On January 20th of this year, I had surgery to clean scar tissue, bones chips, jagged edges, and other junk out of my right ankle. The ankle joint is now fused, in an attempt at long-term pain control. The hope/ plan is to get me body moving and my health back.
I came home from the hospital the following day. Jay, my 2-year-old, was legitimately disturbed. What was the large mass on my leg? What were those extra legs? WHAT happened to my dad? I haven't seen you in 2 days, and now THIS? He said "Nooooooo?!?!" and backed away.
I knelt some distance away. I showed him the crutches, and said, "Daddy needs these to help him walk for a little while. It's okay." I set the crutches aside to de-emphasize them. I pulled my leg up and showed him the cast. I knocked on it.
"See? Daddy has a shell on his leg! It's okay. Do you want to touch it?"
"Nooooooooo....!?!?!". Still pretty uncertain, pretty weirded out. I tucked the cast behind me, and smiled at him. I lifted my arms just slightly.
"Huggy?"
It had to be on his terms.
He shook his head, no.
I smiled and said, "Okay. Whenever you want."
I pulled myself into the rocking chair, and propped my foot up on the cat tree.
Laura distracted him with a sippy cup of milk. It was good to change the subject for a bit. This was kind of intense for him.
A little later he came over. He looked at the cast. He said, "Are you hurt?"
I said that I WAS hurt, but better now. "I'm okay now, honey."
Some of the confusion and fear left his face. Dad seemed okay, and well, if it's just an "owie", well, he knew what to do about that.
He walked around me and stood next to the cast. Leaning over, he gave it a kiss and looked up.
"Better?"
Yes, sweetheart. SO much better.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Moving ahead.
Time to move back the clock.
Or at least slow the damn thing down.
Graphic content in this paragraph; move ahead if you're squeamish:
On October 6th, 1999, I was leading an Outward Bound semester group up the Whale's Tail, a climb buried deep in the heart of Cochise's Stronghold in the Sonoran Desert. I fell, shattering my ankle. My protection system held up, but my heel took the brunt of the fall by hitting a small lip of rock about fifteen feet into the 22-foot fall. I looked down and saw my disfigured lower leg- foot looking like it had been duct-taped beside my ankle, rather than hanging below it. As my belayer slowly lowered me, a portion of my tibia popped through the skin. We had just gone from "in trouble" to really, seriously fucked.
It took two groups of Outward Bounders and instructors seven hours to get me out to a van where I could be transported 50 miles to a hospital. Along the way, we had to post two people in front of the group with ski poles, tapping on rocks, sweeping brush, and clearing the path for the carriers. Clearing the path of what? Rattlesnakes. We encountered four of them, all of different species. All of these people were endangered by my poor judgment. It was a nightmare. Pain control varied from 9 (on a scale of 1-10) to 11, depending on whether the Tylenol with codeine was still in my system. That was the physical part. That was the easy part.
Throughout my recovery, I was told over and over how I would soon be right back to normal. I'm not sure if the docs believed it, or were just trying to keep me positive. It never happened. I went back to work for OB for one more year, but an accident like that in a professional setting was enough to have folks at Outward Bound gently start nudging me out the door. I took the hint and left. Many of my former co-workers and friends from OB will not "friend" me on Facebook. I burned so many bridges...
Since then arthritis has become my constant companion. One orthopedist looked at my radiographs and said, "There's 'bad', there's 'really screwed', and then there's you. I don't know how you walked in here."
I knew this, of course, but the pain in itself was tolerable. The problem is that it cut deeply into my exercise tolerance. I became fat and lethargic, and recently my bloodwork has reflected this. My a1c and fasting blood glucose are way too high. My blood pressure is too high. My cholesterol is too high. My doctor put it plainly, "This ship is sailing in the wrong direction. And, it's picking up speed." Drugs would help, but I needed more than that if I want to be a father for very long.
10 days ago I underwent arthrodesis, a procedure to clean out the arthritic junk and scar tissue in my ankle, and to permanently fuse the joint. The main point of the procedure is to provide permanent pain control. I'm non-weight-bearing for a minimum of six weeks. Then I trade this huge cast for a boot, and some physical therapy.
Beyond the surgery, I see this as a jumping-off point for better choices and more activity in my life. I have been eating better, and actually exercising more than before. By lying on my back and moving my body around, I'm toning up while I also release the energy stored in my unused right leg. I'm also hoping to stave off at least some of the crazy muscle atrophy that happens so fast in cases like this.
