♦Time, before and after.

♦ How I will make the most of it ♦ And how it will make the most of me.♦


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First Post is "Time" January 11th, 2012

SOB = short of breath


Saturday, January 14, 2012

My Leash in Life

(originally written Nov 19th 2011)

Like a dog on a leash at a full run that stops short when the slack runs out, I live my days stopping and going stopping and going.

If I could count the times I have had to retrace my steps just to un-kink myself from a doorway, the corner of a rug, or the edge of the refrigerator, I would lose the number in my head because I really can’t be bothered when I am on a mission.

But I can’t be on a mission if I can’t get there from here, now can I? Good thing I didn’t have to pee this time. I could have had an accident. As it is, I am lucky I had that cervical fusion (neck surgery) back in 2002 or I’d be having it now, what with the whiplash I almost gave myself a little while ago.

Running into the kitchen I just expected to look, to see if the cat was still sleeping on the kitchen floor. This is where she hangs out now that she’s a billion years old and almost unable to walk anymore. Every time she sleeps we have to walk up to her and check to see if she’s still breathing. And if we can’t tell by simply looking, we almost have to nudge her with our toe just to see if she responds, since she sleeps so deep at her extended age.

And this is exactly why I ran into the kitchen in the first place. I heard a noise that made me think she was living her last breath tonight. Was it a death rattle? Perhaps that breath was mine, camouflaged as hers, I don’t know.

What I do know, is that I rounded the corner and came within range of our kitty, and just as I was about to reach her, my chin whipped around as though the back of my head had just been slapped really hard, my forward motion stopped short and my body was jerked back, head first, my arms and legs following, as my leash extended its allowed length. Don’t get me wrong I had more leash, I just got caught; there must have been a kink or a bend or a table corner jutting outward.

Stopping dead in my tracks, I look back over my shoulder (not too hard considering my face was already half turned backwards), I espied my line; it’s clear, not green and that means I am caught in the doorway. Flipping my line with my newfound ability to whip and undulate it with a grace and beauty that only a cowboy using a lariat can achieve, I send a horizontal ripple down the line expecting freedom as soon as contact is made.

As the snag breaks free, in a smooth motion I continue on my way another 3 or 4 feet until I am jerked back once again. Now, I know I was free because I had shaken my line loose, but here I am, caught again.

I tilt my head back and realize that the braking is farther back down the line than I had originally thought in the first place. So I must retrace my steps back past the refrigerator that offends me so often; back to that damned door that wins a close ‘second place’ in the “line game,” and then around the corner into the family room only to discover that what has been holding me back the whole time was the corner of the coffee table. Arrgghh.

Calmly (because it really does no good to get mad at an inanimate object), I backtrack myself and this time I apply a vertical whip and the coffee table releases its grip and I am again free, to move forward and check the kitty, which has now awakened and repositioned herself in a new death pose, as she dozes back into her oblivion. All of this happened, because she made an odd sound that I couldn’t ignore.

You should have been here the night I sat talking to my girl friend on the phone until the late evening (which evolved into the wee hours of morning), discussing girly things from 30 years ago; high school dances, and this & that, only to hang up then rise to put the phone back in its cradle. I suddenly found myself on a shortened leash, shorter than ever experienced before.

So rather than fight my (now 6 foot) leash, I sat back down and relaxed until the shortness of breath passed. From my reclining position, I leaned backward and reached for the table lamp’s switch flooding the darkened room with its soft light.

In my deep conversation that had gone on for so long, I had had chores that needed to be done, accomplishing them with one hand on the phone while the other hand was filing dishes into the dishwasher, cleaning the coffee table, putting things away in the kitchen, and returning the clothes that I had folded, back into the laundry basket.

After I had recovered from the SOB, I stood up, and I was surprised to discover that the reason I was on such a short leash, was because it had wrapped around my coffee table three times! Three times!

Again, like the dog on the lead line attached to the tree, running around and around until all that it had left was 3 feet of freedom, having to wait until someone comes along and to help the poor critter backtrack its way to liberation; such was I.

I have also found that it is not necessarily the best practice to wait to go to the bathroom until the very last minute.

I have learned that every single time I get up and quickly move toward the bathroom it never fails that my line will get caught up on the corner of an area rug; you know the type, the ends sometimes curl back from foot traffic. Yep, they always catch me, and half way through the bedroom I am stopped dead in my tracks once again, and it always happens when I have waited a moment too long, so that by the time I am lifting the line off the corner of the rug I can feel the burn, and then I have to double time my steps to the john.

Another john issue I have run into is the length ‘angle.’ Nowdays, I have learned that I need to plan ahead and make my transit to the john with my line coiled up in my hand, kind of like the ski ropes I held when I water skied from a shore start position.

When I water skied, standing in calf deep water, with my other leg in the ski suspended on the water’s surface, I would hold loops of slack line coiled in one hand, and the ski handles in the other hand, and when ready, I would give the signal to the pilot of the ski boat to “hit it!”

As he punched that throttle up, it shot the boat across the water and in perfect timing I would toss out the coils just as the slack was being pulled out. I would then step the ski onto the surface of the water at the precise moment so that if I sank at all, the boat would pull me right back up and plane me over the water’s surface. I could then commence to ski around the lake.

Well, those coils in my hand were what made that feat possible for me, just as the coils of line in my hand now make it possible for me to have a smooth run to the bathroom, especially if I am in a hurry to go.

I can toss the coils out as I run and if I toss them just right, it becomes a ballet in tennis shoes and I never trip or even worse get the line wrapped around my ankles (another common misadventure to be discussed at a later time), and it becomes a smooth run for me

….until I find out that I hadn’t checked the distance of line that I had had available in the first place.

I don’t always start that coil at the base, I sometimes just reach down and coil the line from where I am standing.

When I don’t have enough line it is like stretching the garden hose to water the garden, only to find it is 6 feet short and then, what do you do? It’s not going to reach, but you need to get it there anyway. With the garden hose, do you stop and get the water in your mouth and try to spit it toward the garden? Or do you go back and either get a longer hose, or a pail?

Well for me, as I round the corner toward the bathroom, and run out of line, do I keep trying anyway? Back myself into the bathroom (as though I can leave my head sticking out the doorway while trying to stretch my body out), getting my butt over the commode at the same time?

Well, that’s not going to happen. So I either end up back tracking all the way back down the line to find out what's holding me back (since I have ample line available) or I rip off my face gear holding it in my hand and go without it (which I have done more than once, or twice, or ten times), and even then sometimes I still don’t reach, and end up dropping the whole damn thing to the floor all because I waited too long to go, and it became a mini emergency for me.

Even then, I can get relief and be somewhat comfortable and not move at all until I have finished and can reclaim my headgear, and sustain myself once again, because of course, now I have SOB. Once I have my cannula on, I then sit on the bed for a moment to regroup, relax, replenish, and be ready to go back into the world (only takes a little time to perk back up). So I rise up and calmly walk into the hallway to emerge and join everyone in the family room, only to hook myself up on the dresser drawer knobs now, and once again, almost rip my face off.

All of this I do for oxygen…my oxygen line. It follows me where ever I go, it controls me, it teaches me a harsh lesson if I am not paying attention.


You see, I am like a fish out of water only in reverse. The fish will flop around if you take it out of the water, yet if you return it soon enough, it revives to go on once again, but it cannot live for long without water. Even though it needs oxygen it must get its oxygen from the water. Even though I need oxygen, I can no longer get it from the air, I need it in the form of pure oxygen, from a tank, or I will end up flopping around. Such is life on an oxygen line.

While it is quite often comical to watch, it remains a cynical and sometimes painful way to exist.