Switching Up Meals

Nothing but ice chips were offered to me in the hospital for 24 hours after I fell.  No food was fine.  Didn't feel like it; didn't miss it.  It actually took a few days for me to start getting my appetite back, and even then my old companion Dark Chocolate Craving was subdued.  I decided not to invite it back, well, at least not to the same degree.  One line of reasoning says sugar is acidic to the body and therefore not conducive to bone building.  Diabetes is also a risk factor in my family.  Etc, etc.

The other big change that Steve and I are trying is switching our main meal from evening to midday.  I remember my parents doing this at about our age and it has served them well.  So for the last several weeks, we've had breakfast, dinner, supper instead of breakfast, lunch, dinner.  Because Steve is retired now and it's winter and people aren't eating out much because of COVID-19, this has been a fairly easy swap.  Light suppers are good, sometimes just a big salad, or a bit of leftover something, or just popcorn.  Tonight we had a baked sweet potato with fixins; last night roasted veggies and walnuts with apple salad.  Don't forget the protein.  It works.  :-]   

Tracking Insurance

 We have not seen the hospital or surgery bills yet, but some of the others are starting to come in.  I am not a numbers person, so trying to keep all the charges and payments straight is stressful.  But I feel like it's my job to stay on top of what's happening with my own medical expenses.  Ugg.

A friend from the Fitness Center was hit by a car as she walked across Florida Ave near her home a year ago.  She has recovered, but said that dealing with insurance became a full-time job for her for months afterward.  

An added complication for us is that Steve retired this fall and we switched from employer-sponsored insurance to Medicare.  So there's a new system to figure out.  My care on all counts so far has been commendable, and I'm very thankful for what the insurance pays!  So enough complaining, Self.  Just stick with tracking it.

Vaccinated

This afternoon Steve and I got our first of the two covid vaccines. We arrived at five minutes till the appointed time and had been inoculated by five after!  A fifteen minute wait and we were free to go.  That was it.  Both feeling fine so far.

A new post-accident return to normalcy today is that I started working on a lesson plan for the International Women's Connection next week:  Lincoln's Loves and Losses.

Two fun facts:  Lincoln's step mom was a great benefit to him although she was rather suddenly added to the family.  And Lincoln was once accidentally engaged, a commitment he was happy to get out of.

My True Love

 Even though we weren't youngsters when we wed, Steve and I have been married for a long time, pushing 40 years.  We each encourage the other in our particular strong points.  He keeps me open to adventure and I keep him more healthy.  He keeps me from a gloomy outlook and I occasionally throw reality into his optimism.  I tolerate watching a suspenseful thriller with him and he can sit through a seniors-experiencing-character-building-events flick with me.  Haha!  We've learned how to live together companionably.

Having one person suddenly disabled is a challenge though.  Habits and roles have to change and that takes grace from both parties.  We've hit our stride fairly well, but that first weekend we had an unhappy disagreement on how many white board markers I "needed" from upstairs.

The thing is, some of my OCD tendencies have come more into focus now that I can't just do whatever I want to do, like make sure those blinds are hanging at the same length or that the one fading flower is pulled out of that bouquet back behind the table where the walker cannot go.  I'm constantly picking up little bits of this and that off the floor, and it's bothering me that I cannot vacuum.

Obviously I can't be putting this pickiness on someone else, so I learn to deal with it, to put it off, or to figure out a creative way to get it done myself.

Steve has been great taking care of everything that is needed:  shopping, getting meals on the table, cleaning up, patiently taking items from here to there.  (I can move well enough, but how to carry a plate with hands on the walker?)  He's had to do a lot of taxi service to PT and other appointments.  Right now this involves him getting out of the car and setting up the walker so I can get out—four times for each trip.  He even build a temporary ramp in the garage!  And just the last few days he has a therapy assignment to help that aforementioned cranky thigh figure out what it's supposed to be doing.

So this is a public thank you to My True Love.  💕

Breaking a Non-existent Bone

Turns out there's some ambiguity about what a hip is.  We speak of breaking a hip, but apparently a hip is not a bone that can be broken—this despite the lyric, "The hip bone's connected to the thigh bone."  A hip is a joint, the coming together of the top of the leg bone (femur) into the socket of the pelvic bones.  (I say boneS, plural, because there are three of them that bond with each other at puberty.)

So usually a broken hip means a fractured femur, broken near its top into the joint area.  This is what happened to me and this is my non-medical understanding.🥴

Upstairs!

 For two and a half weeks I did not go upstairs to our bedroom or closet or my office.  But this morning I made it!  Bravo!  Thanks to Steve for encouragement and support.😘

Except for dust, things were in fairly good order.  Over ten years ago my friend Rebecca was in an awful auto accident in Indiana.  It was months and months before she even got back home to Champaign, much less up the stairs of her house.  So I took a lesson:  don't wear ratty undies, and have the bed made when you leave home.  One never knows.

Out of the blue, I texted the accomplishment to my two sibs:              "I'm upstairs!"

My brother in Indy responded:                                                         "Oh, I didn't even hear you come in the house."  Wah wah wah

Prologue in My Pocket

 What does one think about lying, in the ER as paperwork is processed, x-rays studied, decisions made?  What to focus on so as to keep from going bonkers during two and a half hours on the operating table?  Or waiting for sleep in a strange room with unfamiliar lights and sounds?  I’m relieved to say I had a recently acquired resource.  In the weeks leading up to this accident I had been memorizing my own mixed-translation version of John's prologue, in the Christian Bible.  I printed and pocketed the text, then pondered and practiced it while walking of a morning.  Having something positive to focus on while I was in these situations was helpful and calming.  Here's my version.

In the beginning was the Word.  The Word was in fellowship with God the Father.  And the Word was, as to his essence, absolute deity.                                                      This Word was, in the beginning, close beside God.

All things came into existence through him, and without him,                                         there came into being not even one thing that exists. 

Life was in him.  And this life was the light of the human race.  The light is constantly shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overwhelm it.

The Word was the light that spiritually enlightens every human being.                      This Word, the genuine light, was coming into the cosmos.

He was in the world and the world was made through him, and the world did not recognize him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to anyone who did accept him, he gave the right to become born ones of God, God's children, yes, to anyone who believed in his name.  They were born not from blood, or from physical passion, or from the intention of a man, but from God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, pitched a tent among us, moved into the neighborhood.  And we saw his glory, glory as of the Father's one and only, full of grace and truth.

Out of his full store we have all received grace upon grace. 

For the law was given through Moses;                                                                         grace and truth came through Jesus the Anointed.

No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God's  splendor, but the one and only Son—who is himself God, uniquely begotten, and who is intimately close to the Father—he has made him known, has unfolded for us the full explanation of who God truly is.

NIV, NT Wright, David Bently Hart, Kenneth S Wuest, NEB, Message, Passion translation mix