On becoming a grandparent

I have a grandson!  Our first grandchild!  There is great joy in that statement; hard to describe really, as it is quite different from the joy of having one's first child.  There is a sense of great satisfaction in knowing that you have helped carry on the line, as it were, you are continuing the will of the world, to procreate.

Some years ago, I recognised in myself a sense of emptiness.  Not the 'empty nest' syndrome, as that had occurred many years before when all three children had grown up and left home.  No, it was another sense of emptiness and I could not identify it until, at last, I realised it was a real deep need to know that there would be children from my children.  Weird.  Never thought about it before, never really worried or wondered, but here it was, presenting itself in a very physical way - a hollow that needed to be filled.

So, on 1st October, a baby son was born to my firstborn daughter.  The emptiness had gone - filled by new life.  The sweetest baby imaginable.  Everyone says that of their own - so it must be true.  We travelled to Australia to visit the new little family.  To wonder at the new life.  To watch him breathe, hear him cry, marvel at his perfection!

Now, he is smiling.  I can't wait to watch this child grow!

Kneed it?

I think I am my own worst enemy.  After having my hip done in July this year, I went back for further punishment in the form of a knee replacement.  On the opposite side to the hip.  My God.  I have never known so much agony and pain as in the first two weeks after the operation.  There was no escaping it - nowhere to hide, to curl up, to ignore the pain.  Sleep was non-existent, and tiredness affected the healing process as well. Tears were never far away.

I gathered around me whispers and threads of advice.  Someone here, with a suggestion of arnica creme to massage into the bruised leg; someone there with the thought of arnica drops to be taken orally for bone healing.  Another clue in the type of drugs I was taking (opiates) that it was ok to change them.  (Oh, they were wicked - deadening the mind, not the pain.)  Another whisper of sleeping pills - ok to take a whole one each night until you can sleep without them. Someone else with the valued knowledge of what a tubular bandage could do to help support the leg and dissipate the pain a little.  Finally, an 'ice sleeve' that wraps around the knee and fills by vacuum method with ice water.  The chill of the ice kind of overwhelmed the pain of the knee and, by concentrating on the coldness, I could overcome the pain and even sleep. Once the stitches came out and the leg stopped looking like a rolled and tied lump of meat, stretching and extending became a little easier.

Then, on day 16, a kind of breakthrough - the bruising diminished and along with that, almost overnight, went at least 60% of the pain.  I didn't dare say anything for two days, just in case I was wrong and pain was simply waiting around the corner.  But I think it is true - the bruising and having to work through the damaged muscles was causing more pain than anything else.  Did the arnica work its miracle?  yes, I think so!  To be through that pain barrier and on the other side is incredibly rewarding.  So is sunshine, and so is laughter.  I have my sister staying with me and together we can work up quite a level of childish hysteria at past things forgotten, but still hilarious.  Laughter at that level where you can barely draw breath, is so cleansing and makes you feel really happy.

There are more joints to go.  I know.  I've inherited bad joints - I have only to think of my little old grandmother, who died at the ripe old age of 93, and her bandy little legs which looked as though they were set at 45 degree angles, to even guess at the grinding pain she must have had when walking.  Same as my father.  But operations and replacement joints were not an option then as they are now.  So, I am lucky.  In pain, but very lucky!