A Wrinkle and a Wonder a week #19

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”

 A wrinkle 

So I’ve found myself feeling like Humpty Dumpty lately with broken pieces that I can’t put together again. A hysterectomy has removed some parts of me like my uterus, my ovaries, my fallopian tubes, etc..(in case I’ve forgotten something.) I don’t have any kings men or kings horses to put me back together again. Besides the pieces that are gone need to stay gone so cancer does not try  to put them back together again. When my body hurts the pain can consume me. I am only the pain I feel. The reality is my body is older and heals more slowly and I get angry at this reality. This anger is not productive energy that gets converted to healing energy, so it just diverts the energy into mental and emotional pain- a vicious cycle. Like the kid in the back seat I’m asking are we there yet and how much longer?  When will I feel better.? Now would be nice. I am so grateful that pathology and prognosis are all good. All’s well that ends well right? Not so fast! I feel more vulnerable living in my aging body. The odds are high that I will experience more illness and injuries the older I get. My response and reaction times are slower and I can’t pretend otherwise or I’ll increase my risk. I worry about facing the perfect storm of injury or illness, loss of mobility and being wrapped in isolation. I tell myself to deal with my anxiety by insuring that I am taking care of myself, planning for and making adaptive changes  in my environment and building a good social support system. On good days things seem to be working, but of course life is not pulling punches. Sometimes it just hurts.

a wonder

I amuse myself by imagining I’m like the Michelin man, protected by rolls of tires padding my body. Just try and get me! Reality is I have more in common with Wily E. Coyote who keeps getting clobbered, but I don’t have an  animator to “fix” my critical injuries.  Laughter is a great healer, so I’d rather my stomach hurt because I laughed too hard than because a medication I need to take upsets my stomach. I need sleep, exercise, mental and physical, good food and lots of love. If I hit my thumb with a hammer it hurts and I may let a few expletives fly to express myself and release my anger. There is nothing like a few very good swear words to release tension. My favorite refrigerator magnet says: “Some days the supply of available swear words is insufficient to meet the demands.” If I get poked at enough I may crawl inside my shell to rest and heal and this may be the best decision I can make. I remember as a child how  people wrote on casts to lighten the drudge of healing. Wish it were that easy! I stock up on books, crosswords and movies to distract myself from time that crawls. No matter how well I deal with illness or injury- sometimes it just hurts.