COVID Time

      Post-post OP.  So I went to see the doctor for my two-week checkup.  I saw the doctor only when he passed by us in the hall as we sat and waited for my X-rays to be developed.

     “How are you doing?” he asked.

      “Great!” I replied

      Then I saw the nurse.  It was anti-climactic.  I wore my “pajama bottom” pants figuring I would end up in a backless gown so they could remove the “stitches.”  The X-ray technician asked me to empty my pockets, my driver’s license and  my health cards, and pants-on, she lined me up on the target and snapped the picture.

     We were ushered into the little room and the nurse brought up the X-ray on the computer monitor.  She said it looked good.  She placed the X-ray they took while I was still in the operating room beside the latest one.  She said it was coming along nicely.

      Then up on the table I went.  She had me lower the waist band of my pants.  Then she pulled up the leg of my undies.  I held the undies up out of the way and she peeled off the “stitches” just like a band aid.  That was it, or nearly so.  She painted some kind of disinfectant on the wound and put some strips of tape over it.

     The “stitches” resembled a zip-lock bag, with a strip of tape on either side of the wound and held together with a sort of plastic zipper.  Pretty simple, and painless.  I was shaved as smooth as a baby’s bottom, as they say.  No hair-pulling.

      “When this comes off, don’t replace it,” she said referring to the newly applied tape.  Shower, ok.  Soaking, as in taking a bath, not ok.  Don’t put any oil or lotion on it, opposite to what the plastic surgeon told me to do.  She noted that I was not using walker or cane, and that I could raise my leg fairly easily when getting onto the table. 

       We were done, except for making an appointment for a six-week checkup in January.

      I have been to the physical therapist twice since surgery.  I seem to be listing to the right when I walk.  I hear from the Goodwife, “You’re raising you left shoulder.  Stand up straight.”  She also objects to my Walter Brennan imitation when I double pump my elbows when I take my first step or two, ala Papa McCoy in The Real McCoys.

      The P-T guy has me carry ten pounds in one hand and take five prancing steps, like a drum major.  Then I switch the weight to the other hand and repeat the steps.  An attempt to get me to straighten up and walk right?  Doing my exercises takes fifteen minutes at the most. 

     Then I am forced to join the rest of senior citizenry in trying to find something useful and interesting to pass the time during the COVID restrictions.  I can’t go for much of a walk yet.  I have built up to 5000 steps yesterday, but that doesn’t take you far on a warm afternoon.

     Yesterday, I sat in the sun and screened twenty pounds of wheat to get it ready for the flour grinder.  That was a pleasant, but eventually it cools off and I am back to finding a satisfying pastime.   

      Television, not much.  Vast wasteland indeed.  Unless you like to watch football, or old folks singing in order to raise funds for PBS, or fools airing their grudges in various court rooms throughout the country, or murder cases, etc.

       We have turned to games to pass an hour or two in the evening.  We play Cribbage where we get to review our elementary math skills, factoring the numbers fifteen and thirty-one.  And practicing fine motor skills, placing pegs in holes, sometimes a challenge using only one eye.        

     Then there is Scrabble, tasking our vocabulary and spelling skills.  A timer is necessary for this game, along with the Aunt Margaret quote, “P-uh-Lay!”  With only two of us playing, our scores should be high, but the stratosphere is safe.

     Yahtzee takes some logic and decision making and a lot of luck.  No dozing as the “bones” rattle in the cup and onto the table top.

       Closely related to Scrabble, Word Yahtzee takes vocabulary and spelling skills and some luck with throwing the “dice” with letters rather than dots.  It’s as noisy as Yahtzee, and the timer is also necessary to keep this game moving.

      We have also revived gin rummy.   There are a few other games with a sheen of dust in the game room in the basement, Skipbow, Rook.   We don’t have a Monopoly game.  We haven’t set up the card table with a jigsaw puzzle yet. 

      Someday, will we look back and say, “Oh, that was 2020 when we played all those games.  Those were good times”?

      Well, life goes on.  Stay creative.  I will try to practice what I preach.