Advice from a small town girl

I feel like a medical marvel today.

Never mind that the medical professionals I spent some quality time with yesterday do this kind of thing all day, every day.

I still feel like a medical marvel.

For the first time in months, I got out of bed and walked, instead of crept, to the bathroom.

When I walked down the sidewalk this morning, I didn’t have to stop and bend over to relieve the pain I’ve been dealing with for several months. I suspect I may have been swaggering a bit.

I just now noticed that I’m not grimacing in public. Or private.

And I no longer feel the need to mutter cusswords under my breath.

I feel great!

Thanks to a guy who is good with a needle and his staff of what seemed like about 10 different nurses who tag-teamed me into not feeling nervous. This group of consummate, kind professionals sedated me, sterilized my back, stuck a needle in my spine and sucked the fluid out of the “very large” cyst that had been pressing on my sciatic nerve. I must confess it looked pretty small to me when I saw it on the MRI.

After the procedure they had me roll over onto a gurney and then wheeled me to a cubicle where they kept checking on me and fed me water, coffee and peanut butter toast (I wasn’t allowed to eat for 6 hours before the procedure and as you all know, not eating is not my forte.)

Before an entire hour was up, I was on my way out the door. I can’t say I skipped out, because if I had let go of Norman’s arm I probably would have wobbled to the floor, but I was on my way and I felt better. Lots better.

Who knew it could be so easy?

Not I.

Because I am my mother’s daughter.

My mom, bless her heart, was proud to be a “tough Norwegian farm wife.”

Those would probably not have been the first words I would have chosen to describe her, but that was the label she applied to herself.

Lest you misunderstand, the words I would have chosen would have been smart, generous, creative and one heck of a good teacher.

The tough Norwegian came into play when a doctor had the temerity to suggest that she have her arthritic knee replaced. Her reply was that she was a tough Norwegian farm wife, and she’d have the surgery when she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Well.

By the time she couldn’t stand it anymore, they would no longer perform the surgery on her, and she spent years in agony. Years.

I only lasted six months.

Must be the Danish in me.