Dream Rangers

I couldn't say it better myself. 

Turn the sound down low if you are at work, and spend 3 minutes and 11 seconds with these men, these ordinary yet triumphant men. 

 

And now that you have the general idea, watch it again.  Feel your smile broaden.

And don't worry, it's okay to be teary.  It's just a little bit dusty at your desk today.

When people ask me to explain my sunny attitude, I stumble and fumble and I'm never quite sure that I am conveying what I really want to say.  I'm living a reality without the luxury of observing it from afar.  I am in the center of a maelstrom of good wishes and court proceedings and out of town visitors.  

I am the calm in the eye of the storm.  Everyone is watching, wondering, worrying, hovering over and about me.  

I am alive.  That's about as far as I get in terms of deep thought on this issue. 

That alone is enough to keep me occupied, it seems.  The citizen heroes, the first responders - they kept me from dying.  The UMC doctors and nurses and techs and Chief's of everything brought me back from the brink.  The rehab piece is all on me.  

Dr. Boaz allowed me to take his hip home inside my body, but only if I promised to keep any and all weight off it until 12 weeks had passed.  This was good news at the time, since the initial prognostication had been 16 weeks.  For the past 11 weeks I have had only inadvertent moments  when pressure has been applied to that leg; jumping off the electric cart at WallyWorld as I careened it into a woman in the salad dressing aisle was not my most graceful nor intelligent move.  For the most part, though, I've been remarkably compliant.

But the rehab required more than attention to detail.  It required hard work.  Some I did and some I didn't.  

Unless my SuziSitters were vigilant my breathing exercises went undone.  I really didn't like this device at all. 

It hurt to use it - even before I knew that I had a fractured rib - and it made me nauseous and light headed and dizzy and I didn't like it at all.  The Bride was adamant, Reggie was insistent.  They each expected compliance. 

I usually adored them. These were not among those moments.

But, when encouraged, I did use the thing.  I knew it was good for me and I knew that I was lucky to be alive to use it and anyway the rest of my body hurt so much deeper, felt tighter and stranger and more incompetent, so that by the time I got around to complaining about my lung capacity I felt kinda sorta just a little bit foolish.

It did feel awful.  I was doing it to myself.  Who needs breathing anyway?  Deep breaths are vastly overrated.

But then I thought back to the people who ran out of the Safeway, into a hail of bullets, because I needed help.  Seriously.  I have people in my life who put themselves at risk so that I could lie on my couch two months later and kvetch about inhaling.  

Hand me the damn device and stop laughing at me.

So, when I am asked for a personal inventory, a status report, an update on my condition, it's fair to say that this is as far as I have gotten: I'm alive.

My sunny attitude is that of those gentlemen on their motorcycles : 

Life is short and unexpected things happen so get out and do something to put a smile on your face. 

And take someone you love along for the ride.