Monday, January 5, 2009

Restarting

My time in “Off” mode has been good. Shea got home safe and sound and is back in school. We had a great and unexpected visit from old friends on their way through town. My desk is reasonably clean and most of the work to be done feels interesting. There are things on the list I don’t particularly want to do, which seems to be part of that overrated reality called grown-up life. The week should be reasonably quiet, though, which means that the return to regular work should be relatively painless. Now that we’ve figured out when my productive times are, though, it means working on rearranging some scheduling, which is never very fun or my favorite thing to do.

On the health front, things keep improving. Any bug that hits Michael and Shea hits me harder, and I’m learning simply to plan more time to sleep and lower my expectations about how quickly l’ll bounce back. The incision continues to heal, with only very short pieces left that still need more healing; otherwise, large portions are hard to find—except for the dents and ridges around where the piece of skull came out and then was replaced. There are noticeable dips most of the way around although they are the reverse of the scalp: the biggest dips are under the vertical part of the original incision where the scar is undetectable. The smoothest connections are under the horizontal parts of the incision, where the healing is the slowest. Seems odd that they’re not aligned, but there it is. Physical therapy is over, folded into the strength training regimen, and the insurance folks just approved another extension of the occupational therapy. This reduces the number of appointments in any given week on this front to four, which is a major advance. The goals set for the occupational therapy include reliable use of the right arm/shoulder with a consistent range of motion that matches the left.

The new year will bring a whole set of new endeavors. Some of those are still unfolding and others start soon. While those ramp up, my job will be to stay focused on the pacing required. So far, the speed required is still Slow Hare. That’s a lot, considering the totality of this adventure, and I’m back to feeling pretty lucky to be there, though with less energy behind it than during the original rush of adrenaline. Kearney pointed out that humans all have the same range of emotion, and feeling the feelings—whatever the cause—is the basis for empathy. She was more eloquent about it, saying “there isn’t one set of feelings for people who are “fortunate” and another for those who are not. Love, anger, grief and laughter are part of the human condition….you should not devalue your tears because you think someone else cries them for a “better” reason. We all play the hand we’re dealt, and we all have the same emotions with which to play those cards.”

What else is there to say?

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