our neighbor rich is 82 years old.\u00a0 well, not quite – he’s going to be 82 on July 6th.\u00a0 he was born in 1928.\u00a0 he’s tall – six feet one – and thin – 175 pounds.\u00a0 his middle name is Charles.\u00a0 he isn’t on any medication, for anything, except he takes vitamins and calcium.<\/p>\n
i don’t normally know this much information about my neighbors.\u00a0 i’m actually not sure what some of their names are. \u00a0 i know a lot about rich because we spent most of the Memorial Day in the emergency room together.<\/p>\n
rich’s wife, bernice, called us at about one o’clock on monday afternoon.\u00a0 i’d already been running, we paddled around in the kayak, i ran some errands, and was reveling in the thought of no plans or obligations for the day.\u00a0 Bernice sounded terrible – rich had fallen and he thought he’d dislocated his shoulder and bernice had had surgery the week before and couldn’t drive him to Urgent Care.\u00a0 would we mind?<\/p>\n
of course not.\u00a0 we drove the two doors down to their house and i waited in the car while kevin went in and got him.\u00a0 rich came out of the house, not looking so bad.\u00a0 quite dapper, as usual, in a neatly ironed orange short-sleeved shirt and khakis.\u00a0 rich is always nicely dressed, whether he’s driving away in his car or out mowing his lawn.\u00a0 he mows, he trims, he works on his huge motor home a lot, he tinkers with his cars.\u00a0 rich, 82, is a very busy man.<\/p>\n
but his arm was hanging funny.\u00a0 kevin got him in the car and rich didn’t say that much.\u00a0 he did say “this is the most pain i’ve ever had in my life.”\u00a0 he didn’t say it loudly or anything, he was very matter of fact about it.\u00a0 more pain than i’ve ever had.\u00a0 no big deal.\u00a0 he’d been power-washing his driveway and it started to storm and he slipped in all the water.\u00a0 he reached his arm up to hold onto the side of the garage, and the arm stayed up but his body went down.<\/p>\n
we took him into the prompt care place; he wanted to go there because he’d been there before and so they had his records.<\/p>\n
ok, so the most important thing to remember here is this – IF YOU DO SOMETHING PHYSICALLY BAD, LIKE YOU MIGHT HAVE BROKEN SOMETHING or something like that – GO TO THE HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM.\u00a0 don’t mess around with any of those “quick” care places.<\/p>\n
the place was packed with people.\u00a0 nobody was bleeding or crying in pain, so i figured they were probably all sick.\u00a0 we waited.\u00a0 and waited.\u00a0 and waited some more.\u00a0 rich was doing ok; he was talking to us, asking how we met, chatting – but every once in a while he’d wince a little and say “most pain i’ve ever had in my life” and “i can’t get it my arm in a comfortable position.”<\/p>\n
an hour and a half passed.\u00a0 the tv was turned to the cooking channel and bobby flay was doing back-to-back grilling shows, a memorial day grilling bonanza.\u00a0 it made me want grilled steak, grilled burgers, even grilled pizza, although that sounds kind of gimmicky and i bet if i tried it the crust would slide right down in the grating.<\/p>\n
finally they called Rich in.\u00a0 he tottered on in; he wasn’t too steady on his feet.<\/p>\n
more waiting and waiting, and then they sent him across the room for an x-ray.\u00a0 wait wait wait.\u00a0 then back to the doctor he’d seen.<\/p>\n
it was severely dislocated, just like he’d thought, but they couldn’t fix it there.\u00a0 he had to go to the hospital emergency room.<\/p>\n
we should have insisted to begin with that we take him there, but now we know for next time something happens to somebody.<\/p>\n
off to st. john’s, which wasn’t busy at all.\u00a0 i stood at the front desk wanting to check him in, but a woman was in front of me and it appeared that she was going to stand there talking all day.\u00a0 she was explaining to the attending nurse that she was 53 and she’d been there last year and she had kidney stones and she had never wanted to have to go back there again and here was the bag of the medication she was taking and she had been fine until sunday but then her stomach started in, real bad, and…and…<\/p>\n