Goals? a1c down into the mid-6's, hopefully better. Other bloodwork into normal ranges. Normal blood pressure. Remove the "morbidly" from my status as obese. My plan is to drop under 200 pounds this year, for the first time since I moved east 12 years ago. I expect to run a 5k race before the year is over, hopefully before the end of the summer. How I feel when this is over in March will help me to set a better timetable.
What does this have to do with my son Jay?
Everything.
He will never have what I have right now- a living and loving father when he's 54 years old. BUT, I will do what I can to be his father as long, and as well, as ever I can. He will likely decide at some point he doesn't need me so much, but that's okay. I will know then what I know now; nothing replaces having dad and mom a phone call away. Nothing.
Or at least slow the damn thing down.
Graphic content in this paragraph; move ahead if you're squeamish:
On October 6th, 1999, I was leading an Outward Bound semester group up the Whale's Tail, a climb buried deep in the heart of Cochise's Stronghold in the Sonoran Desert. I fell, shattering my ankle. My protection system held up, but my heel took the brunt of the fall by hitting a small lip of rock about fifteen feet into the 22-foot fall. I looked down and saw my disfigured lower leg- foot looking like it had been duct-taped beside my ankle, rather than hanging below it. As my belayer slowly lowered me, a portion of my tibia popped through the skin. We had just gone from "in trouble" to really, seriously fucked.
It took two groups of Outward Bounders and instructors seven hours to get me out to a van where I could be transported 50 miles to a hospital. Along the way, we had to post two people in front of the group with ski poles, tapping on rocks, sweeping brush, and clearing the path for the carriers. Clearing the path of what? Rattlesnakes. We encountered four of them, all of different species. All of these people were endangered by my poor judgment. It was a nightmare. Pain control varied from 9 (on a scale of 1-10) to 11, depending on whether the Tylenol with codeine was still in my system. That was the physical part. That was the easy part.
Throughout my recovery, I was told over and over how I would soon be right back to normal. I'm not sure if the docs believed it, or were just trying to keep me positive. It never happened. I went back to work for OB for one more year, but an accident like that in a professional setting was enough to have folks at Outward Bound gently start nudging me out the door. I took the hint and left. Many of my former co-workers and friends from OB will not "friend" me on Facebook. I burned so many bridges...
Since then arthritis has become my constant companion. One orthopedist looked at my radiographs and said, "There's 'bad', there's 'really screwed', and then there's you. I don't know how you walked in here."
I knew this, of course, but the pain in itself was tolerable. The problem is that it cut deeply into my exercise tolerance. I became fat and lethargic, and recently my bloodwork has reflected this. My a1c and fasting blood glucose are way too high. My blood pressure is too high. My cholesterol is too high. My doctor put it plainly, "This ship is sailing in the wrong direction. And, it's picking up speed." Drugs would help, but I needed more than that if I want to be a father for very long.
10 days ago I underwent arthrodesis, a procedure to clean out the arthritic junk and scar tissue in my ankle, and to permanently fuse the joint. The main point of the procedure is to provide permanent pain control. I'm non-weight-bearing for a minimum of six weeks. Then I trade this huge cast for a boot, and some physical therapy.
Beyond the surgery, I see this as a jumping-off point for better choices and more activity in my life. I have been eating better, and actually exercising more than before. By lying on my back and moving my body around, I'm toning up while I also release the energy stored in my unused right leg. I'm also hoping to stave off at least some of the crazy muscle atrophy that happens so fast in cases like this.
Goals? a1c down into the mid-6's, hopefully better. Other bloodwork into normal ranges. Normal blood pressure. Remove the "morbidly" from my status as obese. My plan is to drop under 200 pounds this year, for the first time since I moved east 12 years ago. I expect to run a 5k race before the year is over, hopefully before the end of the summer. How I feel when this is over in March will help me to set a better timetable.
What does this have to do with my son Jay?
Everything.
He will never have what I have right now- a living and loving father when he's 54 years old. BUT, I will do what I can to be his father as long, and as well, as ever I can. He will likely decide at some point he doesn't need me so much, but that's okay. I will know then what I know now; nothing replaces having dad and mom a phone call away. Nothing.
Intro to J and j
Hi, I'm Jeff.
You: (Hi, Jeff!)
I'm an old man, and I became a dad not too long ago. This blog is my way of sharing the ups and downs of this journey, exploring the Wonders and WTF's of first-time fatherhood in one's 50's.
