6 August 2010 Telling time by aches and pains

6 August 2010 Telling time by aches and pains


I as did most of our age group grew up hearing the older family members and friends predicting changes in the weather by what body part hurt. Mostly, we gave it some credence but didn’t see it as our future.

The future is now the present, and the present we received is one we’d like to re-wrap and pass on to someone else. Now it’s us complaining that our injured joints, bones, and other anatomical features forewarn us of changing weather.

I’ve been able to do so for a long time courtesy of technical augmentation and repairs, followed by gratuitous shrapnel additions. So have a lot of other VietNam Vets. So have vets from more recent wars. Those shrapnel injuries and those injuries caused by more devastating and damaging insults really get your attention.

But now the aging process has caught up. Those bone growths caused by the various arthritic diseases and breakdowns are also sources of weather prediction. So are soft tissue injuries that heal, or not, at the pace of molasses rolling uphill in January. They tell us when storms are likely to roll through, when long damp stretches are likely to happen. I’ve learned to listen to them.

Today, I’m listening to an arthritic knee, to cervical and lumbar vertebra, to a bone spur or two, and to some soft tissue damage in both rotor cuffs that tell its August.

The neck and back tell me that it is after 0500 and that my pain meds level has fallen below the therapeutic range. The knee tells me that I’ve done my two-mile hike with Mike today and therefore it is after 1030. The lessened knee pain tomorrow will tell me that it is either Saturday or Sunday, when we don’t walk. The shoulders tell me that it is August and that both shoulders are due to be injected with cortisol. Those injections will let me buy some time to use the chain saw and splitter to lay in firewood and clean up some blow down.

The sting of sweat in my eyes tells me that it is after February and before October.

With all that time telling ability, the first item I put on in the morning is still my wrist watch. A lifetime of working in fields that demand being on-time as a way of life still drives my day. While I have no place I have to be, most days, I don’t want to be late getting there.

I just made reservations for dinner tomorrow night. We’ll work the gate at the dance again. Gloria’s champing at the bit to get back onto the dance floor. But she made the decision to sit this one out. I think it’s wise on her part to allow these new injections some time to settle in. But it’s not my knee. Looking back, given my non-dancing status when we met, I’m really surprised that she took a second look at me. Lucky me!

Shabbat Shalom!