Betsy

I became disabled slowly, beginning right around the start of 2000, and I entered a pain management rehab program about two years later.  In addition to things like mobility class (how to do wheelies and get the wheelchair up or down a curb) and lessons on alternating the canes just as we would swing our hands with alternate steps, there were mental health aspects to the program, including weekly meetings with a psychologist and an excellent art therapy program.

When I started in the art therapy program, most of my artwork was directly related to pain and disability, but eventually I also started to incorporate other themes, and my art became a visual representation of my dreams and prayers.

Last week, I had occasion to go through my art therapy work in an effort to help a friend who is having similar kinds of issues now, and I found my old prayers.

A year after the major spine surgery that changed my life, my dreams are reality!  I sit in regular chairs all the time.  I dance.  I think clearly and take minimal amounts of medication.  I am rarely dizzy or off balance.  I sleep only eight hours a night.  I haven’t started bicycling yet, but I am amazingly grateful to God, I am making good use of my time, and I am clearly sympathetic to others in pain.  How else would I have ended up going through the artwork in the closet?

Dreams do come true.  Prayers are answered.  Ten years later perhaps, but prayers are answered.

 Praised are you, God, who hears prayer.

Higher res and many pix here:

art therapy

Happy Mother’s Day!!

I got some lovely cards from the males in my house, as well as a handmade card from the little guy and a webpage and letter from the big kid Now they are cleaning the house

They asked me what I wanted and I told them NOTHING. No cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, NOTHING! So that i what I am doing

Typical terrier! They always are convinced that they are the biggest, baddest dog on Earth

Comments are now restored-carry on!

Yesterday was a year since my life-changing major spine surgery.  I had thoughts of marking the occasion in a big way, but it’s turned out to be as quiet and slow-stepping as every other change that’s happened in this recovery process.  I am not yet fully able-bodied, but I am getting there.  I’m just not certain that the improvement is permanent, and I don’t yet trust that each of these flare-ups (I’ve only had three in the year since surgery, and none have been as bad as I used to feel all the time.) will actually go away.  In truth, they last about a day.

I’m not ready to give away my wheelchair yet, but I did accept a friend’s offer to store it in his garage so I don’t have to lug it around everywhere in the car.  He took it yesterday, and today I cleaned out the car and put all the errands crap I tend to cart around into the trunk, along with a single pair of canes — my rain canes with the suction cup tips.  The rest of the canes are in the house, put away.  I still use canes to climb the stairs at work when I am carrying my laptop, and to get up hills, but even that is getting easier with time and practice.

So …. I have always had some nerve problems, but I became disabled in 2000 and had two surgeries that year.  I ended up worse off after the surgeries and felt like I had failed physical therapy when I left it using a pair of canes instead of a single cane.  In the following few years, I started to need a wheelchair if walking was more than half a block, and I ended up in pain management rehab.  My marriage ended.  I could no longer be a full time caregiver to my son.

I was insulted when the disability parking placard the first doctor ordered for me had a six month date because I was supposed to be better in two months.  Then came the mourning process as I gave up activity after activity, pretty shoe after pretty shoe, and independence after independence.  Picking up my first pair of permanent disability license plates was devastating.

My career went from full time, full day teaching to half time teaching, to a half time pull-out program, to an office job plus occasional tutoring. My health got better, then worse, with lots of hills and valleys in between.  More surgery in 2005 that resulted in a very temporary improvement in only one of the areas where I now had extensive nerve damage.  Many sets of spinal injections, ablations, and nerve blocks, each with its own recovery period.  My chiropractor kept me going, made lots of small adjustments, and even helped with my sanity. Nothing in early 2011 helped the extensive pain I was experiencing in my spine and a March x-ray revealed herniated disks, disk damage, and half of one disk that the radiologist called “pulverized”.  I scheduled surgery with no great expectations other than having new hardware installed to hold up the new disks. The PTA of the synagogue I work for set up a meals and errands delivery system, and the parents of my sixth a seventh graders helped feed us for over a month.

Then I went under the knife last May.  What was predicted to be a 2 hour procedure lasted 5 hours and resulted in three times the amount of scarring that the surgeon had predicted.  I awoke from surgery with much of my spine pain gone but a new nerve pain in my right leg, in the area where nerves descend from that pulverized disk that had been repaired. My six week recovery period was extended to six months and my summer travel plans were canceled. I was not allowed to drive, take a bath or swim for six weeks, and then I wasn’t able to do those things even when the doctor okayed them.

