all of this.    

Week in Review--with a poem!

 As I think back over the past week, I am just astonished at all that has happened. A week ago, I was in Columbia, SC with a cast on my arm. I got the cast removed on Wednesday, and now I have a whole new set of exercises for my wrist and hand. A week ago, we expected that Row v Wade would be overturned fairly soon, and now it has. A week ago, I wasn't sure how we would decide to move our possessions across multiple states. In the past week we reserved a moving van to do it ourselves but ultimately got an offer we couldn't refuse from a moving company. We have showed our condo to several potential renters who will come after us. I hope one of the ones who wants our piano is the one ultimately chosen.

Today is our last Sunday at church, and I have grades for my online class due tomorrow morning. Time continues to march ahead.

I've done a lot of sorting which reminds me of how much I've written never sees anyone's eyes but mine. So in that spirit, since time is short and I have grading to do let me close with a poem that I wrote last week after walking the labyrinth.

I walk the labyrinth

careful to avoid

the fire ant mounds that line

the paths. I step over velvet

pods dropped from ancient magnolias.

A dog runs across the seminary

grounds. The sun begins

the morning tasks of sweeping away the shadows.

All creation yearns for insight.

 

 

Post-Op Follow Up

Yesterday, I went back to the hand surgeon for my post-op follow up.  Overall, everything is looking good. The hand surgeon told me that my surgery was more complicated than he was expecting it to be, and he was expecting it to be complicated. He had to use a different kind of a plate to hold everything in place where it should be, but it seems to have worked.

When I saw the X rays, I was surprised by how the plate looked. I was expecting it to look like a rectangle laying horizontally across my wrist. Instead it looked more like an interesting cocktail toothpick, more like an artificial bone, which is probably closer to what it is.

I was surprised by my reaction to the taking off of all of the material that has swaddled my wrist since the surgery of Monday, May 2. There's always some part of me that expects with surgical dressings removed, all of the stuff that's supposed to be inside will fall outside. I felt the same way when my spouse had back surgery--the bandages came off and I was expecting to be able to see his spine, but of course that's not how it works. 

The X ray tech reassured me that I was not going to be able to move my hand and undo all of the surgery. It was a message that I needed to hear. As I moved through the appointment, I compared my experience post surgery with my experience of April 28th when I first went to the office. Even though I still feel some pain, I'm not feeling the same kind of pain when I move my arm.

I now have a different kind of wrist protector. Now I have a cast. The person who does the casting asked me what color I wanted, and I said purple. As she was wrapping my arm, I thought wait it's the wrong liturgical color--I should have chosen green. But I do love purple, so it's fine.

I had hoped that when all of the postsurgery swaddling was removed, my finger mobility would come back. I still have stiff and swollen fingers, and I have trouble straightening them. The good news is that it's fixable. Off I will go to the person who specializes in hand physical therapy which will be different from the wrist physical therapy that I will do later.

I am still disturbed by all of the destruction that happened from a tiny fall. It's not like I went skydiving. I fell the distance of maybe two feet onto grass. I am trying not to feel spooked about it all. At some point I need to get back into my habit of daily walking. At some point I hope my digestive system is recovered enough from the antibiotics that I can do that. I went out yesterday to get some of those special yogurts with extra probiotics, so hopefully I can rebuild my gut biome.

It's getting easier for me to sleep with a cast and easier to go about regular life with a cast. Yesterday my doctor told me I can exercise and drive get back to regular life as long as take care to keep the cast dry. I have found that having a cast on my arm (or a splint, or a bunch of post surgeries stuff swaddling) is an interesting conversation starter. I am amazed by how many people have broken their wrists and how many people have had to have surgery. Again I am trying not to feel spooked about it all.

But I do feel a little spooked by it all.

Island Recuperation

 A week ago, we would soon be on the road--yes even after wrist surgery the day before. We had planned to join my parents at Hilton Head on Sunday May 1st, but the surgery needed to happen as soon as it could to minimize nerve damage. However the doctor said I could recuperate as easily at Hilton Head is anywhere else, so off we went.

It's strange taking a trip when I can't help with the driving, but I was grateful that we could go. It was a fairly subdued vacation, but our last several trips to Hilton Head with my folks have been somewhat subdued.  We stay in a condo at a Marriott resort, a condo with a full kitchen, so we cook. We all enjoy reading by the pool, so we did a lot of that.  We made a pre-Mother's Day brunch:

Unlike past years, pre-COVID years, we did not go out to eat. But that's OK. since we're all pretty good cooks.  I did not even take many walks on the beach; I had a reaction to the antibiotics that meant I shouldn't get too far away from the bathroom. That, too, was OK.  At least I didn't feel ill or in pain.  And we had planned to have a low key vacation anyway even before knowing I would be recovering from surgery, so at least I didn't feel like I was holding everybody back from having a great time somewhere else.

