Summer pain

Last night during a dream I was blogging, and the words just flowed like I had tapped into a fabulous Fountain of Words. I was Molten lava, erupting into a stream of red hot positive thoughts and humor. I was on word fire, able to explain my absence from my Blog in a most amusing fashion, in fact I woke myself up laughing.
Ah yes, I remember how all those thoughts  just streamed from me...last night.
Well, despite my best efforts to reach backward into the word stream, I find myself struggling to tell you all what is happening.
I am in Pain.
I am working on recovering from my shoulder joint replacement surgery and am in Physical Therapy.
I have a lovely little physical therapist and although I like her, I think she might be a closet sadist. I have repeatedly responded to her maneuvering of my arm by telling her that I would confess to everything, and that she could have all my money, possessions, and that all I really wanted was my dog.
She said she didn't really want my dog any way.
So let me tell you how I have been managing.
I truly believe in distraction as a method of coping with chronic pain, and so I have spent many hours in the studio, slowly working at small things, birds and feys and small dolls. Nothing overwhelming. while I worked, I listened...to my IPOD, and more recently to books on CD's that I have borrowed from the local Library. I am currently listening to the Fellowship of the Ring. I have read the trilogy front to back at least 11 times but there is something very comforting to me about being read to and in so doing allowing myself to be transported to the Company of Old Friends.
And that's what I am looking for: COMFORT!.

I also have tried hard to remember what I am grateful for. I am grateful that these summer days have not been fraught with the added burden of having to work at my job as a nurse. I am so grateful for this...it fills my heart with Thankfulness. I am also grateful to have a pool, beat up as it is. It has also been a source of Comfort and now a part of my Physical Therapy exercises.
I don't talk about my husband much, But I am grateful for him too, bringing me endless bags of ice and asking me if I have taken my medication for pain. I am also Grateful for my son's help mowing the yard, and my daughter's phone calls.
Support.

I am also grateful and feel blessed to have the support of my blog friends and Internet buddies, many of whom have sent care packages and cards...
and I am grateful for the prayers lifted on my behalf, some I am sure, that I would simply be struck dumb so they would not have to listen anymore to my complaints of pain...
I tell God in my Morning prayer that I am grateful to Him also.
And finally, I am allowing myself to sleep when I feel like it, eat healthy food and some not so healthy.
I have rediscovered my love of cereal and organic milk as a midnight snack and Lying in bed eating cherries.
Right now, I need to believe that this thing called pain will turn a corner, and that I will simply remember this as the summer I got "lennie," which is what I have named my joint replacement.

Right Now I think I need to Believe the direction and caution of my therapist, that my shoulder was very shabby for years before I had the replacement and so I am starting at a place far behind the line of others who are recovering.
Today, after I was finished my "therapy," and I use them terminology with some reservations...
I watched another patient while my shoulder was iced.
He was learning how to walk again.
He was not able to raise his leg unassisted, and so in some kind of sympathetic gesture to him, I raised my own two legs out in front of me. My therapist smiled at me and asked what I was doing...
I said,"Sending him sympathetic assistance."
He then raised his arm and placed his hand on his head, something I cannot now do...and I laughed and showed him my own limitation, because I think he thought I had None.
He smiled, and acknowledged my weakness in return.
We will have to help each other I said.
We will have to help each other Indeed.