I came home from the hospital angry about scars, the cages in my back, and feeling that I could not take care of myself.  My insurance didn’t cover a home health aide and they didn’t warn me ahead of time how much help I would really need post-op.  The doctor’s office, knowing that I live alone half the week and with a teenage boy the other half, didn’t even tell me I would need someone to change the dressings once a day for two weeks, and they certainly didn’t tell me how much help I would need to sit up from the bed, get to the bathroom, and get myself and my legs back into the bed.  Thank God for my Saudi friend and neighbor who came every night, changed dressings, helped me into and out of the shower, and washed dishes before she left.  Texteen was also amazingly helpful with everything I needed while clothed, and took care of many errands and chores that were needed.

On day 4 post-op, I woke up with a slight fever, and having bled through one of the dressings, through the night gown, and onto the sheets.  This was far more discharged than I’d had from either incision and I worried about infection.  I scheduled an appointment with the 2nd surgeon from my procedure and then set about finding a ride.  The mother of two of my students stepped up and offered to drive me there.  She also suggested that I pack an overnight bag in case I was re-admitted.  I wasn’t but ended up moving in with her and her kids for the next few days and letting them take care of me. She home-schooled her boys and so everyone was around most of the time, and were helpful beyond all expectations.  Her younger son, who had never wanted to be a Hebrew student or to learn Jewish values and tradition, certainly had made the mitzvah of helping the sick a part of his core being.  The room I was staying in had a door that creaked, and every single time I opened the door he came running in.  ”Morah Betsy (Teacher Betsy), do you need a new ice pack?”  With the fever from the infection, ice packs only lasted about 20 minutes before getting warm.  ”Morah Betsy can I get you more water.”  ”Morah Betsy, my mom made salad and macaroni.  Do you want me to bring you some, or do you want to eat in your room?”  ”Morah Betsy, what time are we walking around the cul-de-sac?”  I moved home a few days later when the infection had cleared up and when my son was scheduled to be with me for the next four days.

As instructed, I walked every day with the walker.  First it was 20 feet, then 30, then to the mailbox and back, then to the mailbox twice.  By the third week, I was walking almost a block and had started walking with no mobility aids inside the house.  By the fourth week, I was getting good at walking both inside the house on my own and outside in the apartment complex parking lot.

I didn’t tell anyone that I could now walk 15 or 20 feet with no mobility aids.  I had to start with the walker to get warmed up and make sure my gait was reasonable, and then I could leave the walker and go on my own for a bit.  My Saudi friend game over most nights and we walked in the parking lot together.  Then I helped her with her ESL studies and she washed dishes or folded clothes while I showered.

One night, when Texteen returned from a week at his father’s, I asked him to walk with me.  First he resisted shoes, then keys, arguing that he didn’t need them if I was only walking to the street light and back.  I told him I’d made a lot of progress and he should do as he was told because we were walking all the way to the apt complex entrance.  He finally agreed, and off we went.  As we came close to the first bright parking lot light, I asked him to hold the walker for a minute.  He did, and I continued to walk under the light with no walker or canes, then turned around and walked back to him.  He had tears in his eyes.  ”Mom.  I’ve never seen you walk like that outside.  Mom.  Did you know that this was what the surgery would do?”  No, I didn’t.  Texteen was TexKindergartener when I became disabled, and he has no memory of me being able-bodied before last summer.  In fact, he thinks it’s odd that I walk around just fine in all the old home movies.

The next day, my friend T and her husband brought me lunch from the Chinese restaurant down the street, and I asked them to take video of me walking. My friends and family all cried when they saw it.

Further progress happened in fits and starts.  Two steps forward and a fall back.

Just realized this is approaching novel length, especially since most of my recent posts average about 100 words.  Oh well.  Keep reading. Or don’t.

I set a three month goal of dance lessons and was only a month off.  I taught my seventh graders to dance in September and danced at my synagogue on Simchat Torah in October.  I even carried a Torah scroll around the sanctuary once, but that was walking and not dancing.  I set a six month goal of walking the mile-long Turkey Trot with no canes.  Had a flare-up that week, but did the caneless mile with a friend on my own a month or two later.

So why am I not happier?  Well, a few reasons.  One is that I am still not quite well enough to teach full time, but I am far too improved to be considered disabled by the government.  Which greatly affects my job prospects or other possibilities for next year.