i stood there thinking, if only we’d gotten there two minutes earlier, i would have been spared hearing her entire life medical history.\u00a0 finally she shut up and they checked rich in and put him in a wheelchair and rushed him right in to a room.<\/p>\n
finally, some speedy service, but too much time had passed.\u00a0 we crowded into the room with about five nurses and they took lots of vital information from rich and then they x-rayed him again.\u00a0 the doctor came in and said he was going to try to put rich’s should back in without putting him under, because it’s better to do it that way when somebody is rich’s age.\u00a0 so the doctor stood in back of him, manipulating his scapula, a nurse was on the other side pushing, and they got kevin to help push.\u00a0 it was painful to watch, but rich claimed that it didn’t hurt any worse – but i guess there wasn’t anywhere to go, pain-wise.<\/p>\n
the doctor finally gave up on the pulling and said they’d have to give him a little bit of anesthesia.\u00a0 we got to stay in the room the whole time, watching.\u00a0 it was all so fast, and as they set it up the dr. looked at kevin and said “i remember you.”\u00a0 we’d taken dad to the ER two winters ago when he was having chest pains, and the doc remembered kevin from that.\u00a0\u00a0 amazing.\u00a0 i’m lucky to remember my own mother, and this guy remembered kevin from two years ago and kevin wasn’t even the patient.<\/p>\n
rich was lying there, unconscious, but he was gripping the nurse’s finger so tightly that his knuckles were white.\u00a0 all those hours of with his bone out of its socket, the muscles were so incredibly tight and clenching clenching clenching, so his whole body had to be in such a state of intense tension and pain.\u00a0 the doctor started in on the pulling again but it wouldn’t budge.\u00a0 they finally had to give him some muscle relaxant, and then, thankfully, it worked.<\/p>\n
whew.\u00a0 rich was lying there, snoring, and the nurse explained that since he’d been given a small amount of sedation, he could wake up in five minutes, but it might take longer.\u00a0 he looked so peaceful there, free from the horrible pain, but after a while she tried to wake him up.\u00a0 she leaned over him and yelled RICH.\u00a0 ARE YOU AWAKE?\u00a0 CAN YOU HEAR ME?<\/p>\n
nothing.\u00a0 he kept snoring.\u00a0 i felt bad for him when she did that every ten minutes or so; i wanted to say “can’t we just let him sleep?”\u00a0 but finally she asked if he could hear her and he shook his head no.<\/p>\n
something was stirring in there.\u00a0 he finally opened his eyes a little and the nurse said I NEED YOU TO DO FOUR THINGS.\u00a0 YOU HAVE TO STAY AWAKE.\u00a0 YOU’LL HAVE TO DRINK SOME WATER.\u00a0 YOU’LL HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.\u00a0 AND YOU’LL HAVE TO WALK.\u00a0 THEN YOU CAN GO HOME.<\/p>\n
this seemed like a lot to ask of him, but after he was lying there for a little bit more, he did sit up, he drank a lot of water, and she helped him out to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
he said “the pain’s gone,” and then he kept thanking the nurse for the great care.\u00a0 she told him he’d want to take some pain reliever, and what kind did he prefer?<\/p>\n
none.\u00a0 he doesn’t take advil, or aspirin, or tylenol.\u00a0 no pain medication.\u00a0 “if i get a headache, i didn’t cause it, so i’m not going to put anything in my body to make it go away,” he said.<\/p>\n
wow.<\/p>\n
i wondered if he’d take anything that night.<\/p>\n
the next day he said he took two advil before bed, and two in the morning.\u00a0 this is probably the most advil he’s ever taken in his life.\u00a0 he drove the next day, he’s getting along fine.<\/p>\n
rich is a prime example of why you don’t need to blame getting older for what ails you – if you stay fit, you stay healthy, you, too, can power wash when you’re 82.<\/p>\n
ok then,<\/p>\n
thursday grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
our neighbor rich is 82 years old.\u00a0 well, not quite – he’s going to be 82 on July 6th.\u00a0 he was born in 1928.\u00a0 he’s tall – six feet one – and thin – 175 pounds.\u00a0 his middle name is Charles.\u00a0 he isn’t on any medication, for anything, except he takes vitamins and calcium. i […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-14E","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}