HEALING TIME FOR BUSY PEOPLE

Healing time isn’t something we clock.

Things get messed up, then they get better.

Then you have a cool scar to show.

Do you ask friends to see their new scar; do you show yours?

For me, that’s yes and yes.

The only time we worry about healing time is if things aren’t healing on time.

I’m haunted by the memory of a knee surgery back in 1973.

I walked through the old gym to the weight room and saw a kid shooting free throws.

He was a junior to my senior and had something hanging off his leg.

I asked, “What’s going on with your leg?”

“It’s the stitches,” he said. But it wasn’t the stitches I saw.

Instead, a couple of stitches had split and his knee goo was seeping out.

“Get the coach to take a look at it.”

“I did. He said shoot free throws.”

The same coach had advised me a couple of years earlier. I hyperextended by shoulder in football practice and couldn’t move my arm.

He told me to, “Run it off.”

I had until Friday to get better, three days of healing time before my first start, the only game I started with my older brother.

He doesn’t remember since he was an All Star on his way to play in college, but I do. Why?

That was the last game of my sophomore season. I got my shoulder wrapped up with five rolls of tape, poked a hole in my jersey, and tied my wrist to my shoulder pads.

Things were tough back then and I was going to start that game with one arm if I had to. I took it personally.

Good coaching tamps down the sort of enthusiasm that’s harmful to the player.

Not that time. We ran out on the field and lost to Cottage Grove.

And that, dear readers, is how your favorite blogger joined the wrestling team.

 

Sports Injuries vs Internal Medicine

Take football for example.

Everyone playing in their tenth game is hurt in some way.

Justin Herbert broke a finger on his left hand and played through.

Now he’s got a broken finger on his throwing, gripping, hand.

Does he go left handed, or take some healing time?

Sports injuries go with sports medicine.

 

OHSU has the region’s most comprehensive sports medicine program, which means our team of specialists takes care of all of your active lifestyle needs, from injury prevention to surgical and non-surgical treatment to rehabilitation.

You don’t need a referral to see an OHSU Sports Medicine specialist. Call for an appointment today: 503-494-4000

 

But one day you’re not feeling it. No bump, no bruise, no blood, but something is off.

Maybe it’s your gut, shortness of breath, or your chest feels tight.

All of that is inside your body, hence internal medicine. (Who doesn’t like a good ‘hense?’)

Either let it ride, or get it checked out.

If you let it ride you need to decide your threshold. How much discomfort is too much, since you don’t want to run to the doctor for every little thing.

Just know that waiting it out while nothing changes, or gets worse, is not doing your doctor any favors.

They want to feel good about their work just like you and me, and their work gets harder with complications.

You won’t have to answer the question ringing in your head by then: ‘Why the fuck didn’t I go in sooner. Oh, no.’

But you didn’t want to be on the ‘existing condition’ list for insurance reasons?

Now you’re on it.

Have I told you about the time I was sitting at the table while my wife cooked dinner?

I rubbed my neck.

 

She said, “What are you doing?”

Me: Rubbing my neck.

Wife: What’s that?

Me: My hand and my neck. That’s my head on top and my manly chest below.

(We are expert communicators, as you can tell.)

Wife: I see a bump.

 

Don’t Wait On Healing Time

What do you do if you cut yourself?

This is what WebMD says.

 

What if you have memories that hang around and bother you?

You could be a writer.

History feels like more than a book?

You could be a writer.

The best writing advice?

Get out and take a walk.

Or listen to Anne Lamott:

 

1. Shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.

2. Writing is not just jotting ideas down on paper. Writing is about discovery.

3. You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind.

4. The most important thing about writing is sitting down and doing it every day, and the most important thing about life is just showing up and trying your best to be present every day.

5. A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.

6. Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.

7. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.

8. Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are.

9. Being a writer gives you an excuse to do everything as research.

10. The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one’s own most intimate sensitivity.

11. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.

12. Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.

13. Writing and reading slow us down. They make us take our time.

 

Healing Time With Anne Lamott

Anne’s TED Talk.

Anne Lamott from Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Blog.

And the book by Anne Lamott.

Where do you find your writing inspiration?

Do you call it inspiration, or just getting to work on things.

Some things I’ve worked on.