Bionic Woman

The nurse gently removes the bandage, revealing a scar, red, raised and firm to the touch, running from mid femur over the knee to the upper tibia.  Staples, holding the surgical incision together, brought to mind a zipper without the pull.

I could read Liz's mind as she looked down at her leg.  "As if my legs aren't bad enough, now I have this ugly scar making them worse."  To her, the scar represents some unsightly disfigurement used to portray evil in horror films, comic strips and fairy tales.  At a minimum, it meant no more shorts or above-the-knee skirts.

My heart, goes out to her, as she prepares to face another challenge.  Her knee had been a problem for some time, but to some extent tolerable.  Recent activity at a local gym had aggregated the pain in her knee, forcing her to try different medications, massages and physical therapy that did nothing to help alleviate her pain.  At best they provided temporary relief, but nothing to allow the normal functioning of her knee.

In the end, she saw a doctor who correctly identified it as a quality of life issue.  Did she want to lead a normal life of activity or avoid activities that caused her severe pain?  In the end, it was an easy decision -- if it meant an end to the pain, she was all in.

Surgery was three weeks ago, and everything had gone well.  Today's visit was all about taking off the dressing and getting a first look at her bionic knee.

The nurse, her name badge said "Amanda," gave an approving look as she moved Liz's leg, observing the tissue surrounding the incision site, looking for signs of infection or unusual swelling.  

"That looks really good, Liz," Amanda says, pushing back in her chair.  "Any pain or difficulties moving your knee -- outside of what's expected?"  She flashed a smile only a nurse can give.

"Not to the knee," Liz's attention remains fixated on her knee and the scar, "but there's an area around my groin where they tied the tourniquet to shut off the blood supply to my leg that really bothers me.  I'm hoping that gets better with time."

I am sitting next to Liz, having been part of her consult, surgery and recovery process.  I don't know if I'm much help.  She will be the first to tell you how I get light-headed whenever knives are involved -- in movies, opening a frozen pack of hash browns and a chocolate bunny injury that involved  a deep cut to Sean's finger and a flash of bone.   It was bad enough for me to calmly drive him to Urgent Care and confirm that he needed stitches.  Unfortunately, I had driven to the wrong clinic.

I blame it on my extra-ordinary ability of feel the pain of others. 

I know you can laugh and think I'm joking, but I'm not.  I'm not suggesting I have any kind of super power, but I've always felt like someone's pain was mine -- like one of our international students deciding to have surgery on a very sensitive area of the male anatomy.  Just thinking about the procedure makes me want to sit down.  My son seems to think I'm not a very empathetic guy, but he is wrong.

As if knowing this amazing ability of mine, Amanda -- still smiling -- reaches into a nearby drawer full of bandages and other medical necessities, and discretely takes out a staple remover.  Her slight of hand to minimize what she is going to do reminds me of numerous examples of a doctor or nurse playing hide and poke with an eight-inch needle that is about to be plunged into your backside.

 "This is the worse part of today, Liz," Amanda assure us, as the remover grabs the first of twenty-five staples and quickly pulls it from her tender flesh.

Nursing is one of the most demanding professions in the working world, requiring long hours, physical effort, and a high level of skill and professionalism.  I know, because I'm married to one.  This year, Nurse's Week kicked off on Saturday, May 6 and continued through Friday May 12.  

It's unfortunate that nurses don't get more recognition for their work, other than an occasional card, some flowers or maybe if they're lucky, a tumbler with a heart on it.  Not much respect for someone who has to watch a patient die, work weekends and holidays, clean up piss and shit, or tolerate verbal and physical abuse from patients and sometimes doctors.  And in many cases, go home and take care of the family, before doing it all over again 12 hours later.

I mention this, because I was given a "certificate of nursing" by Liz before her knee replacement, and while it was appreciated and given as a good will gesture of knowing what was involved, I had no clue of what was coming.  

And I had it easy --  I only had one patient, I was in the comfort of my own home and bed, meals were pre-cooked and ready to eat, and "real" help was only a question away.  But it every way, the time I spent taking care of, and helping Liz through the first month of her recovery, was a testament to her profession.  

Sleepless nights?  Check!  

Lots of lifting and attending to basic daily activities?  Check!  

Monitoring medications that were needed at specific times?  Check!  

Being concerned with my patient's well being?  Check!  

Finding my own time to eat and shower between patient care?  Check!  

Causing physical pain and suffering, even though you know it's the best thing to do?  Check!

Tolerating the use of enough cold and ice to think I was living in the Arctic?  Check!

Did I mention sleepless nights?  I was so tired that I couldn't sleep.  Have you ever experienced that? 

I can remember as a teenager, driving back from California with my best friends being so tired I couldn't think straight. It was so bad, I had to pull over even through we were only an hour away from home after driving for two days straight.  And coming back from a snowy Packer football game (a loss to the Atlanta Flacons in the playoffs) at four o'clock in the morning and trying to talk.  The words were coming out, but they weren't making any sense.

During the first week after her surgery, I would sleep for a short time then wake up, even though I was  dead tired.  So I grab a book to read until I can't remember what I just finished reading.  Then toss and turn some more.  I think part of the problem was having a baby monitor next to my bed so I could hear her sleeping in the room downstairs.  While the monitors worked really well -- I could hear every concerning squeak and thump coming from her bed -- I was always worried I wouldn't hear her when she wanted me.  And I had turned on the alarm (every three hours) so I wouldn't miss her shout when it was time to get more ice and another round of "guess which pill I have in my hand."  

I completely understand how someone could be given the wrong medication by a nurse in the middle of the night.  I may have done it for all I know.

But it wasn't all bad, because the best part of being a night nurse?  After struggling to get my arms in my robe and stumbling down the stairs (with both eyes closed) I would walk into her room where I could see her smiling face, caressed by the glow of a subdued night light.

At moments like that, I think I would have done anything for her.  Well, maybe not eat brussle sprouts or beets, but pretty much anything else.  There is a sense of purpose -- in the dead of night, or when you're drying her hair or helping her put her socks and shoes on -- that a normal job doesn't contain.  There may be excitement that comes with many jobs, maybe even real accomplishment, but when it comes to feeling like you're making a difference in someone's life, I think nursing has them all beat.

It reminds me of when our sons were born and being able to comfort someone in distress.  You realize, the little baby you hold in your hands, crying desperately for that bottle of warm milk, needs you.  Or the little boy, with tears in his eyes from a skinned knee, needs a hug and your assurances that everything will be ok.  Or the young man who calls late at night, his voice sobbing with  pain after breaking up with a long time girl friend, needs you to tell him the pain will get better and that he will find love again.

And in Liz's moment of need, I was determined to be there for her.

"If I could do this for you, I would..."

My words fall silent as she grips the bed covering searching for relief.

"Just twenty seconds more," I say, hoping to provide some near term relief.  We are finishing the third set of the prone hang, an exercise designed to increase the range of knee extension and activation of the quadriceps muscles.  The physical therapist claims it is especially useful after reconstruction of her knee. 

I think it could be especially useful as a torture technique -- Where did you hide the chocolate chip cookies?  -- I'm not telling!  -- WHERE ARE THE COOKIES?  Go to hell!  Then another five minutes of the prone hang for you! Tell me now before you die!

Everyone says the physical therapy part of any surgery is the worst.  It's true.  In fact, her doctor said his part in the knee replacement would last about two hours, hers would last for months.  The real success to getting better comes from going to your PT sessions and doing the exercises they give you to do at home.

They have names for different positions that remind me of yoga positions: 

Supine knee extension stretch.  (Big toe pose)

Standing tandem balance. (Feathered peacock pose)

Single leg stance with counter support. (Extended puppy pose)

I can imagine PT patients talking in the waiting room, comparing notes and various techniques.  

"Mine has me doing the supine 90/90 sciatic nerve glide with knee flexion," the middle age woman declares, her eyes wild with excitement.

In response, another woman trumpets, "I did the gastric stretch against the wall.  Try that sometime!"

"Oooo.  That sounds painful, if not impossible at my age!"

Liz has scooted up the mattress and is preparing for the last exercise of the night.  Unfortunately, it's one of the worse and maybe why we do it last.  I reach for the wide belt -- snapping it quickly like I learned in dominatrix school -- loop it around her ankle and give her the other end to hold.  I gentle raise her foot and leg into a 90 degree position and she grabs the other end of the belt, pulling it forward.

