If you haven’t read It’s Hard To Run With An IV In Your Arm Part 2 you can click on the link and try to catch up.
Or you can go check out Another Friday Night At Urgent Care and when I say I spent 40 minutes getting an MRI done on my arm you’ll know why I went.
I didn’t hear from the surgeon today so I suppose the news will come on Monday and I’ll find out if I have what they call a Distal Biceps Tendon Tear.
The doc told me that if it is torn and I don’t do anything I’ll lose 40 percent of my strength in my left arm.
Part of me thought about saying screw it because I have ample natural strength and if I lose 40 percent I’ll still have plenty and then I gave myself a figurative slap across the face.
That figurative slap was issued because if a friend or family member was in my position I’d tell them to get their arm taken care of. I’d tell them unless there is some medical reason in which repairing their arm didn’t make sense to get it done.
So I am listening to my own advice and if the MRI shows I tore that sucker apart I’ll do what I need to do to get it fixed.
A friend asked if I was scared because of that moment in October, you know the one where I lost half my blood and got a four day trip to that hospital in Grapevine.
The answer is no, I am not scared. That was a freak accident and when you beat dying as I did you it changes things a bit.
I am frustrated and angry that this happened and how it might impede some of my plans. It feels like an unnecessary pivot that I could have avoided.
But life doesn’t ask you if these moments are convenient. Life doesn’t care if they happen at a good time or bad time.
The only choice life gives you is to deal with it and that is what I’ll do.
Doc says that after 40 some years of lifting that tendon had a lot of wear and tear on it. So if it turns out I need to have it repaired he says it might feel stronger and more secure on the other side.
I see the truth in that but I also take it with a grain of salt. I asked him if I could drill a hole in his arm and w could rehab together.
He laughed and told me I have a good sense of humor.
I’ll need it cuz it will take a few months before I have rehabbed my way back to where I want to be. That is assuming I need the surgery, it is possible I won’t. Fingers crossed right.
Find ‘Truth’ Where You Can
I have always liked those rules for being human. Every time I see this picture I think about looking up the original Sanskrit to see if the translation is accurate.
I think about having been trained not to just trust but to verify and then I get distracted by other things.
What it tells me is that I don’t need to verify the translation or confirm where this came from other than to satisfy my own curiosity.
Because those nine lines make sense to me. I may not agree with every part or piece or may have my own interpretation but on the whole it works.
This is the kind of ‘truth’ I referred to in the subhead. The kind of advice or mantra you can take and make work for you.
Because we all need a code to live by and something we can hang our hat on. It doesn’t need to be a belief in a higher power or fear of divine punishment any more than being incentivized by divine reward.
It just needs to be something that we can lean on when the hard times come. Because those moments will come and they will happen more than once.
They’ll come in different forms. The man/woman who said they love you may decide they don’t or run away because they think it is too hard.
The career you thought would be yours forever may end because of the choices and decisions of others and you’ll have to do something else.
People you thought would be in your life forever may disappear so you’ll need to have something to center yourself and hold onto.
Sometimes I think about an episode of Lost called The Constant, sometimes it connects to all this in a way that makes a ton of sense to me.
Epilogue
That is me with the beard and pink fanny pack. We’re at a kiosk in Afula listening to one of the Israeli paratroopers that liberated Jerusalem. He is in a famous photo that many have seen, alongside two others.
Anyway that kid in the picture is thinking about making aliyah. He is 25, single and can’t picture that one day he’ll be sitting in Texas typing these words.
He is lost in thought about a future he thinks he is going to build. If I could make like Gumby I’d step into the picture and wrap an arm around him.
I’d talk with him about what is to come but I am not Gumby and I step into books, pictures or travel back in time.
I can only look at the picture and know that though I remember much about that time I no longer look at it through 25 year-old eyes.
And that is mostly ok, mostly meaning there is a part of me that misses some of the innocence that once existed.
And part of me that misses some of the energy and drive you have when you haven’t spent decades fighting life’s battles.
Don’t get me wrong, life is pretty good in many ways and it is not uncommon for people to ask why I smile so often.
But there are moments where I miss that guy.
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