We were able to go to the bar that is part of the resort, where we could relax and look out across the dunes to the ocean beyond. 

We did that almost every day. I was glad I had gotten my seminary work finished before my operation. While I probably could have worked on those papers, I was glad to be done so that I could just focus on recovering.

There were moments when I felt slightly guilty about having such a nice place where I could recuperate. I could look around the resort and see how much work it takes to keep the resort looking lovely--I do hope those jobs are good ones for the local folks. I live in a hospitality dependent area down in South Florida so I know that sometimes workers are exploited. There is also that guilt of thinking about being on the islands of the Lowcountry of South Carolina, that knowledge of slave labor that built the place, that knowledge of all of the displacement that occurred over the centuries. I took care to thank everyone who works for the resort, while at the same time knowing that my thanks are a meager offering. 

I am grateful to my parents who invited us--we would have far fewer vacations than we do without their invitations. I am grateful to my spouse who said yes:  yes to doing all the driving, yes to getting away.  The last few years have taught me to be grateful for time together. Once I thought that only death would complicate our together times but now I know that it could be many possibilities.

 

Thinking Back to Wrist Surgery a Week Ago

A week ago, I would have been getting ready for my wrist surgery. I was proofreading my papers for seminary one last time to submit them--that was a wise decision. I took a shower, tried to not think about the fact that I wasn't allowed to eat or drink, and sent some emails.

The only surgery I had ever had in the past was having my wisdom teeth removed the summer after my senior year of high school. It was a surgical operation, not just a dental procedure. But unlike many women, I've never had a child, I've never broken a bone, and I've never had trouble with my inner organs. So yes I was a bit anxious, but my general mood was one of wanting to get the whole thing over with.

We gave ourselves getting lost time, so we got to the surgical center early.  That ended up being a good thing, since I was the last surgery of the day, and the surgeon was running early.  I didn't have time to sit around and fret. I was whisked back into a curtained area, where I changed it into a gown, and prep work was done on me.

They did have some trouble finding a good vein for the IV, and in the end they used the vein in my inner elbow.  That was mildly unpleasant, but not as bad as giving blood. Before I knew it, I was emerging from the sedative, with a very nice nurse to help me get ready to go home. This surgery was over.

It lasted longer than expected but was a success; I'll go in on Wednesday to have a follow up and see if everything is progressing as it should. The surgeon told us that the night of the surgery would be the most pain, and he was right. I had opioids for the pain, but they didn't do much except make it easier for me to sleep, and that was no small thing. I would take one, sleep deeply for a few hours, and then take another. But by morning I was feeling pretty good for a woman who had just had her wrist operated on.

As I think back to the surgery, I am amazed at the kindness of everyone connected to the surgical center, and I am surprised at how amazed I am. I have read so many stories about how health care workers are fried to a crisp, so I was a bit fretful about that.  But everyone was extremely compassionate, which made the experience much less gruesome.

I know all the ways that I am lucky. If I was a woman in the 1880s who had fallen and broken her wrist in the way that I did, I would just make do with a less than functional hand for the rest of my life--and I would expect that my life would be shorter because of it. I am a woman with health insurance and access to good medical care, and I do realize that access to good medical care is really a game of chance no matter where we live in the US. I am lucky because I have funds so I could pay my deductible. I am lucky that I have a spouse who is good at this kind of care and patient.

I am also rich in friends. I made a Facebook post or two to keep people up to date, and I was overwhelmed by the support that came in: from childhood friends, high school friends, college friends, family, former colleagues, retreat buddies, and so on. I know all the ways that Facebook can be damaging, but I was heartened to feel support a week ago.

And I have felt heartened to feel continuing support.  It's a long road ahead of me back to full functionality for my right hand and wrist. But today let me focus on feeling grateful for the surgery of a week ago.

  

Wrist Surgery Day

My wrist surgery is this afternoon. If you are the praying sort, the sending healing light sort, the here are some good wishes sort of person, all are appreciated. 

April's End

A week ago, the Create in Me retreat would be ending. Let me create a blog post of a few things that have been happening since then.

--On Thursday, I went to see the hand and wrist surgeon, and I spent time getting organized for surgery on Monday.

--I am still not feeling pain in my wrist, but I have been getting pain in my right bicep and my shoulder. It feels like I had a hard workout, back in the days when I was doing weight lifting and whole body workouts. And then there are the times when I move in a certain direction and my arm makes it clear I should not.