The goal of this exercise is to bend her knee past the 90 degree mark, then past 120 and eventually to 130  degrees.  Liz says a normal knee bend is anywhere from zero to 140 degrees, with a functional knee bend at 120 degrees.  A bend of 80 will get you up a flight of stairs.  A 130 degree bend will get you in a bath tub.  At 115, you can ride a bike.  

My watch shows thirty seconds, and I relax her knee.  "Oh my God," she moans as she turns her head to the side, her eyes holding back tears.  I thought these stretches were supposed to help, not facilitate another round of surgeries.  "Can you please rub the hamstring on my upper leg?  It is SOOOO sore."

I press my knuckles beneath her tail bone and run them down her leg, stopping just above her knee.  Then again.  With medium pressure, I use a long, slow, gentle stroke to help relieve the muscle fibers that are causing her so much pain. 

"Does that help?" I ask.

"Not really, but thanks anyway."

Failing at nursing without attending school shouldn't be a surprise, but I still feel a little disappointed I can't relieve her pain.   I know the surface of her body, but underneath the skin remains a mystery, much to to my dismay.  My watch reminds me to start again, so I gently bend the knee forward and tell her to pull.

"One more time -- you can do this."

Another round of "this" and she'll be doing the corpse pose...

I am sure I haven't earned my certificate of nursing, despite what Liz thinks, because my time "on the floor" only lasted a few weeks.  And even when I was helping, I was usually asking her what to do.  The last thing I wanted to do was mess things up and send her back to the hospital. 

I've discovered two things during the last six weeks:  Liz is a strong fighter and determined to get her knee back to a functioning level.  She's a great patient and listens to her doctor and therapist.

The other thing I know is how difficult it is taking care of someone.  It' a lot of work, and mistakes can be hurtful if not deadly.

It did allow me to fulfill my promise however, made thirty some years ago when I stood in a candle-lit church with the rain coming down, standing with her in front of God, family and friends and answered the question being asked by the pastor:  

"I take you to be my wife.  

To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy law.  

In the presence of God, I make this vow."

Remembering The End of the World

"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."

-- Hunter S Thompson, Hell's Angels

In March 2020, the United State went insane by shutting down its economy, shuttering businesses and telling all nonessential workers to stay at home in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19.  It failed worse than a reboot of Ghostbusters.  This month will mark the three-year anniversary of that event, one that I still see and feel by people wearing masks or catching Covid following exposure to the virus.  

Recently, the Twitter files identified major players who coerced and manipulated data to control our lives.  Their authoritarian control reached everything from restaurants and gyms to schools and sporting events.  I am amazed at how easily governments coordinated their efforts to change our lives.  Not just here in the United States, but everywhere -- Canada, Europe, Russia and Asia.  As a result, I'm suspicious of almost everything Washington D.C. does, yet even my suspicious nature was fooled by the daily death totals and case numbers that increased incrementally during the first few weeks of the pandemic.

iStock photo

So the damage was done, and in many sad ways, we're not coming back from it.  Grandparents and parents died, jobs were destroyed, and constitutionally guaranteed rights were lost.

Whether it's just therapeutic or something more aligned to making sure we never let it happen again, I wanted to take a look at some of the dumber things we did, which at the time, seemed reasonable considering the "risk" we were being told existed.  

We all should have known better.  We should have tuned out the COVID "experts" from day one and instead trusted our own observations and common sense.

"The End of the World as We Knew It" began for Liz and I on a flight back from California.  

For the first time, people were wearing masks on the plane, even though they weren't mandated.  We were sitting behind a young family, who's baby was not feeling good.  So much so that the baby threw up in the seat, and on mom who suffered through the embarrassment of trying to quiet the baby and having to clean it up.  My point to mentioning the incident is all I could think about was COVID.  Was this an early stage, and having been exposed were we the next to fall sick?  It was still early in the pandemic, and I hadn't been paying attention to the news.  In fact, the week leading up to the shutdown was spent in Malibu on the beach with one of our international students who had moved west to finish her college degree.  So -- like most of California's progressive population -- we were clueless about what was happening in the world.

