In Recovery: Here Comes the Sun

It's as if it has been winter for a year. As if I've been in hibernation for 4 seasons - a grumpy, hairy bear forgetting to emerge from my den. As my therapy continues and the pain slips away, my body has become my own again. As I move back into myself, there is a re-acquaintance, an awakening. It is glorious.

And it just so happens to be spring.

I don't have much function - I never will have full function - but I can sit on my front porch and plan what I'll plant next season. More tulips and shrubs and vines and geez, I'll prune that tree and fix that fence and stain that deck and move that...there is no end to my plans and hopes. I am not yet able to squeeze my secateurs but I am able to dream and recognize that it is just enough to sit in the spring sunshine and not hurt or fear or worry. One day soon, I'll dream to plan to write again. Teach again. Cook again. Fully live again.

My hand therapy is going well - the hand *hot tub*, massaging, gripping, stretching - stretching the tendons, the skin, all to remind my hand regularly to heal and accept its new self, to not curl into itself as is its inclination. We've gone from twice a week to once every two and soon Nicole will tell me there is nothing else she can do. The remainder of my progress is up to me. In a few months time, Dr.G will not be impressed with my solitary efforts, however, and I'll feel like a child being reprimanded.

When my wrappings first come off, I am pretty horrified by my Frankenstein-esque wrist. It takes awhile before I perversely delight in flashing my severed hand at unsuspecting friends, guests, and strangers. It wasn't truly severed, of course, but the back of my hand has a straight, thin scar running the length of my wrist. If one doesn't see the other side, it is easily imagined that my hand was lopped off and sewn back on. Plus my left hand is now shorter than my right. I am three bones short a full hand. I love that it freaks people out. I don't love that they get too mushy and sympathetic and murmur total lies like, oh, it's not so bad or I didn't even notice. Their first reactions have already given them away. I don't care how it looks at all - I am well past vanity.

So this is my new hand, my new life. I'm not so naive that I don't know this surgery, as many KD treatments have, could fail down the line, but it could be 3 or 10 years. It could be never. I know my right wrist could start to deteriorate. Could be tomorrow or 20 years from now. It's been almost four years now since my initial symptoms starting making themselves known - like a hungry, cranky toddler. Gradually more impossible to ignore.

These thoughts, these worries are pushed far back into my mind - they are only possible futures. My now is a new lease on life. A chiefly pain-free life with hope and plans for progress. It seems like years since it's been here but...

Here Comes the Sun:

	Beatles - Here Comes The Sun .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine