I'm Baaaaaaack

Yes, I know. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy getting sliced and diced again. Went through the surgery for my other hand, my right hand, and it’s been a lot more difficult. I’m right-handed, which has complicated everything. It really is true that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. But the cast comes off a week from Monday, so I’m getting there.

I’m actually writing this post with some voice software. Dragon Naturally Speaking. It was a gift to me, and I like it, but it takes getting used to. You have to think very differently than when you’re writing by hand. That is, typing by hand. With the voice recognition stuff, you have to think in chunks, rather than as you type. But, in the long run, it could be a lot faster way of working.

But I’m doing okay. I’ve gotten to do a few things that needed to be done like straightening out some of my books and a lot of the files on my computer. I’ve been catching up on some reading that I needed to get done. But trying to type or get any of this type of thing accomplished has been a bit overwhelming. I’m trying to get back at it.

Tuesday night I had the honor of being a roadie for my buddy’s band. I have some knowledge of drums and guitar, so I can actually be some real help, and I wanted to do it. The band is called Strawberry Alternative. They’re very good. The only problem was, I can only do most things with my left hand, which made for an interesting evening, but it was fun. They played at the historic Gem Theater in downtown Detroit. So I was able to be backstage, to see what’s back there. I got to check out the dressing rooms and such. It was like a small version of the Fox Theater in Detroit. My brother in law gave me a tour of the Fox a few years ago, and I always find that kind of thing interesting. It’s kind of cool to get to go where people don’t normally get to go.

Anyhow. That’s all for now. It’s hard to write this way. I’ll start things back up probably within about a week on a more regular basis. Thanks for your prayers faithful readers.

Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Sliced Again

I’m going in next week to be sliced again. This time it will be my right hand. Less of a big deal for playing the guitar, but a bigger deal for everything else because I’m right handed. So I’ve been practicing doing things with my left hand that I normally do with my right.

It’s not fun.

But I’m actually looking forward to getting this done and over with. The carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand has made my hand stronger and more sensitive. With some more time I’ll be playing better than ever, and I’m hoping to get back on the drums sometime in December or January after my right hand is fully healed. It takes a long time.

I’ve found this whole experience kind of challenging because there are things I simply can’t do while I’m healing from the surgery. I have to rely on others to do things, which I’m mostly okay with, but I feel a certain guilt about it all. Like I’m not pulling my weight. To my way of thinking, there’s a very fine line between taking care of yourself and being lazy and selfish. Taking care of yourself is healthy and important to do, but I think it can easily become an excuse to be self centered. I guess I’m not sure about where those lines are. I am often accused of not taking care of myself. I’m probably guilty of that too. And I have no response to the accusation. I’m not sure what to think.

Anyway. If you pray, pray that all goes well. It’s pretty minor surgery, comparatively speaking, but sliced is sliced. They knock you out. They do secret things to you while you’re in La La Land. It’s all rather discombobulating.

Sorry. I just wanted to write down the word discombobulating. I’m not even exactly sure what it means. But it feels right.


Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

Behind the Seams

You wouldn’t know it, but this is an amazing one handed post!

Welcome to the continuing saga of having my hand sliced open. I know, it’s edge of your seat stuff. Pins and needles. I’m going to have to beat readers away with a stick.

Understand: this is a maddeningly slow process getting this post up. And I’m not allowed to twist, pull or stretch my wrist in any way. If I do that I can mess something or other up REALLY BAD under the slice. Which I apparently don’t want to do because it would be REALLY BAD! So I'm typing with my right hand while my left hand watches, feeling a little smug because it has a good excuse for doing nothing.

I got a good look at the slice this morning as they cut off the old cast and put on a new, smaller one. The slice wasn’t as far down on the wrist as I thought it would be. It’s at the base of the hand above the wrist. But it is definitely Frankensteinish, with black thread holding the seam together, which is kind of cool.

Here’s something you don’t hear very often: “The nerve looks pretty good.”

That’s what the doc said to my wife right after the surgery.

She said, “But I thought there was nerve damage.”