Was 52 pretty old to become a dad? Well, yeah. My high school classmates, nobly and innobly re-connected to my life via Facebook, are largely grandparents now. My body barely survived that "newborn" tunnel, that tube of darkness that lasted until he started sleeping more than an hour between feedings. My mind, well, maybe it didn't survive completely intact.
Is 54 pretty old to be chasing a toddler, to be teaching him to think and speak and use manners? Maybe not so much. It feels old when I watch my son, Jay (short for Jeff jr.) take the cat's wand toy and run along the kitchen counter with it, raking every last bit of mail, checkbooks, cat treats, fruit, pens and pencils and other eyeball-jabby things, onto the floor, punctuating it with the cereal bowl I left earlier (bad dad). It doesn't feel so old when I feel like I know at least something about what to say to him when he sits on the cat.
It feels old when I do the math and remember I'll be about 70 years old when he graduates from high school. It doesn't feel so old when I can rake a pile of leaves and jump into them with him, and actually FEEL his joy. It feels old when I see his stubbornness. He's wicked smart, and doesn't want to be taught ANYTHING. He has to figure it out for himself, which is mostly great. Except when it isn't. He will soon be sporting a shirt that says "I do all my own stunts." If he lives that long.
It feels old when he has trouble sleeping, and I end up spending the last half of the night sacked out next to him on his bedroom floor. It doesn't feel so bad when I notice he has cuddled up tight, as if there was no better place on earth than on the floor next to dad (I should note here that the floor is covered with foam squares, prepped for that wonderful day when he throws open his wings and fledges from his crib and onto the floor).
It feels old when he feels the need to express his exasperation violently, hitting and kicking. Not so much when I have found a way to keep calm, talk him through it, and he realizes on his own that hugs and kisses feel so much better.
It feels great when he begs me to sing or dance with him, which is almost any time of the day. I happily join in, and the delight in his eyes melts away at least some of the fatigue from a day of toddler-chasing. Not so much when we're in the car, and I start bobbing my head and getting into Ozomatli's great children's CD, especially Moose on the Loose, only to hear a stern little voice from the back seat:
Dad.
No.
So, it'll be here, the ups and downs, the ins and outs, some MacGyver tips as they come along, and our story.
You: (Hi, Jeff!)
I'm an old man, and I became a dad not too long ago. This blog is my way of sharing the ups and downs of this journey, exploring the Wonders and WTF's of first-time fatherhood in one's 50's.
Was 52 pretty old to become a dad? Well, yeah. My high school classmates, nobly and innobly re-connected to my life via Facebook, are largely grandparents now. My body barely survived that "newborn" tunnel, that tube of darkness that lasted until he started sleeping more than an hour between feedings. My mind, well, maybe it didn't survive completely intact.
Is 54 pretty old to be chasing a toddler, to be teaching him to think and speak and use manners? Maybe not so much. It feels old when I watch my son, Jay (short for Jeff jr.) take the cat's wand toy and run along the kitchen counter with it, raking every last bit of mail, checkbooks, cat treats, fruit, pens and pencils and other eyeball-jabby things, onto the floor, punctuating it with the cereal bowl I left earlier (bad dad). It doesn't feel so old when I feel like I know at least something about what to say to him when he sits on the cat.
It feels old when I do the math and remember I'll be about 70 years old when he graduates from high school. It doesn't feel so old when I can rake a pile of leaves and jump into them with him, and actually FEEL his joy. It feels old when I see his stubbornness. He's wicked smart, and doesn't want to be taught ANYTHING. He has to figure it out for himself, which is mostly great. Except when it isn't. He will soon be sporting a shirt that says "I do all my own stunts." If he lives that long.
It feels old when he has trouble sleeping, and I end up spending the last half of the night sacked out next to him on his bedroom floor. It doesn't feel so bad when I notice he has cuddled up tight, as if there was no better place on earth than on the floor next to dad (I should note here that the floor is covered with foam squares, prepped for that wonderful day when he throws open his wings and fledges from his crib and onto the floor).
It feels old when he feels the need to express his exasperation violently, hitting and kicking. Not so much when I have found a way to keep calm, talk him through it, and he realizes on his own that hugs and kisses feel so much better.
It feels great when he begs me to sing or dance with him, which is almost any time of the day. I happily join in, and the delight in his eyes melts away at least some of the fatigue from a day of toddler-chasing. Not so much when we're in the car, and I start bobbing my head and getting into Ozomatli's great children's CD, especially Moose on the Loose, only to hear a stern little voice from the back seat:
Dad.
No.
So, it'll be here, the ups and downs, the ins and outs, some MacGyver tips as they come along, and our story.
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