September 29, 2013

Gradually Returning to "Normal"

Sunday, September 29, 2013

This evening I was working in the kitchen, cleaning the clutter that tends to accumulate on my kitchen counter while I have my back turned.  Surely I am not the one cluttering the counters and I can't imagine my husband going around making more work for me, so I don't know where it comes from.  Wrong!  It is the two of us looking for a quick spot to set something that isn't ready for the trash, or that belongs in a room we aren't headed toward.  For the last three weeks, since my second elbow surgery, the clutter had taken over far too much of the counter space and it was time to fight back. 

As I cleaned, scrubbed, tossed, sorted, and put away things, I noticed that my arm wasn't hurting.  Of course, I was still pampering it some.  I continue to be careful about the amount of weight I try to pick up with the left arm, but just sorting papers, mail, rubber bands, paper clips, and things like that, I didn't have to worry about the weight and just worked.  Now, after a couple of hours of that activity, the counters are almost finished and there is a little soreness in the muscles in that arm, but for a while there, I got a glimpse of my life returning to normal.  It was a nice feeling.

While working in the kitchen, I had the TV on and was listening to the end of a movie and with the Cochlear sound processor doing its job, I was able to follow the dialog in the movie pretty well.  It had been a day of observing gains in my adaptation to the Cochlear Implant.  Again, it is not perfect, but I am so far ahead of where I was, even years ago, that I can only thank God for His timing in the whole process.  We had lunch with some family members, and my sister-in-law Barbara (not my daughter-in-law Barbara) brought up God's timing and I was reminded that I am so blessed that this Sudden Hearing Loss came at a time after I turned 65 and went on Medicare.  We are self-employed and as such, our health insurance was very expensive and terrible.  We never could have afforded the surgery at that time.

As I write this, I seem to be going at my day in reverse, so let me start at the beginning.  We went to Sunday School and church and Ron was able to teach his class today.  He still has a slight limp, but is off the crutches and continues to make progress.  When it was time for church, one of my grandsons greeted me at the door and told me that his older brother was at scout camp.  I knew that, since he had been talking about it at the office Friday.  It turned out our son (his dad) was sick, as well as well as two of the other kids, so their mom had to go to camp to pick up the scout.  Only two of the children had made it to church today and they were going to be with us. 

After the service and a church business meeting, we stayed around a while to visit and while the music minister waited for his wife, we talked about how I am doing hearing in the services.  I told him that for the last two weeks I had been able to hear him when he talked during the services for the first time since I got the Cochlear Implant.  Also, I told him that I am hearing the music better.  He did confirm my suspicions that they had replaced a couple of bad speakers on my side of the auditorium.  That is great, but it makes it hard to know if there was improvement in my adaptation to the implant or if all the recent improvement was due to the new speakers.  I guess in some ways, it doesn't matter.  The bottom line is, I hear better.  The speakers needed to be replaced and other upgrades need to be made to the sound system, but I am thankful for those that have been made recently.

We took our two grandchildren with us and went to Ron's mom's house for lunch.  Ron's brother and sister-in-law were there and had prepared lunch.  It was so much more enjoyable than their last visit where I struggled to hear.  It was frustrating not to be able to help prepare lunch.  At one point, I decided I could help and headed to the kitchen.  The next thing to be done was put plates on the table, but they were heavy pottery type plates and I instantly became aware I could not do that, nor could I carry serving dishes to the table.  The kitchen is small, so since I couldn't help, I just returned to a chair in the living room and visited with my mother-in-law and went to the yard for a few photos in her garden.

Lunch was great and we stayed until 3:30 visiting and watching the kids play hide and seek.  On the way home, I dropped the grand children off at their house and was rewarded with a couple of great pieces of cake.  Once at home, I curled up in the recliner to do some Immersion Reading, and promptly fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon. 

Once I woke up I returned to the Immersion Reading for a while before starting on the kitchen counter job.  It has been a good day, and a good weekend.  I am a little frustrated with the extension and range of motion on my arm.  I feel I have lost ground this weekend.  Maybe not.  I guess I will find out this week in Physical Therapy.  The swelling in the elbow and wrist are both better.  There is still tenderness in both places.  I put my wedding rings back on last Friday for the first time since surgery.