--It's not the upper body workout that I had in mind, back in the days when I would look at my arms and despair at their flabbiness.

--I am intrigued with how little I am eating these days. It takes a lot of energy to feed myself the first serving of anything with my left hand. I usually say no to seconds. I've quit snacking because it takes so much effort to cut slices of cheese for cheese and crackers. It's not the diet plan I had in mind.

--It's been an interesting time being in the condo, with lots of concerts in the arts park. The one I might have most wanted to see, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, was on Thursday night when I had my last seminary class for the semester. But we did walk over earlier in the afternoon to watch them rehearse, which was really cool.

--I have been working hard to get my seminary papers written before surgery on Monday. I am in the homestretch. It will be a relief to be done with seminary work even though I am enjoying it.

--I am working on a final project for a seminary class that requires me to chart important historical developments, leaders, ideas, and books, a history of the Jews from the return from Babylonian Exile in 538 BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. No, it's not a 50 page paper; we're supposed to do all of this in just 7 pages. I am trying to sum up the importance of Alexander the Great. Philosopher spouse says “He was a student of Aristotle.” Somehow I don't think my Hebrew Bible teacher would see this as the most significant reason why we remember Alexander the Great.

--I am glad I am not taking seminary classes this summer. I will focus on the online classes I am teaching, the physical therapy that lies ahead of me, and getting ready for the fall. 

Creativity Retreat with Broken Wrist

Last week I would have already been on the road for a few hours. Last week I thought I had a sprained wrist. I got to my friend’s house, took a quick shower, and we went out to enjoy a lovely meal in the April sunshine.

The next day, when I arrived at camp, I was encouraged to go get my wrist X rayed. Even before the creativity retreat started, I had a right hand splinted, which made it mostly unusable. And yes, I am right handed.

Would I have still gone to the retreat had I known? Yes I would have but I would have packed differently--I ended up with lots of articles of clothing that wouldn't go over the splint, sweaters and things.

 

Over the 15 years that I've been attending this retreat, it's become less of an event for me about trying new things and discovering new art forms. I've made deep friendships that are rekindled each year with this retreat. That's the main reason I go, and I don't need the use of my right hand for that.

Still it was strange to see all the creativity around me and not to do it--so I decided to see what my left hand could do. It's one of those things that many a creativity book tells you to try: use your non-dominant hand and see what happens.

At first I started with watercolors. I had been enjoying the azalea bushes and so I tried to capture them. That went well so I did something more abstract, which turned into a descending dove. 

I then did another piece with watercolor, which I used as the basis of a collage.

 

The next day I tried doing zentangles with my left hand, but as I expected that required a level of precision that I can't do with my left hand yet. But there were colored markers on the table, so I started to sketch with those. Part of me wonders if this sketch that I did with my left hand is so very different from what I might have created with my right hand.

 

I didn't do much writing while I was away, even though I had the computer. I did get some reading done for seminary classes, so that was good. the weather was beautiful, but I didn't feel like going on a walk. It was almost hot by the middle of the day, and my splint makes me feel even warmer and itchier--or maybe that's just an excuse.

I enjoyed being surrounded by creative folks, and I got some ideas for future retreats of my own, which will be a subject for another blog post. At the end of the retreat, we walked the labyrinth created by cloth braids, which I recognized from an earlier retreat. 

In fact, I had provided fabric strips for people to write prayers on, strips which we later braided together. And now, 10 years later, we're still using those braids to create a labyrinth--what a great metaphor for community.

 

I had always assumed that only death would prevent us from having this community, but the last three years have shown me that the world is more fragile then I knew. People can move away, diseases can change the way we gather, institutions which once seemed solid may not be. That realization made the joy of being together even more vivid, and I wouldn't have missed it just because I had a broken wrist.

Driving with a Broken Wrist

 Over the next few days, I will write about the Create in Me retreat. It's the first one we have had since 2019, and it was different:  a bit more low key, a more relaxed pace, but a great retreat. Today, let me write a bit about the trip in the car.

When I left, I thought I just had a sprained wrist. The drive up wasn't too bad, although for about the first hour I wondered if I was making a mistake. I had a soft brace on my hand and wrist, So I could still move my fingers. I couldn't clench the steering wheel, but my right hand could help with the steering and holding steady.

While I was away, I had my wrist splinted, so my right arm was bent, and I had less use of my fingers. I knew the trip back would be different. I had always planned to go back to Columbia to spend some time with a grad school friend on Sunday. I decided to make that trip, and if it turned out to be impossible, I would call my spouse and strategize.

