The Garden of Arcane Delights

So, as I wrote, only three days after being out of the boot, I ruptured my Achilles tendon, went back into surgery, and was soon back in bed with an enormous cast on my leg.

Every time I go down for the count like this, I tell myself that I will be productive.  For a while, I was.  I did a rewrite of that novel I have been planning on publishing.  I worked on that for about three feverish weeks, where I got in the zone again, writing from sunrise to sunset.  But when I was done, that stupor resumed again.  Maybe you know what I am talking about.  Maybe you don't.  When you are down, watching movies, reading books - it's all fun for about three days, and then the boredom settles in.  Many times, everyone is gone from the house, and I am left to sit and think - think about my health issues, think about how I don't have a job right now, can't even walk, think about my painful divorce, relive every mistake, catalog everything that went wrong, and evaluate yourself under the kind of self-scrutiny that comes through isolation.

My "Zipper Leg"

After a couple of weeks, the cast came off, and then the staples.  My kids observed that it looked like I had a zipper on the back of my leg.  The boot went back on, and I still walked on crutches.

It was during this time that I started taking oxycodone.  Yes, there was pain at first.  I took the medication for pain for only a few days that I really needed it.  But they prescribed me seventy pills - seventy!  Right away, I noticed that the pills made me feel indescribably happy - blissfully happy.  Two pills, and I forgot my unhappiness, forgot that I was trapped on a bed.  For a few hours, I would sit and bask in the sublime glow of chemical serenity.  I stopped taking them for pain and started taking them as something to mask my emotional pain.  Quickly, I learned that I got the best result not taking them every day, but by spacing them apart every few days.  If I took them every day, all that happened was that I got lost in a swoon of dizziness.  But every few days, I experienced pseudo-happiness.  I can see why people get addicted.  I was almost relieved when  my seventy pills ran out.

Being down this way, my metabolism changed.  I was limited in the exercising that I could do, but I was eating the same amount, maybe more.  I started gaining weight and feeling exhausted all the time.  Diabetes, I'm sure.  A good friend of mine from my hometown wrote to me and expressed concern about my health.  He suggested that I go vegan.

So both Martha and I decided to go raw vegan.  She blended green drinks for breakfast and dinner, with a huge salad for lunch.  For snacks, we ate strawberries, or apples with raw nuts.  For a while, I felt better.  But after a week, I started to lose vision in my eyes.  Noticeably.  I could no longer read books.  I couldn't even read my phone any longer.  I researched it and learned that protein is essential for eye health.  Also, diabetics like me require more protein that most people.  I started adding whey powder to my drinks to supplement my protein.  My eye sight actually went back to normal within three days.

After two weeks, we abandoned the raw vegan diet in favor of a more balanced diet.  Economics played a huge factor in this, especially since we have so many kids.  A raw vegetable diet was expensive, more than our budget could afford.  So Martha and I would take green drinks for breakfast and sometimes lunch.  Then we would eat for dinner what everyone else in the family had.  It was a bit of a compromise, but I did feel much healthier.

At the end of May, the boot finally came off.  After six months of being off my feet, I was able to walk again.  I was referred to a physical therapist, which really helped.  The best description I could give was - going to the gym with a bunch of old people.  It didn't hurt that my therapist was quite good-looking.

Martha and the kids planting seeds in May

Around this time, the chance came up for us to buy the property we were living on.  Previously, we had only lived there to take care of the place for the owners.  But they put it up on the market, and we were able to purchase the place.  It included eighteen acres, and three homes - all of them needing repairs.  It included a couple of gardens, including a vegetable garden and a greenhouse.  The boot came off, and I started working on planting.

What I wanted was healing, and there was nothing more healing than working outside.  My mornings started at 5AM.  I would get up and water all of the trees and the garden.  Sometimes I would listen to music, but mostly I would enjoy the cool air, the quiet serenity of my property, and then satisfying feeling of working with soil, with water, with plants.  When that was done, I would work on some sort of landscaping or gardening project, mainly weeding.  I would go in for lunch, and then take a nap.  Then I would start the evening watering cycle.

It was therapeutic, and I felt the first peace I have felt in a long time.  I was working outside so much that I lost some weight and got a nice tan.  People told me that I looked better than I had for a long time.  I was outside so much that I didn't have time to write.  I didn't have time for Facebook.  But mostly I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself anymore.  I called my garden my "garden of arcane delights" - to evoke Dead Can Dance, one of my favorite bands.

Izzy on our rock garden in progress

As soon as the monsoons started, I stopped working outside so much.  The daily rains were doing my job, and the gardens flourished.  So did the weeds.  As I write, we are still enjoying zucchini, cucumbers, and chilies from our garden.

The physical therapy ended, and I went in for surgery for the right foot, the same one done for my left leg.  The procedure went well, but, when I got home and got out of the car, even though I was using crutches, I was very surprised at how weak my left leg was.  After all of he surgeries, in spite of the physical therapy, I was amazed at how weak my leg was.  It was wobbly and could barely support the weight of my body.  Getting between the bed and the toilet was a struggle.  Luckily, it did not last more than a few days.  My leg strengthened very quickly, and now I am shuffling around with apparent ease.

Healing from this surgery has been a lot easier.  First of all, I am not suffering from depression like I did the previous procedures this year.  I am stronger, more upbeat. eating healthier, and not dosing myself with narcotics.  I am seeing the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

It amazes me - it is now September.  I have spent most of the past nine months on crutches.  2013 is the Year of the Crutch.  I am itching to get started on the gardening.  As I write, I have three more weeks on crutches, and then another three weeks in the boot.  Then probably another two months of physical therapy.  As soon as the boot comes off, I will start some more landscaping projects, including pruning all of the trees.

But more importantly, I will start walking again.  As soon as I am strong enough, I have every intention of hitting the highway and thumbing it wherever God takes me...