I'm serious, (ok, Sleepy Joe) look at how screwed up California is three years later.

The week following our vacation saw businesses shut down, and sports were no exception.  A planned trip to Milwaukee to watch the Buck and Golden State was cancelled when the NBA shut down.  March Madness was just beginning, and I remember a game being cancelled at half time and the audience sent home.  My friends and I are quick to point out the computer projections that had the Wisconsin Badgers winning the entire tournament that year.  Unfortunately, no games were played, and we are left to wonder what could have happened.  ESPN, which relies on live sports to fill their programming, was left with talking heads filling hours and hours with mind-numbing analysis. 

I remember the day my office staff gathered around the reception area to discuss Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers' order to shut down.  It had been coming for days, as cruise ships and arriving travelers were being quarantined for weeks.  Leading up to the decision, people had been asked to wear masks when in public.  In fact, being the stubborn bastard I can be, I walked through our Festival grocery store without a mask and felt the eyes of others looking on in fear.  I follow rules -- contrary to what my wife may say -- but when signs on the business door said "masks recommended" I take them at their word.  Recommended is not required. their recommendation.  

But getting back to Evers' shutdown order.  Insurance was deemed an "essential business," which enabled our office to stay open, but with drastically different rules.  Three-quarters of our staff wanted to work from home (strangely they were the employees who either had young children at home or who stood around all day talking about trivia, television's The Office and how much they hated Trump), whereas the boss thought we should have some kind of presence in the office to answer phones and handle claims.  Even though the world shut down, weather, fire, wind and accidents continued unabated.

Those were long days, and I remember driving to work and not seeing a single car on the road.  We were available to answer the phones, but most of the time it involved our reactions to COVID.  We were living in a strange time and there was no shortage of opinions.  Everyone of those conversations ended with "Stay safe!"

It was decided that I should get the mail everyday (our post office still flies the banner reading "Heroes Work Here!").  Apparently, I am a hero too, and never knew it.  Outside of work, the days were spent watching television and adjusting to life inside your home or apartment.  

To separate weekdays from weekends, Liz and I would drive somewhere in the car to breakup up the monotony of our lives.  One weekend we drove up to Alma, Wisconsin and stopped at Buena Vista Park overlooking the Mississippi River.  It is the largest natural balcony overlooking the river, where on a normal day you could watch barges traveling up and down the river.  This day, there were no barges, but there was another warm body (as opposed to the walking dead you feared walking out of the sparse shadows of nearby trees) in the park who wandered up to his car and drove off as soon as we arrived.  

Believe it or not, a statewide radio station would play Badger Jump Around (played at Badger football games at the beginning of the 4th quarter) at 3:00 PM on Saturdays and asked people from around the state to "jump around wherever you are."  We were more than happy to comply with fellow non-vaxers -- on our pontoon boat and in the middle of the river.

With so few people driving, gas prices dropped significantly.  A quick drive across the river to a Winona "essential" gas station would provide cheap gas at only 99 cents a gallon.

Not being considered an essential business was never fully explained to us.  Like so many things the CDC told us, they were completely random choices that led to direct assaults on businesses and families.

Many small operators went out of business because they were not on the cherished E list.  Businesses like bars, exercise gyms and hotels.  But supermarkets, pharmacies and banks were essential.  Depending on where you were located -- even a few blocks -- sometimes dictated if you could be open or not.  It was insane!  And restaurants were given an exception as long as it was only take out.  I remember buying take out only because we wanted to support our favorite places to eat, and we didn't want them to fail.  

Everyone with half a brain knows if COVID was going to kill you in your favorite restaurant, it was going to kill you in Walmart.  

We all thought the shutdowns were temporary, but after Easter came and went with no changes, I began to doubt what we were being told.  I've never been a fan of our government agencies (beginning with an internship with the DNR in Madison, where the amount of time wasted talking about problems, but doing nothing to solve them convinced me to never work for its bureaucracy again).  So when reality set in and people dealt with this new normal, our lives -- more specifically the way we were allowed to lead our lives -- changed into something so strange that I can't believe it, even now.

