Getting Better Soon

       The question I hear most often nowadays is this: “How much longer will you be using that knee scooter?”

       My standard answer: “My next doctor visit is September 8th. I hope he releases me to walk during that visit.”

       I had surgery on my left foot and ankle eight-and-a-half weeks ago. It has a handful of screws in it (they look like giant lag bolts to me) and two new tendons. I’ve been non-weight-bearing since the surgery, thus, the knee scooter. Now, after eight weeks of scooting, my right leg looks like Popeye’s and my left leg looks like Olive Oyl’s.

       It reminded me of a long recuperation I had back in the summer of 2013, after a bike accident where I skidded out on a righthand turn and crashed to the asphalt on my right hip. I goofed around for several weeks self-treating myself, until it blew up one morning at Gold’s Gym. My doctor set me up the following Monday with the Wound Management Department at the hospital.

       I was nervous about going to Wound Management. Friends used words like wire brushes and fiery antiseptics when they told their own stories.

       As it turned out I was wrong about all that. They were very efficient and reassuring. They didn’t hurt me at all. We all joked about what I’d done to myself, and they showed me how to clean and bandage my wounded hip every morning.

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Gracious words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
(Proverbs 16:24 NIV)

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       The day after my first visit I posted on Twitter: “Wondering if my Monday visit to Wound Management Dept. at the hospital was a mistake. Should’ve held out for Wound Healing Dept.” Wound Management didn’t seem specific enough. I didn’t want to just manage the problem, I wanted to get better.

       And that turned out to be a big deal. The doctor and nurses and technicians in Wound Management told me how important it was for a patient to want to get better. Most of their patients were there because of the effects of diabetes, and they were not going to get better. All they could hope for was no amputations.

       I started noticing the other patients in the waiting room, and realized most of them, at least physically, were as healthy as they would ever be. And I was complaining about a few-weeks delay in my cycling habit. My self-pity changed to gratitude that morning, and I think my rate of healing improved as well.

       I noticed the same phenomenon during my August 22nd post-op visit for my foot. Most of the people in the waiting room were not going to get much better. Their physical state was as good as it was going to be. But I expected to be hiking, cycling, walking, working out, and playing with granddaughters in a few months. My heart must be patient and full of gratitude. I will get better soon.

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Light in a messenger’s eyes
brings joy to the heart,
and good news gives health to the bones.
(Proverbs 15:30 NIV)

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“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.”
Psalm 119:32

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