It was not as easy as the trip up the mountain, but I thought that I could probably make the trip back to South Florida. I didn't want my spouse to have to fly up and drive the car back, and I didn't want to fly down and have to go back and get the car at some other point. So yesterday morning, off I went.

I was surprised at the amount of traffic:  lots of traffic between Columbia and Orangeburg and then again, for the first two hours after the Florida line. Happily, those times of heavy traffic were interspersed with times of less traffic. In the heavy traffic I kept my left arm tense and my attention super focused, and it was exhausting.

I finished the trip in South Florida with heavy rush hour traffic, even though it was only three o'clock--sigh. But in a way that was good; as the traffic slowed to 30 and 40 miles an hour, it meant that I didn't have the big trucks trundling by along with the cars that zip in and out of slower traffic. In short, it was easier to keep control of the car.

I got home looking like a drowned river rat. All that intense driving left me sweaty. But I did it! I don't recommend it. At one point during my odyssey last week, I thought about how I had said I needed to start working on my arms, but this is not the upper body workout I had in mind.

Would I do it again? If it meant I got to go on a wonderful retreat, yes I probably would. But hopefully, in the future, I won't have to make these kinds of choices.

Broken Wrist Woes and Gratitude

 It has been a strange week. That is an understatement. A week ago it was Easter. It feels like a million years have passed since then.

On Wednesday, I got in the car and headed north. I knew I had a 10 hour drive in front of me, and for the first hour I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make this drive. But I really wanted to see friends and go on a retreat and get back to the mountains, and so I kept going.

On Thursday, my hand was the first thing that people noticed because my fingers were purple and swollen. I thought I was just in the bruised face of my sprained wrist, but several of my retreat friends are nurses and former PE teachers, and they recognize a break when they see it.  One of my retreat friends lives locally, and she told me about a great orthopedic urgent care that's in the same block as the camp entrance. I went over to have my wrist X-rayed at long last. My purple fingers concerned me too.

I was still hopeful it would just be a strain, a sprain, and that I would have spent money on X-rays for nothing. Why am I spending money on X-rays?  My former employer changed insurances, but didn't tell me, and as a person on COBRA, when they change insurance, I change insurance--long story short, I'm still waiting on insurance cards. Insert heavy sigh here.

Unfortunately, it is a break, and a brick that may require surgery, a metal plate, and pins.  The doctor told me I have some time--no need to go racing back to South Florida. So they splinted my wrist and sent me on my way.  The next day, Friday, I did make an appointment with the South Florida orthopedic hand specialist, and I've been enjoying the Create in Me retreat.

It's been interesting to hear how many people have experience with broken wrists. I met two people during retreat week who broke their wrists in the same way that I did, a simple fall. My mother wrote me an email reminding me of her experience with a broken wrist; she too needed surgery, pins, and a plate. I had been feeling bad about not going to get an X-ray sooner. But I likely would have had to wait on surgery anyway--often there is waiting time because of swelling, and my wrist has been very swollen.

I am still feeling no pain. I realize I'm very lucky. I've been enjoying this retreat even though I can't do a lot of the activities. I've been experimenting with my left hand, and I've been remembering an art book that recommended working with our non-dominant hands.  I've had a few moments where I felt panicky, both about my own wrist and about the larger precariousness, how one minute we're fine and then one little trip over a sidewalk crack--which sometimes results in skinned knees, but can result in broken bones or worse. I'm thinking of Octavia Butler, gone too soon when she slipped and fell.

I'll write more about the retreat later. I am trying to get ahead with both grading and seminary work, since I do have an appointment with a hand surgeon on Thursday, and I don't want to get too far behind. We are at the end of the semester for both my teaching and my seminary student work. When this semester started back in January, I worried about the new Omicron variant, and I worried that my job might keep me from being successful with my classes.  A broken wrist was not on my radar screen of things to worry about. I am aware that I often worry about possible negative developments only to be blindsided by something else. Breaking that habit of worrying about the future may take more years than I have left.

Again I realize I am very lucky. I am grateful for the voice recognition that I have with my version of Word, for example.  I am grateful to be able to be at this retreat, broken wrist and all.

 

Triduum with Trip and Fall

  Early on Good Friday, I went for my daily walk.  Hours later, I made this Facebook post: Tripped on my morning walk--came down hard on my chin and right hand. Face is OK--landed on grass. Wrist is swollen and sore but responding well to ibuprofen, ice, and a wrist brace. Poet brain wants to make Good Friday connections, and seminary brain is grateful that because of Easter break, no written work is due until later next week. 

And this morning:  On a bright note: taking a lot of ibuprofen yesterday for my strained wrist means no pain this morning in my arthritic feet.

More details later--Typing is tough right now.