Courage... 

Wandering thoughts on a Bocas night...

“Trying to pick one thing to tell is a hard task when you have these lapses between stories. Another hip adventure led to the last post and it’s back to the recovery/rehab part of the travail. A certain paranoia exists after this many times and the impending doom of the next dislocation. I’ve had conversations with the Floating Doctors, who tried so hard to red uce me and took such good care of me, that I don’t know what I would do if it happens again. I surely can’t afford another one here at $14,000USD and labor over whether I’m keeping my Medicare to finance the next one even though getting to the hospital in the U.S. would be  almost an impossibility from this island because the anguish and pain. To think the amount of time that has been consumed in the last year by my fucking right hip.”

 Words which were intended to become part of another post for the blahg, joined together to be some witty piece that would bring a smile to a reader or maybe some respect for the writer. Like many other thoughts that were to become part of the compendium they were just words that were stored here for some later point in time. Typical of my journal and blog writing diligence, nothing but random thoughts never to collate into anything.

 Since these random words with the recalcitrant hip the centerpiece there have been two more hip adventures, the latest a week ago. Each time with the pain and recovery I was faced with, the “what if it happens again” thoughts came to mind. Just beginning the process of transportation, treatment, paying for it and recovery I was jumping to the next time it happens and how I will deal with it before I have even begun to deal with the present situation. Now that’s how a lifelong Buddhist approaches the be here now, perfect imperfection!

 The thoughts percolate in the pain of the moment, with every movement of the leg, with every contraction of the muscles, when every attempt to alleviate the pain brings more pain. The worry about the next time germinates in the agony of the present and while wondering if I can stand this pain the mind puts it in a twisted perspective that maybe it isn’t as bad as the pain could be the next time.

After the Floating Doctors tried their best to reduce or relocate the hip while I was lying on my kitchen floor Otis told me that i showed a lot of courage to let them try it so many times during that adventure. I shrugged it off because I didn’t look it as an act of courage only necessity and I didn’t realize it was going to happen twice again. I couldn’t apply the word to my situation because I viewed courage as a battlefield word, one applied to either heroic deed or dreaded illness. The word worn by people who throw themselves on a hand grenade to save their mates or describe their battle with cancer. People willing to die for their convictions are courageous not some dude with a bad hip. Calling myself courageous seemed arrogant and uttered by the same voice that had begged for the doctors to stop their efforts in a high pitched plaintive squeal seemed wrong.

Reading Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram during this latest hip adventure, I was impressed by the brilliance and eloquence of all of his words and struck by the timeliness of one of his thoughts, “One of the ironies of courage, and the reason we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.” I’ll display courage on your behalf but not for me.

After that time on the floor of my kitchen with those painful moments and all the ones to follow until recovery weeks later I didn’t dwell on the “next time” thoughts. I just tried to get the present one over with so I could resume what I viewed as my normal life. Oh I did try to humor the situation by saying that “the next time this happens” they were not going to get my phone call for help but rather someone would either notice I had not been seen lately or notice a strange smell emanating from my apartment. Apparently I was the only one who saw the humor in the silly comments. But call I have twice more. There is no other choice. I can’t wait for it to go  away like a headache or heal on it’s own while I continued to function as well as I could through my normal routine. I couldn’t move without the agonizing grip of the pain and it wasn’t going to heal on it’s own like a sprain or even a break that would heal into a distortion. Nope it would just hang there with the leg four inches shorter than the other leg and the muscle contractions and nerve impulses the constant reminders that it wouldn’t get better on it’s own. 

 So I would plod on to cover the “distance to service”, as they say, in the shortest amount of time possible. An act of desperate necessity but not of courage. The waiting time, the boat trip, the long ride to David was the only choice for relief.

So this time when it happened again {the next time I thought about during those previous times} I knew immediately that I had to get back to the U.S. for treatment. It wasn’t because the treatment in Panama was inferior, it was because there is Medicare in the U.S. and I was already $21,000 in the hole from the last two. An emergency doctor in the hospital that did my original hip replacement in Massachusetts was “driving Miss Emma” {IV morphine} two days later. Those two days were filled with getting on and off three plane rides, two taxi rides, a fourteen hour wait at the airport in Panama City and a lot of pain. I don’t know if it was the worst pain I’ve had as it is all relative {I’ve never given birth, passed a kidney stone or been severely burned} but it was the longest duration of pain that I have had to experience.

So now I head to a rehabilitation center {a more expensive nursing home}to once again do the dance of recovery. I have had another surgery with parts removed and replaced, more staples in my ass and it’s time to get better, to move on. I don’t think of myself as courageous for getting through this several times as I believe as Nicholas Murray Butler did when he said “Necessity does the work of courage.”

A synonym for courage is pluck so if this happens again I won’t say I have been courageous, I’ll just say I’ve been plucked!