Masks, safe distances and remote learning were as common as mud on a pig.  They were simple in design, but influential in attacking the nuclear family, religion and social interaction.  All of these events involved people being arrested and fined if they did not follow the rules -- but rules that were based on what?.

. Wedding postponements robbed newlyweds of one of the most enjoyable events of their lives

. Hollywood and Broadway went dark (and I don't mean Black History month)

. ZOOM meetings spread like the virus (later most of us would prefer COVID over another ZOOM meeting)

. Children were prevented from seeing elderly parents and grandparents (many of the elderly died in nursing homes and hospitals, alone)

. Schools chose remote learning over in-class instruction (and we have lost a generation to poor learning)

. People wore plastic bottles, oranges, and underwear on their face when they didn't have a mask

. People were ruthlessly fired from jobs because they were not vaccinated.    Many are still not allowed to return, despite worker shortages in the medical, airline and military fields.

. Outdoor activities were banned (a single person made the news when he was arrested on a California beach)

. Round dots, spaced 6 feet apart, magically appeared in grocery stores and government offices 

. Much to the dismay of hearing-impaired people, grocery stories installed protective plastic shields at checkouts to separate cashiers and shoppers

. Hospitals were furloughing nurses and parking lots were empty because they locked their doors to elective surgeries and routine checkups.

. Viterbo required masks to be worn during noon ball.  Some of us refused for over a year

. People were so desperate to get their hair cut, they called their stylist and got it cut in their garage.

. China's "zero COVID" policies resulted in apartment doors being welded shut for weeks or months

. Public bathrooms were closed, so people relieved themselves outside

. The  popularity of drive-by birthdays and anniversaries

. Christmas and Thanksgiving were celebrated without family (unless you were liberal and special)

. The news started every day with COVID data reports on deaths, hospitalizations and infections (only later did we confirm most of these deaths were with COVID not because of it).  Daily updates came from Washington, featuring President Trump and his administration.

. We developed a vaccine that prevented nothing; the "vaccines" now requires 4 different boosters.

. Long lines of people in cars, waiting to have a Q-tip jammed up their nose

. Toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages caused grocery stores to ration items, and distilleries to forsake the smooth burn of liquor sliding down our throats, to the slippery feel of hand sanitizer on our hands.

. Lockdowns resulted in worldwide shortages of computer chips needed to make just about everything

. Churches were closed, so online services were held.  Communion was given in parking lots with your own wine.

. Voting laws were changed to allow COVID-free voting (and election fraud)

Three years later, have we learned anything from March 2020?

Based on the trouble I had researching some of the information used in this blog, I would say no.  Search GOOGLE for anything to do with COVID lockdowns, and you will get a long list of articles about COVID prevention and one-sided stories from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Times warning you of the dangers of the virus and the misinformation coming from FOX News.  It's as though everything we need to know about COVID and its related shutdowns doesn't exist.  

Let's face it, the truth about COVID is being deep sixed.

As a society, we still haven't accepted the errors of our ways.  The left's movement to divide our country has never been more evident.  Too many of us still forsake common sense and favor cruelty against our neighbors in the interest of safety.  It's obviously bad to lock people in their homes or to force people to mask and take risky vaccines because you don't want to breathe the same air as them.  Young people -- our most "enlightened and woke" -- are simply not capable of ignoring their "news" feeds and consistently show they have a hard time discerning the truth.

And finally, not one person responsible for the madness of 2020 has taken responsibility for their actions.  As a Christian, I think forgiveness is important to a good life, but it has to come with repentance, otherwise the same people will just screw us over again.

Don't hold your breath for Fauci, Biden, Trudeau, the CDC or the WHO to admit their actions had little to do with our safety, but an attempt at authoritarian control.  Legacy media and academia also failed us and little has changed in their behavior.  Calls for self-absolution by those who got it wrong, and accusations against us that got it right indicate they haven't changed at all. Until they are shamed and punished for their actions, there will be no recovery from these dark days.  

Perhaps it's still too soon  -- to close to the heart, too painful to admit, or still too political.   But as a worldwide society, we must stop being afraid of every airborne illness and hold some of those responsible for their complicit corruption.   Take a stand, speak it loudly and let people know it.

The future of our economic and social well-being demands it.