The doc paused for a second and said, “Yeah. I’m going to have to write a paper about that.

This guy is really cool. He looks a little nerdy, but don’t be fooled: he knows his business. He glows with competence. But he seems to be one of those people who are so smart they can have a hard time in the world. You know, trying to relate and such. At the same time, he also has an almost childlike sense of wonder and humor about him.

I like him, and I like having a doctor I like.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Sliced

I wrote this post and set it to publish this morning (Jan. 25, 2011). It should post while I’m at the hospital, which is kind of weird. I should be sewed back together by the time anyone reads this, but who knows.

Anything can happen. And it usually does.

They’ve told me to be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning. 5:30! Isn’t this vampire time? Aren’t the werewolves still on the prowl? Actually, I worked a job for years where I had to get up early like that.

I hated it.

So, if you pray, pray for me. I’m being sliced. But I’m thankful for the miracles of modern medicine. I’m thankful that my personal slicer isn’t a maniac on the prowl. At least not that I know of. My slicer is a highly paid professional. Which must count for something.

In case you don’t know, it’s my hands that are being sliced. Which means I don’t know when I’m going to be able to type, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to post here. I have a few things I’ve already done that I should be able to put up. And I have some software that some great friends gave me as a gift that might help. We’ll see how I do with it.

Until then.

Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Hands

When I woke up this morning, I was laying on my left side and my left arm was sticking out from under me, numb and tingly, as usual. But the light was coming in from the window, glowing on my hand, and I realized for a moment what an amazing piece of art it is.

Yes, my hand, but not just my hand. Any hand.

If we’re going to vote for the most amazing hand in history, I might give the award to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s left hand. I’m sure others would give the award to Michael Jordan’s right hand, or maybe both of Michael Angelo’s hands. Or how about Thomas Edison’s hands? Or, hands down, we could give the award to the hands of Jesus.

I suggest you take a moment and stare at your hands. Move them around. Stretch them. Notice the complexity. There is an elegance to the construction of a hand that defies explanation.

Watch the hands of a dancer. See how the hands move in concert with the body. Even though the hands are at the extremity of the body, somehow they inform and guide the motions of a dancer.

Now, I’m no dancer, but I do public speaking, which requires a lot of typing for outlines and drafts and editing. I also play guitar and drums and some keys. I write a lot of music, which I usually do on guitar. It’s how I figure things out. And it’s all about the hands. I often “find” songs by feeling around the progressions for the right thing.

So tomorrow, I will have one of my hands sliced open to fix it. Down the road I get to have the other one done too. It’s actually a pretty minor surgery, but people keep asking me if I’m nervous about it. And I don’t think I am. But I might be. I lie to myself all the time. Not on purpose. It’s a coping thing. But I really don’t think I’m nervous about it. It’s just that there’s a weight to this event for me. I’m learning a new appreciation, and that’s almost always a good thing.

I am thankful for my hands.


Psalm 139:14
Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

First Cut Is The Deepest

I have a rendezvous with a knife wielding medical professional in about a week. They’re trying to wake my hands up. Just when they were starting to get some real sleep. You’d think the sight of the knives alone would make my hands jump up and say, "I'm awake, I'm awake!," but my hands are stupid.

The doctor is making me come in this week for an hour or so to rub it in my face before the actual surgery. They want to tell me what time I have to be at the hospital and talk through what to expect and all that. I imagine he’ll pull his knives out from some shiny black leather sheath, sit them on the table to gleam in the grisly doctor lights, and talk to me about his favorite slicer, which he has probably named something like, “Mack” or “Betty.” He’ll pet it for a moment, whispering, “my precious,” and then pack it away with a look of love.

Actually, the guy cutting my hands is popular with sports people. He’s apparently some famous hand surgeon who has done work on lots of hockey players from all over the country. Hockey, as a way of making a living, is tough on the hands and wrists, or so it seems. The doctor’s walls are lined with photos of these athletes, in full dress action poses, all hand signed, thanking him for making their hands better without accidentally slicing them off.

