While I was making other plans, part deux

Thanks to everyone who joined my Patreon feed or upped their contributions. I’m still worried, but a little less so now.

Some good news. The post-op pain has stabilized at a level where the occasional Tylenol will handle it nicely. If Dr. Wilson the anesthesiologist is listening, damn! You are good at your job. The timing of the fadeout on the nerve block spared me agony without overdoing intrusive chemicals. This means I will not have to touch the opiates, an outcome for which I am deeply thankful.

The kneepads I ordered yesterday arrived this morning. Big win – crawling doesn’t hurt now, which improves my options. Also helps with dismounting to the floor off a toilet, which is one of those things you will never realize is a big deal until you have to do it.

But the biggest when is the real wheelchair. My mother is connected to a neighborhood non-profit in West Chester that loans out this kind of equipment. When she first went there the only visible option was a service chair, a wheeled chair designed to be moved by a nurse or assistant rather than to enable the user to self-propel, so that’s what she brought back.

It was awful. A service chair doesn’t cope well with rugs or doorsills. The caster-like wheels on the front are perverse; any kind of turning or backing motion inevitably leaved them in a twisted state that make maneuvering nigh-impossible unless the person moving the chair can brute-muscle it around, which Cathy can’t do.

Mom went back and found out about the basement where they keep the good stuff, and now I have a real wheelchair – that is, the kind designed to be driven by the user’s arms. Massive improvement! The lesser part of it is that the big wheels cope better with sills and rugs; the much greater part is that I can move myself around. Having some autonomy back is, for someone with a psychology like mine, as precious as jewels.

Reduces the burden on Cathy, too. Hoicking my 245lbs around in that service chair was barely within the limits of her strength, hard work. I feel better because I can take that load off her now.

Excuse me while I wheel myself out to the kitchen for a ribeye steak from the Outback. And if, dear reader, you fail to comprehend that this, too, is therapy, you are certainly not qualified to take are of the likes o’ me.

Still trying to get my hands on a knee scooter.