Jul. 22, 2005 - 19:47 MDT

COMMAND PERFORMANCE

Night wanes, my body says, "Hey man, pit stop," my body turns on itself and says, "You gotta be kidding." Thus begins a normal happy day here, with my stubborn body fighting itself.

This robot makes the aforementioned pit stop and falls back into bed. But won't let me go back to sleep, 'cause that way lies trouble. So a certain amount of time is spent in assaying what the morning glitches in the hitches are and twisting and turning to try to ease things a bit.

A bit of comic opera then, if dear Heather gets up first (which is often) and is feeling up to it she makes the coffee. I can't understand how she can do it but she tells me that she doesn't use the hand and arm attached to the recently repaired shoulder. If she says so, it is so.

If I make the coffee there is a certain amount of sitting on the couch with my head in my hands, still trying to coax my body into good behavior. Eventually the coffee is made and poured for the both of us, single doses or double doses depending on who got up first. If she did, her first cup is about half gone when I pour mine and top her's off.

Then I creak and hobble out to get the morning paper, give her the main section and take the comic and entertainment section (that's about all I can stand in the morning)to the table, grab a banana, dole out my pills and prepare to enjoy life as much as I can.

Then it is a version of show and tell, "How was your night ?" is tossed back and forth, sometimes takes a while for us to put it all together.

Heather is doing rather well, but often wakes up in pain. She thinks that perhaps she rolls onto her bad shoulder or gets in the wrong position in some way or another. And with me it is in degrees, pain is there -- sometimes worse than others and can usually be eased by gentle exercises. Sometimes using a Percocet.

The music swells and our day really begins. Often errands are scheduled which in the summer we try to do early if doctor's appointments are not scheduled by the doctor for afternoon. It's a bit slow this getting going in the car, we don't move as easily or rapidly as we once did, and getting my oxygen squared away so that I can use it and yet drive takes up time too.

We are not in grave danger or anything like that, just have to take it easy and not over do or expect too much of ourselves. Sometimes at the store we use grocery carts as walkers, Heather putting the purchases in her cart and me, driving the empty. There has been a bit of a change since her surgery. We use one cart, I push and put purchases in it, Heather walking and holding onto the handle with her good hand. We regulate the speed we move by who is hurting the most.

Most activities are carefully thought out so as to avoid any problems of overdoing, overstretching or lifting too much, else the result is truly painful if common sense is not used.

We have good times, times with each other and with family too. Just that we try to regulate our lives to be out and back before rush hour (which is not always successful), home before or by dark, not overeating even though the food is delicious.

We are in pretty good condition for the shape we're in I can say positively. The daily opera here might be comic including THE DANCE OF THE OWIES but after all it is our response to a COMMAND PERFORMANCE . . . . . . . . . .

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