How to do major ouchies

I have a good friend who recently managed to blow out the bilateral cruxate ligaments on BOTH knees, doing nothing more strenuous than walking downhill. She is now, after surgery, confined to 6 weeks with knees straight, without any kind of home help other than a beleagured hubby. I too have suffered home health hell, several years ago when I fractured L2 and L3 vertebrae in my spine, getting flung off a horse. I was 2 weeks in the hospital, 6 weeks in a body cast that ran from underarms to hip on one leg, and to knee on the other leg, and then 3 months in a body brace. You never appreciate all that you expect your body to do for you until it doesn't do it anymore. Simple things, like getting dressed and going potty are now massive undertakings, and time becomes this weird, strung out thing; hours crawl by like weeks and days are endless and boring. You lie there, trying not to be a colossal pain to whomever is taking care of you -- especially if it is your family, who you'll have to live with afterwards. My mom came to stay with us, bless her heart, I don't know what I would have done otherwise. Gone to a nursing home? My friend's insurance, in that high handed manner all insurance companies have these days, informs her that they won't pay for any nursing care, not even for once a week baths, it doesn't matter what the doctor ordered. When I think of all the health reform that Hilary Clinton tried to get going back when, and everyone said, "Horrors, no, we can't have the government telling doctors what to do!" I just laugh, because of course what we have now is worse, it's the insurance companies, eye fast on the great bottom line, that dictate EVERYTHING with no recourse to courts, the law, or anything or anyone else. Take it or leave it. No consistency between coverages, no real appeal, incredibly high premiums, and incredibly high profits. Hospitals forced to release sick patients or destroy their own bottom line; oh, don't get me started.

Anyway, as you wend your way through you mundane day-to-day business, give a thought to what it would be like if you couldn't walk, or stand, or even pull your own britches up, but had to rely on someone else for all that and more. And be glad for your functioning, even those that aren't quite what they used to be, because we're all of us only one mistep away from disaster.

The A to Z of me.

Accent: I can do South-ern, and Irish, but none, naturally.
Bra size: Small!
Chore I hate: Folding socks
Dad's name: Albert
Essential makeup: eyeliner
Favourite perfume: Opium
Gold or silver: Gold
Hometown: Morgantown, WV, by choice.
Interesting Fact: Suicide is way harder than you'd think.
Job Title: Safety mojo
Kids: Two
Living arrangements: A regular family living out in the (sorta)boonies.
Mom's birthplace: WV
Number of apples eaten last week: 0
Overnight hospital stays: Too many to count; 20? 30?
Phobias: Wasps/hornets/roaches
Question you ask yourself a lot: Why can't I feel happy again?
Religious affiliation: Flirting with Buddhism
Siblings: One sister, older, deceased for one year.
Time I wake up: Half an hour before I have to be out the door.
Unnatural hair color: Light Auburn
Natural hair color: Ash blonde with lots of grey.
Vegetable I refuse to eat: Brussel Sprouts!
Worst habit: Self pity
X-rays: Most recently, ribs.
Yummy food I make: lemon bars
Zodiac sign: Aquarius

Recycle!

I'm getting discouraged about posting, Blogger has eated two of my posts in a row, and dumb me didn't save them in notepad, but by gum this one's going to be saved, even though it isn't a patch on those other two wonderful, articulate, funny, blog-fests (you'll just have to take my word for it).

Recycle: to most people it means aluminum cans, newspaper, plastic bottles. But I remember when 'recyle' meant to use something over again, not chop it up in little bits and use all the energy to re-manufacture a new one, this time with a green label proclaiming what % post-consumer dreck is in the new one. For example, when milk jugs were thick-walled plastic or glass with wire handles, and you paid/got $0.75 for each one, which was washed, sterilized and re-filled. So what I want everyone to do is, think of flea markets and yard sales not as ways to dump crud you don't want anymore, but as re-cycling it to someone who can use it, keeping it out of landfills for more of its useful life. Maybe the new image will give the process a cachet, so not only newly weds looking for a little cash flow and relief from too many wedding gifts do it, but rich folks who don't need the money at all. Then they can donate what they made to a charity, and we all win. Makes sense, yes?