Detour by kinetic
Well, we have had a little detour. This post comes via Sibley Memorial Hospital . I have been here since the terrible morning of April 2nd, when I suffered an accidental fall at home. My life seemed utterly changed at that moment, perhaps , I feared, as much as my shattered shoulder.
What happened was that a pivot in one direction brought all 200-pounds of me down to the floor in the other direction, landing squarely on my left shoulder, already damaged from the battle with cancer seven years ago. The pain was about the worst I have ever felt, and we immediately called an ambulance, which arrived at Sibley less than an hour after the fall. I was even more shocked and dismayed when the doctor showed me the first x-ray; not only had something been broken, but also the bones around that complicated joint were shattered in four different places. Because muscle and protective tissues and nerves had been damaged, I was rushed into immediate surgery. If we waited, the doctor warned, we might be too late to save anything.
The operation luckily was a great success, and I could not have received better care. In fact, if any blessings can come from such an experience, highest among them would probably be that the catastrophe happened here–near the best facilities, and not in the kind of remote places in which I usually prefer to travel.
I am in the rehabilitation ward now, but the noises, smells, and atmosphere are just the same as in the orthopedic ward: ever present beepers up and down the hall, the clatter of wheeled carts, the medicine odors seeping into everything, not to mention the constant interruption of nurses and needles. No possibility of more than an hour’s sleep at a time.
But then I am not here to sleep, I remind myself; I am here, hopefully, to be fixed.
There is something else. For even here, even amidst all the pain and the clatter, new opportunities seem to be emerging. I have come to better understand this truth just in the past few days. Opportunities? Yes, because all this enforced hours of “nothing else to do” can lead to new reflections and insights. . . concerning things and events about which I usually feel “too busy” to ponder, in the press of the normalcy of daily life on the outside.
In fact, it sometimes seems that the greater the cacophony on the outside, the easier it is to burrow deeper inside. So while I would not wish these injuries on anyone, it –is, somehow, a comfort to know that positive new things can come from it too.
So it is here and now. Future blog posts will share some of these insights.
