Sylvia's Journal

Managing the pain and muscle relaxer pills may well reduce Axel’s pain, but for me it continues to be a pain in the neck. We are three weeks post-op and down from 8 oxys every 24 hours to only three, and hopefully today only two. Once he is off those nasty but very effective pain killers, we can use our home-grown cannabis and the elixir he extracted from the plant to ease the pain further without the constant fear of addiction. 

We were told these first four weeks would be rotten, and they are indeed. But we do see progress. He is starting to sleep through the night, missing last night’s middle-of-the-night pain pill. That is not quite happening with me yet.  I still wake up every two hours, a habit laid down that first post-op week.

Sita gave me a birthday present that she discovered in her explorations of sound and tone frequencies. I participated in a soundscape workshop, some weeks ago, that she led with two other people who know a lot about sound. She did an experiment with us. She had everyone find their favorite hertz frequency using a slider, and then put one on top of the other, and then played the compilation back to us. If you want to know how diversity adds up in a collective, that’s what we got. I suspect we only learned about the top of her exploration iceberg. Once thing that came out of it was this new toy she gave me, a tone therapy system.  It consists of two small puck-like discs that emit two sets of varying tones for three minutes. It has helped me to reduce the time between waking up every two hours and falling asleep again. It is helping Axel through his pain. It is a remarkable invention that came at exactly the right time.

We are beginning to have some visitors which is a wonderful distraction. One of these friends had a similar operation 3 years ago. Her account of that was both helpful and depressing. So many years later she is still dealing with the aftereffects of the cutting of bone and the fusion (and caging) of her lower vertebrae. On the other hand, I think she got Axel over some of his anxieties related to pain and movement.

He is moving more and better, even started to help in the kitchen where he can do everything that is at counter level. I am lining up some silver polishing chores that he can do standing up without bending.

A physical therapist comes twice a week and takes him for a walk up and down the driveway. He still walks with a walker but now and then he forgets, and he does fine. The walker is mostly to keep him from falling. We also enjoy the weekly visit of a nurse who is a riot. She is funny, caring, and encouraging especially when we talk about the pain and how to manage it.

Yesterday I visited my orthopedic surgeon to help me handle my moderate and severe arthritic knees, a condition that has gotten worse over the last 3 weeks because I have been walking for two, short back and forth sprints inside the house. I used to have a strict exercise regimen to stretch and strengthen the muscles that hold my knee joints in place. Once Axel came out of the hospital, that regimen has gone out of the window, except for a few now and then, but these are now painful to do. I got a cortisone shot in my least arthritic knee, keeping the stuff out of the more painful one because it is clear a knee operation is probably due in 2023, when Axel is mobile enough to become the primary caretaker. 

Until recently I have not minded getting older; things don’t bother me as much, I don’t care what people think of me, I don’t need to wonder what to wear every day as I did when I still had a job. But the knee joints are becoming increasingly painful.  The plane crash from which, according to the doctors, we both fully recovered, is still in our bodies. The damage done then is coming back to haunt us. It is responsible for the things we are dealing with now (Axel’s back and my ankle and knee problems). At the time we may have felt fully recovered, but that is no longer the case. There are moments when I watch people our age walk, run, play sports and the regrets come back but only for a moment, like a wave, before I go back to living in the present.