A matter of degrees.
I can’t put any weight on my left leg until mid-August. But I still get to do physical therapy three days a week. Right now, healing is measured in numbers. It’s a matter of degrees. My physical therapist, Jason, works my left knee that’s recovering from a torn PCL and small tears on several lateral ligaments. At the end of each session we get out the sliding board, and the big clear plastic angle measurer, and start the bending. I started at 91 degrees. By the end of the week I’d progressed to 97. Today, I got to 103. Two degrees can make me very happy right now. One degree is not good enough. Stay the same or decrease and I’m crushed (not a good concept for me right now). The ultimate goal is to bend the left knee to 120 degrees.
Healing is a weird thing. It’s a mental, physical and spiritual thing. In the end I know I want to walk; no limp, no leaning, a regular 46 year old 200 pound male stride. But a return to my gait won’t heal the mental and spiritual disruption.
After looking at post-crash pictures of the truck I was driving, I know I’m lucky to have the possibility of walking again. Seeing the x-rays of the metal plates and spikes in my pelvis and hip reinforced just how damaged my insides were. That cured me of any thoughts of putting weight on that hip before the doctor told me it was O.K..
If chasing 50 hadn’t done it enough for me, this accident has slapped me awake to the realization that I am not going to live forever. There are limits to how much time I have left here. There is no reason to avoid my life’s to-do list any more. My soul is having to digest the idea that I might not get everything done that I want to get done before I’m done here. If that air-bag had not gone off, I’m not sure I’d be satisfied with the life of Kelly Jay Karges to this point in time. Maybe my check list needs to be revised, shifted a few degrees. Maybe I need to erase the “Whats” and “How much-es,” of that list and replace them with “Whos” and “Whens.”
I think the mental and spiritual healing takes a little longer. How do you measure the holes in your soul? When do you know you have closure? Is being satisfied really all that big of deal? Is the end accounting any more important than the middle? I don’t know. I think it’s a matter of degrees. Did I tell you I got my knee to 103 today?
Grace & Peace,
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