Learning to Deal with Human Limitations

A guest column, by our host and benefactor -- Rabbi Steve Weisman

First, thanks to my good friend Jim, for giving me this space for this blog, that apparently, only I could write :)

I deliberately waited to add this blog to the mix, for two things to occur. First, I wanted the World Series to be over, so I could congratulate whichever deserving team prevailed to bring their community a long-overdue first World Championship. So, congratulations to the SAN FRANCISCO Giants for breaking what all New Yorkers know was the curse of Horace Stoneham, who moved the franchise from coast to coast, for winning the franchise's first world championship on the West Coast, their first since Willie Mays was making "The Catch" in 1954 to help shockingly defeat a Cleveland team that won 111 games during the regular season, which ended the Yankees' 5-year World Series run (and note that Cleveland, already by then 6 years removed from their last World Series victory, hasn't won since!). Pitching, once again, trumped hitting; and team chemistry raised a bunch of journeymen and youngsters to the top of the mountain. Sandy Alderson, are you watching? :)

And second, I wanted the softball season to be over, and have my follow up with my orthopedist, so I could speak more intelligently following my own first experience with significant sports injury. Thankfully, since that fateful night 3 weeks ago, and through all the pain of the intervening 21 days, every test and report that has come in has been the best possible.

So, to set the scene -- which is a story of hubris: the recently turned 50 year-old Rabbi, playing better ball AFTER his quadruple bypass than he had before it, but beginning to show the signs of the ravages of age, letting his 25-year old's sports brain talk him into trying something his body could no longer write the check to cover, taking a massive tumble trying to stretch a single to right into a TRIPLE (notypo -- no showboating, no stupidly aggressive baserunning, except in trying to go to second base in the first place -- actually a logical and reasoned, if ultimately unsuccessful, effort to not make the third out of the inning). Leaving himself with a nice gash below the right knee, and just under it, the mother of all raspberries developing beautifully as the game wore on, and helping to obscure the greater damage to the knee and leg (but somehow going 4-4 AFTER the injury!). Not noticing until almost 24 hours later how much swelling there was and how much the knee itself hurt.

By Thursday, my primary care doctor was SO sure that I had torn the ACL, that he WALKED up to the Orthopedics office in his building to tell them they had to see me right away. X-rays showed nothing, MRI the following Monday said that I didn't -- just strained EVERYTHING maximally without needing surgery. But the knee specialist asked me to explain how I did it again, saying that he usually only sees this level of bruising and swelling "in crush injuries"!

So, 1 month and 1 day before my son's Bar Mitzvah celebration, 12 days before a major soiree honoring my 10 years in this congregation, and here I am on crutches for the first time in my life, balancing between the pain and the FDR-like desire NEVER to be seen in public with them. Wanting to take my time and let the secondary pain pass, but knowing that I have David's Bar Mitzvah, and a wedding and Bar Mitzvah the following week -- that really all require me to be totally mobile :) Stuck between my usual stubborn, male, Type-A need to be independent, and being as DEPENDENT as I have ever been save for my heart surgery recuperation! OY! And while having a daughter with a driver's license was a huge help, it is VERY strange riding in the back seat with her driving me places!

At least choosing a Halloween costume was made easy and obvious -- can you say Brett Favre (I know, knee vs. ankle, but by then, honestly, almost all of my pain was in the ankle from the swelling!)?!

So today came the second good news -- I have nearly full mobility back in the knee, with no lasting structural weakness -- a couple of weeks of PT will have me off the 60-day DL in time for spring training in a few months. The swelling WILL eventually abate -- I can't wait to get rid of the oh-so-stylish and terribly confortable compression sock that has been my constant companion these last 2 weeks. Even the mother of all scabs is finally gone from my leg.

All of which has left me with an incredible sense of awe at what these professional athletes who play through injuries and live with pain are actually doing.

And the ultimate challenge - -reprogramming my brain to know that next time I hit a bloop single to right field, with what is left of this body, it really is a single, and not what it used to be -- an excuse to show everyone that the old guy can still run the bases with the best of them! Why do I have a feeling THAT will be the most difficult and painful aspect of my recovery in the end? :)