Hip Replacement

I attended a two-and-a-half hour class on joint replacement Tuesday. One of the many things I learned about is a thing called a "hip kit," which consists of a "reacher," a long shoehorn, a half-cylinder device for helping you get your socks on, and a long-handled scrub sponge (so you can wash your lower legs and feet). 
Hip Kit:

This was interesting to me, because my daughter sent me a link to something like this just the other day, since I haven't been able to reach my left foot in almost a year. 
When you have a hip replacement, you are not supposed to bend at the waist any sharper than 90°.  Like, you can sit up straight, but don't lean forward (this will be a challenge). Or, you can bend over enough to touch your knees, but not any lower. Hopefully that is only while you're healing from surgery, and not forever. I didn't think to ask during class, but will certainly ask the doctor.  Anyway, the PT guy came in and was talking about, and demonstrating some of the assistive devices they intend to send home with us. I thought the sock-putter-onner and the long shoehorn were awesome (especially since my daughter sent me a link to such devices just the other day). 
"But," I asked, "how are we supposed to fasten our shoes, once we get them on?"
Easy - Elastic shoelaces! 

So you install the elastic shoelaces in your shoes, and then you use the sock-putter-onner to put on your socks, and then you use the reacher to grasp the tongue of your shoe, slip your socked foot into the shoe, and then use the shoehorn to seat your foot securely in your shoe. Do the operated leg first, then the unoperated leg. Then, when you're ready to take your socks and shoes off, the reacher can help you do that, too. Somebody was having a good day when they thought those things up!

I will be SOOOOOO happy to be able to wear socks again. And my gym shoes, too.

Poor Little Annie

Annie has been favoring her right foreleg, and limping, so I took her to the vet.

 She has some sort of injury, including an abrasion to the pad of her paw, upon which she walks. The vet (trimmed her toenails and) bandaged up Annie's paw. When they came back into the exam room where I was waiting, the first thing Annie did was try to figure out how to get the door open so she could escape. They design those places pretty well, so that she was unable to escape, so she "hid" under the chairs instead, where I snapped the photo showing her cute little pink bandage.
They sent up home with pills and The CONE. The vet tech called it "The Cone of Healing," (although the rest of the world knows it as "The Cone of Shame.") The instructions were to keep the bandage on for three days, and the cone for seven days. I took the second picture of Annie wearing the cone. Poor thing, she was so miserable! 

After a couple hours, I took pity on her. I called her over to me and explained that the reason she was wearing this was so that she would leave her foot bandage alone. I said I'd take it off, but she has to NOT lick or chew on that foot bandage. "Do you understand?" I asked her. Then I removed the cone.

She is pretty good about, if I tell her to stop doing something, she does. So I went about my business, keeping one eye on her. When she started for the bandage, I said, "Hey. You have to leave that alone, or I'll have to put the hat back on you," picking up the "hat" (cone) to show her. 

She has done an amazing job of leaving her bandage alone, good doggy.

Grandma Susie

When Daddy was in medical school we moved to a little house, much like the one I live in now. The address was 1853 Corrine Drive  (pronounced core-REEN). It was about a block or so off N. Eastern (now MLK Drive). It was a little bit north of Springlake Amusement Park, which cost a dime to get in back then. That’s where we lived when Kathryn Ann was born. I remember the grown-ups talking about the house having “Central Heat” which meant that it had a wall heater in the hallway instead of a floor furnace in the living room. That was fairly central, all right, but it sure did get cold in my room at night during the winter. I don’t remember complaining about it, but Grandma Susie knew, somehow, the way she always did, and I think it was for Christmas that year (or maybe my birthday) she got me the prettiest pink ELECTRIC BLANKET. OMG, I remember how much I loved that blanket, and loved being warm, and loved Grandma Susie for thinking of it. I think I asked her one time, “How did you know?” She just did. Maybe she’d been cold in bed before, herself. Grandma Susie.

Thursday

I don't remember quite how long we've been doing this, whether it's been two and a half or three years, now, but a small group of friends have been coming to my house most Thursdays to engage in a sort of meditative process for purposes of spiritual growth and of building the bridge between the worlds. Every week takes some dedication, especially when two of the attendees live, maybe, thirty, forty miles away. We often take off for a few weeks in the late summer when one of the attendees goes up north to visit her family, so we have recently reconvened.
Yes, it takes some dedication to come every week. Our attendance has grown and diminished over time,  eventually settling on the current four (including myself), and our evenings are usually interesting. Sometimes (often) someone queries our non-physical advisors as to what is it that we should be doing. This question came up again tonight. My thought nearly always is, "Remain willing," as in keep showing up and "don't quit five minutes before the miracle," as some of my friends might say. But tonight when the question came up, almost immediately someone suggested, what if we go to meeting every other week, instead of every week.
Now, I must say, it is amazing that we have been meeting as long as we have. There are some who didn't think we'd last as long as six months, so we've already blown expectations. And, to be honest, there have been times that I thought, gee, if everyone wanted to call the whole thing off, I'd be okay with that. It's at my house, so I have that responsibility. But now that someone has said, "What if we cut back to every other week," (and we are vey clear about which weeks we'd be "on" and which weeks we'd be "off,") I find myself thinking this might be the beginning of the end. I can't help but wonder, if we're meeting every other week, how long will it be until people find themselves busy on "our" week, and then dribble off to nothing. I mean, a business that doesn't keep regular hours doesn't seem to stay in business vey well. We're not a restaurant or a nail salon, but I think it won't be that long before people start getting mixed up about when they're supposed to be here, and when they're not. I will be surprised if we're still meeting by January first. So we'll see. I'd love to be wrong about this. We'll just have to see.

Meanwhile, I'll try not to be such a stranger to this blog. I know, "promises, promises!" Maybe we'll see about that, too. I just realized the last time I posted here in No, Really was in October of 2016, nearly two years ago! And that was the only post of that year! Okay, well, I'll try to do better.