Local View from 4'2" Anniversary!

(Local View from 4'2; Lake County Press, February 14, 2025)

Happy Valentine’s Day! Happy 3rd Anniversary to Local View from 4 foot 2!

In three years together we have explored the world around us looking at accessibility, relationships, and hopes for a more inclusive future. There have been many lessons shared and many lessons, for me, needing to be re-learned. I hope we can continue this journey together and thank you for all of your words of encouragement including perspectives that have changed by the sharing of stories.

I am currently on a quest to prepare my body, or as I call it- my vessel, for a major orthopedic surgery in about ten weeks at Mayo. This has been a surgery I knew would happen since the same one was done to my other leg in 2019. The wonder of kinesio tape has kept my right knee functional for over a year now.

In preparing my vessel I am doing pre-rehab with double the therapy pool routines each week in Duluth as well as starting a home routine for my legs, core, upper body and my lungs. Being middle aged and preparing for a surgery is SO different than in my youth. Back in the 1990’s and 2000’s I just headed to the surgery suite when they told me to. Now I feel like a Nascar car needing an oil change, new tires, a lube job, and a full tank of gas. Aging is not for the faint of heart. Aging is like disability, it is not a bad word.  It just is. It brings with it lots of changes, some immediate and swift while others are slow and simmering.

I am preparing my physical vessel with exercises, breathing routines, and pool time. Being a seated person for almost 38 years has had its impact on my internal organs. My trumpet playing and singing during my music education career was great workouts every thirty minutes, four days a week.  Since my disability retirement due to the pandemic, this routine has greatly changed. So now I will be humbled and strengthened by a piece of metal called a trumpet in the next ten weeks.

Part of my preparations will also be doing my self care and soul care. For me this includes more time reading, praying, singing, and laughing hard with my dear friends. One must be mentally strong to go through over two months or rehab and relearning the basics of training a brain how to use a knee made of titanium and screws. Healing is hard work and it takes rest and discipline- two things that I struggle with from season to season. 

While parts of my support team are the same from my left knee surgery in 2019, much of my team is different. I have many new medical providers due to retirements and different caregivers. Also losing the use of your driving leg for several months also makes life much more challenging. So I also need to be preparing my support system and encouraging them to be taking good care of themselves in the 10 weeks ahead. Even though it isn’t their vessel that is getting ripped open, broken, and put back together, like the Tin Man, their hearts, emotions, and worries will be put on the treadmill.  Their lives will be disrupted by the needs of my vessel. They too need to go into pre-rehab so we can all come out of this more healthy and stronger than we are going into this thing. 

Our mental health and mindset can also be indicators of our healing journey. For me and my many responsibilities, I am being smart and pre-delegating my leadership work. Letting go can be hard and it can also be very freeing. Building trust in the teams that I am surrounded by is also a great gift which includes taking eight weeks off post-surgical so I can fully focus on my vessel’s needs and not come back too soon.

Don’t worry, my faithful readers, I plan to have Local View from 4 foot 2 written before I go and will send an update when all is well. There is always much to learn, much to apply, and much to share.