The second reason is more emotional than financial.  Every time I go out or shop without the canes I feel like I am passing for able-bodied.  It’s not an identity crisis but it’s not a complete transition to able-bodiedness either.  I’m ready to stash away most of the canes, but I’m not yet ready to sell or donate the wheelchair.  The disability license plates expire at the end of the month and I’m toying with the idea of not renewing them.

Other than the whole unemployment thing, it’s been a great year overall.  Looking forward to the next year being even better.

Today’s lesson is about the Huey p. Long bridge. This bridge crosses the Mississippi River from the East bank of Jefferson Parish to the West Bank in Bridge City. It’s the oldest of several river bridges in the NOLA area, built in 1935. It was originally built as a railroad bridge. Driving lanes were tacked on as an afterthought, providing two 9 foot lanes in each direction. Think about that for a minute-18 feet for 4 lanes of traffic. No shoulder, no median to speak of and a white-knuckle ride even on a slow traffic day. In addition, there is a weird little jog in the middle of the bridge. When it was built they started on each side of the river and met in the middle. They were off just a tad, so they had to make an adjustment to get the halves to line up.

Everyone who has ever been in this area for any length of time has a story about driving across the Huey. Right after I moved here I was living at my dad’s on the North Shore and had gotten a job across the lake. The doctor I was working for had several offices and one of them was across the river. Because I’d never been there before, one of my co-workers offered to meet me at the Metairie office so I could follow her. At the time my little Subaru had died so I was driving my step-mom’s Cherokee. I met up with Debbie and off we went. She was running late, and decided to take the Huey across the river. I’d never gone that way before, and the next thing I knew I was trying to follow a crazy woman weaving in and out of traffic on a bridge so narrow I felt sure I would never live to see the other side. Especially the time she decided to pass a garbage truck. This was no biggie for her little sedan, but for me in that Cherokee it was terrifying. I got used to it after a while, but I never got used to being stuck on that bridge in heavy traffic and feeling it sway as a train rumbled by on the tracks right next to you.

Today marks the end of the Huey as we know it. For the last couple of years they have been working to improve and widen the lanes of the bridge. Today marks the opening of the new, wider temporary lanes while construction is finalized. When it is completed in 2013 the bridge will have 3 11 foot wide lanes, with 8 foot shoulders and a 2 foot median. I cannot even imagine what that will be like, but I guess I will have to go take a trip and see it once it’s all done.

GG#1 Just learned to run/walk in the past two weeks. The first really fun game she discovered was running away from Daddy in the Field Museum. Today it was chasing the cat.

Carry on with the comments, Bumz.

People are really starting to piss me off. I am getting old, and ever more cynical. So I am finding myself more and more attracted to animals, babies and small children. At least they are nakedly manipulative, and only do so as a survival tactic as opposed to just screwing you over for the hell of it. Then there’s the off-the-charts cuteness factor

I’ve got mucho planting to do. My work has been discovered at the shop, so I need to keep a supply of potted arrangements in line to replace the ones that sell. It is fun work. Carry on everyone.

It’s Stanley Cup payoff time Things always get jacked up a notch of three this time of year, and this year is no exception. So far there have been five over-time games, and it’s still early. I’ve lost count of how many pads and sticks have been dropped so punches can be thrown, and last night during the Blues game the bench broke! Brings a whole new meaning to “bench-clearing” brawl

I’ll admit I’m not as conversant in hockey as I am in the other major sports, but I enjoy watching it, especially at playoff time. And there is simply no better championship trophy in all of sports. The name of every player who’s ever won Mr. Stanley’s Cup is engraved on it, and the thing keeps getting bigger. I guess at some point it is going to be too big to hoist and carry around the rink after the final win. They’ll have to figure out a answer to that problem one of these days.

Thanks to Jon Stewart!

Easter morning in our house means a mad rush to the baskets by the boys. The big kid was the first to notice that some of the eggs seemed empty. I said he might better open them to check. When he did he found a folded dollar bill. Once the little guy saw that, his focus on the chocolate was done! Madgranny sent a card for each of them with a ten-spot enclosed. So all together they each made 20 bucks along with way too much chocolate. Of course all the candy is going to be dumped in a community bowl and put into the fridge. I am just glad the little guy is not the early riser in our family. If he were, I would have awakened to a half-eaten bunny, foil wrappers everywhere and an 8 year old complaining of a tummy ache