When I was among plumbing apprentices we used to often give each other a hard time just as we finished putting the tools away. We would chase, fight and wrestle one another often with few holds barred. They were quite full on battles. I once ducked a piece of four-by-two thrown at me which very narrowly miss my head. I pushed one guy through a wall! (We never told the carpenter how his wall fell down.) We really pushed the boundaries of safety, all in good fun. It was in one of these tussles on a big building site one day I was on top of a guy wrestling on the concrete floor. The end of day whistle blew so I sprang off him and ran for door and the stairway down to the ground floor. He chased me and just as I went down the first step his steel capped boot hit my tail bone. Ever since then, just every now and then my back "goes out" at that spot. Every time it happens I curse Robin Greer's steel capped boot.
On Wednesday I went to lift a light portable amplifier at the church and my back went out. I went for a jog at night and felt that it loosened it up and was confident that in a day or so it would come right. It was still there, but OK on Thursday morning, but as I bent to thread my leg through my underpants it "went out" again in a big way. I could not put weight on my legs without excruciating pain. I kept saying "It will be OK when I get moving" but discovered I could not really walk down the hall. This is the worst it has ever been. My wife finally convinced me that I had no choice but to take a sick day. The only relief happens after I go out to the workshop and grasping the roof trusses, hang from them and stretch my body out. On Friday I went to work but struggled. (Running and climbing up into a fire truck was "interesting" as was climbing out of it!) I also went to the Doctors. He has given me pain relief medication which is helping. It is getting better. I sat on my stationary bike and started to peddle this morning, but the seat broke and I landed on my tailbone on the floor. My first thought was, "Well that's going to help isn't it?"
It is a great learning curve for me. I have a tendency to get impatient with people with sicknesses and hurts. My approach has been essentially "get over it" and "get on with it". Such an attitude has worked for me most of the time. I was once diagnosed with "post viral fatigue syndrome" and with a doctor friend's help I started exercising my way out of it. But I have to remember there are somethings you can't work through or carry on in spite of. I recall having a bad dose of glandular fever and try as I might, I was useless, as weak as a new born lamb. On Thursday morning I was useless, I could not walk! So my sore back is teaching me to be more understanding. It is getting better, I think. My Doctor said, "I am not going to prescribe days off work, because I know you will ignore it anyway! ... but if it hasn't improved by Monday you come back here and I will tell you how many days you MUST have off!" The other thing that happens is that it knocks your confidence. Standing up from sitting in a chair was painful. But even as it gets better, you still stand carefully and reluctantly because you expect the pain. I am now scared to lift the smallest thing. People's confidence is knocked by illness or injury and this is true of physical and emotional injury. You just don't want to be hurt again, so you hold back.
If you have your health, appreciate it while you have it. There may be a time when you don't and lots don't have it at all.
"Tell me what love is?"
We have this guy who comes to our drop-in who has been deaf most of his life. Just lately he has hearing aids that enable him to hear. He speaks like a deaf person. Last year he was stabbed by his girlfriend/partner during a drinking binge they were having. She is in prison for it and they oscillate between wanting to be together after she gets out or not having anything to do with each other. I think if I was him (he's been stabbed twice) I would do the later, but its not my decision. I was talking to him and he was telling me of this on-again off-again relationship and wondering what he should do. We finished our conversation and he went his way. After a short time he came back. "You talk to me!" he said emphatically with hand gestures emphasising the point. He went over to a more private place and set two chairs facing one another. He pointed in a demanding fashion to one of them and said, "Sit - you talk to me!" I sat and he leaned forward. "You are married. You are a minister. You tell me what love is! I don't know. My mum and my dad never told me, never showed me. You tell me what love is. I want to know! Rose (his girlfriend) wants to know. You tell me! I write to her on Tuesday." So I set to to tell him. My wife handed me a pen and sheet of paper and said, "Write it down for him!" then she added, "This could be interesting?" She did leave us alone though.
If you have someone who tells you and shows you what love is (or has told you or shown you) appreciate them and the relationship. There are those who have never and will never experienced it.
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