I was thinking, after the surgery, I could provide an action shot of myself sitting at my computer, writing things.

Or not.



Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

Knives In My Future

Right now, typing this, my hands are falling asleep.

Because of this phenomenon, at the end of the month, I have to get my left hand sliced open, my muscles spliced apart, my nerves moved around, then have it all sewn back together. And a few weeks later, I get to go through it all over again with my other hand.

I will have Frankenstein hands. Which is the only part of the whole thing I have any excitement about.

Here’s the problem with medical problems: Most of the time you don’t really know what to expect. How long will it take to heal? Will I be able to get my work done? Will the doctor secretly implant remote control devices in my body so that I can be manipulated into some evil scheme?

The doctor laughed at me at the consult. He said I had not asked “the question.” I had no idea what he was talking about. Finally, he told me. The question I had not asked was this:

“Will it hurt?”

Never crossed my mind. Until he brought it up.

Health problems force you into troubling questions and situations. You have to take advice, you’re kind of forced into making quick decisions about crazy things. “Yes sir. Please slice open my hands and move things around in there.” Who in their right mind would say such things? And it’s kind of like having a baby. Everyone has an opinion on it. Pros and cons. Dos and don’ts. Which is kind of fun as long as people don’t get all righteous about their opinions.

I have this pair of great friends (the marvelous C&J) who have been trying to help. I have to admit I love being loved. They bought me some cod liver oil, which I think really works to reduce symptoms, and the wife of the pair made special tea out of some scary stuff in a jar (it sort of looks like a placenta from an off world creature to me) that I am now drinking. You have a little of it each day and see what happens. It may be implanting off world creatures within my body, but it tastes kind of like apple cider, so what the hey.

I still have to go under the knife.

And I don’t want to.

But I’m going to.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Degenerate

 
Well, I’m going to have to have surgery. I have tried to avoid it, but there’s no way out of it now. I have carpal tunnel. I’ve had it for years. I put up with it because I didn’t want to have surgery. It has effected my ability to play drums. It makes guitar playing difficult. My hands fall asleep when I’m driving or holding up a book to read it. Blah blah blah.

I just didn’t want to get the surgery.

But it’s gotten to the point that my nerves, according to the doctor, are degenerating. The nerves in my hands are being destroyed. I’m losing the ability to feel. So I have to get this surgery done to stop that from happening and, in the end, I should be better off.

I just didn’t want to get the surgery.

After the doctor told me I had “degenerative nerve damage” due to severe carpal tunnel, I looked up the word “degenerate.” I kind of knew what it meant, but you look anyway, ya know? It was a boring, but accurate, typical Webster definition: “having a decline in function.”

That was the “a” definition. The “b” definition was much more interesting. It said: “having sunk to a lower, usually more vicious state.”

Which immediately brought up a memory from elementary school, fifth or sixth grade. I was in line for lunch and this kid cut in front of me. So I said what any kid would say to such an obvious social impropriety.  “Hey. No cuts!”

Without blinking, without the slightest pause or moral inclination to interrupt his fluid, degenerate response, without emotion or feeling, this kid punched me in the jaw, knocking me to the ground. In the lunch room! I could hardly believe it had happened. I was too shocked to cry. Not to mention that there were kids everywhere, which is one of the greatest tear inhibitors you can find. But I looked around, scanning the lunchroom for adults. Lunch ladies everywhere and not ONE of them had seen what the degenerate had done. Of course, there was no way I could tell anyone. That would only make it worse.

He ignored me as I got up off the floor and got in line behind him, wondering what he might do next. But he didn’t do anything. I didn’t matter to him. I was just in his way, and now that I was out of the way, I meant nothing to him.

Consider: When the world treats you this way, you need to understand that the world is degenerate. It has descended into a lower, vicious state. The world has lost feeling, like nerves lose their feeling, like a dead body can’t feel, which makes it a dangerous place to be sometimes. And we’re all a part of it. As the song says, “We are the world.”

This is why Christ came: To regenerate the degenerate.



Matthew 9:12-13
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010