I missed doing an article last week. During the last 1,065 weeks, or 21 and one-half years, of writing for this newspaper, I have missed only three weeks. One of those weeks I was out of the country in Africa. The other, I experienced last minute computer problems and the article, that I did have ready, failed to send. The third was last week.
I could say that the deadlines changed, but that wouldn’t be the reason. The reason is that I had total knee replacement surgery and, even though I thought I would be able to submit an article in plenty of time, my thinking was wrong.
I really need both knees replaced, something my orthopedist has said for years. We’ve tried a number of treatments, but the results, though good, have always been short-term. I first started having knee problems in my mid to late 20s. I was jogging on the high school track after work one frigid winter day in northeast Tennessee. The temperature was about 20 degrees and a strong wind was blowing. I heard a popping sound and tried to figure out what it was but gave up and continued my run.
Once I returned to the car and turned on the heater, I began to thaw out and my knee began to hurt intensely. So much pain, in fact, that I drove myself to the emergency room where, after examination, the doc said that I had almost no cartilage in the knee and that I needed surgery. He said that, whether I did or didn’t have the surgery, I would probably never do anything athletic again. With that diagnosis, I declined the surgery and went home.
Things did, however, improve and I eventually took up martial arts studies and practice again. I continued to compete in tournaments for another 10 years and continued to teach well beyond that. Playing pickup basketball was out, as was bowling. So, I took up pool and became reasonably competent at that. But the problem never went away
Sometimes, in church, I would literally stand on one foot because one or the other of my knees would be so painful. This condition lasted, literally, for years … maybe a couple of decades. So, finally, a few months ago, I agreed to have the knees replaced, beginning with the left one. I spent three days in the hospital and came home to a walker. After about 10 days post-op, I graduated to a cane … my grandfather’s cane, as it turned out.
Progress is slow, painfully so … figuratively and literally. I have missed the last two Sundays at church and have had at-home rehab several days a week. We have lots of stairs in our house so that has been a challenge.
All the folks I know who have had this surgery say, “You’ll be so glad you did.” Well, I’m not there yet. I still have 21 of the 42 staples sealing the wound, the other 21 being removed last Friday. I can get around better than I did a few days ago, so that’s something.
I had intended to have the right knee done in October but I may push that into next year. Maybe I’ll give up my right knee for Lent. We’ll see. In the meantime, my wife, recently retired, is looking after me and, as a life-long nurse and nursing professor, is not letting me get by with much. I did have someone ask a few days ago, “You are getting the other one done, right?” That’s a bit like asking a woman who delivered a baby three hours ago, “So, when are you having the next one?” Bad timing. Ask her later. Ask me later.
On a bright note, I have started re-reading the “Jack Reacher series” of novels by Lee Child. I have discovered that is almost nothing on daytime TV worth watching. And, maybe most importantly, I have learned anew that healing takes as long as it takes. One can cooperate with the process and move along or not cooperate and impede the healing. All healing — physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, relational — takes what it takes.
My grandfather died in 1973. In about 2006, I inherited his cane. I have thought about him every time I try to get to one place from the other with it in my right hand. I am reminded of frequent fishing trips, dinner at his house with all the family (especially Christmas Eves), the perpetual pipe in his mouth, his like-new ’57 Buick that was two-tone blue, his Democratic leanings up until George McGovern ran for President, and other memories too numerous to count. So, in a sense, the surgery that led me to this cane also led to happy and priceless memories of a man I loved dearly.
Forty-seven years after his death, my hand goes where his went, in the curve of the cane, as I struggle, as he did later in life, to get from place to place. It’s one of the unintended and unexpected surprises of this surgery.
Perhaps I should have had this surgery in my 20s. If I had I would have, doubtless, purchased a newer, “cooler,” more modern steel or titanium cane. But this one will do, this simple wooden cane.
I’m going to try to be in church Sunday and possibly preach from a stool and let our ministers do everything else. With the help of my grandfather’s cane, maybe I’ll make it down the aisle.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA (www.ctkcec.org). He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese which consists of Georgia and Tennessee (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]
