Dennis and I had lunch watching a few squirrels out the window picking at the last of the berries on a tree outside. It just seemed like a “sit to” was warranted for both of us, each in our favorite chair bundled to the chin, again with each having our favorite quilt.
I may have nodded off for a bit. I was recalling just a few years back, I would have been sitting in this chair having a hard workout. I had put my shoulder out to the back and had what would be called a paulsie arm . . . no movement from the shoulder. If I wanted surgery I had to be able to lift the left arm and be able to hold it up on it’s own steam. Hours, days and months I would spend sitting in the chair lifting my left arm with my right one, willing it to stay up. The left arm was dead weight and would drop. The nerves had been cut off from blood supply during the injury and the bad news was that new regeneration is minuscule if ever.
Here I am looking March 1, 2017, right in the eye in my sewing studio. Not only did I not give up on my left arm, I was able to pass the test of keeping the arm up on its own and be a good candidate for having a reverse shoulder installed . . . and then needing the right shoulder to go through the same surgery the next year. Lifting a coffee pot in Perkins tore out what little I had left of a rotator cuff. Arthritis is sneaky. It may be slow moving as it builds in your joints, but watch out for a grand finale.
I can tell you that today I am in the process of quilting an 80″ x 80″ quilt under my domestic sewing machine. Tugging, moving and twisting my arms in every imaginable way to wrangle the beast under the needle. Small detail . . . I can’t brush my hair without one holding up the other to get the job done . . . small detail in the entire picture.
I do get kidded for putting my head down and not knowing when to quit on a project. Hey! I didn’t get where I am today by giving up. Enough of a break . . . the sewing machine is humming.
