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THE TAO OF KNEE REPLACEMENT
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The word Tao indicates the moral, ethical, and spritual “path” or “way” of Eastern philosophy. Can you follow the “way”? You’ll ultimately be safe if you do (perhaps it’s not an accident that the first word to describe the Christian faith was odos, the Way...).
A Tao that I heartily recommend is “The Tao of Pooh.” For those of you who know Pooh and his friends, created by A A Milne, it is a beautiful and powerful description of the good life, even in loneliness or pain or sadness. Digression: the 3 most important “children’s” books for a guide to life are, in my opinion, The Little Prince, Winnie the Pooh, and The Velveteen Rabbit.
These last couple of weeks I’ve been required to embrace another tao—that of knee replacements. It involves several lessons: obedience, patience, humility, and the practice of “offer it up.”
Do I want to get as good as I can, as soon as I can? Then I better obey the instructions for physical therapy and medications. Between my sister during the first week, and Amy Walsh in the second, I have had much guidance, encouragement, and no-nonsense “This is what you’ll do” from them, and (even if slowly) it is paying off. Though Amy is a professional PT, I accepted my sister’s words even more as she also has medical background and had her own left knee replaced in October. She knew whereof she spoke, and I knew that she knew.
If you know me at all, you know I am not a patient person. I want things “done yesterday,” and I demand that of myself. Knees don’t necessarily understand or accept my obsession! I’m on the timetable of the recovery process, no matter how soon I want to get back to 4- and 5-mile exercise walks. The bottom line is that I must accept the principle of “one step at a time,” so long as I continue in fact to take every step in its turn.
Thank the Lord I didn’t have to submit to the kind of humility I was afraid I’d have to embrace: help in the shower! But I do have to accept that independence is not where I have been, up to this point. I haven’t been able to do my own grocery shopping or get the ice for the machine that I need for controlling of the swelling. I have had to allow my sister to cook for me; I’ve had to re-arrange the furniture to accommodate my lack of mobility. I’ve had to accept the regimen of meds, including (for a while) those in the middle of the night. During the first week my sister got up at 2:00 am to make sure I got the meds I needed at that time—talk about unconditional love!
When the leg is aching and stiff it’s hard to push, and yet there is no progress without effort. Sleeping is not easy, nor is being in one posture for very long a good idea. Yes, it hurts, but then (as the sisters would say), so did the nails and scourges and crown of thorns. Can I meditate on that when I’m aching and need to keep pushing?
Has all this been good for me? Maybe. When I was teaching there was a quote (or joke) that was very popular: “I taught them that last week, but they didn’t learn it.” The Tao of knee replacement is trying to teach me the lessons of obedience, patience, humility, and offering it up. Will I learn them? Stay tuned…