Zen Artistry in the Modern World
Total Knee Replacement, Part 2.
Sometimes the Unexpected Happens
J. Casey Gershon
With any surgery, the unexpected can sometimes happen before, during and after the surgery itself. Six weeks prior
to surgery, Rick and I were out doing our regular Nordic walk. It was a misty, rainy day and his right pole slid out and got caught in my poles as I was moving. I landed hard on the ground sustaining a nasty cut on that same left knee.
My concern at the time was that the cut wouldn’t heal in time, thereby, causing the surgery to be postponed. The next few weeks were challenging indeed, as I did everything in my power to nurse the wound and help it heal. When the day of my knee surgery finally arrived, the surgeon came in and inspected my knee and said that he would cut around the wound, but that the incision would look more like a question mark than a straight line. Who cares, I thought to myself. Let's get this thing done!
The surgery was successful as was the rehabilitation.
And so it was that about six months after the surgery we were back in North Carolina. My walking had steadily improved. It wasn’t perfect yet, but I was definitely on the road to recovery. The everyday was getting better and better. Rick and I wanted to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary, so we bought tickets for Pentatonix's holiday concert
in Greenville, South Carolina.
The concert venue was in the city's hockey arena, where folding chairs were set up in the upper seating area along
the side of the arena. It was an excellent concert; highly festive, with great visuals and music that immediately got everyone rocking to the holiday spirit. The audience was singing and clapping along with the music. As we neared the end of the concert, the audience stood stood once more to sing along with the closing number. While the audience began to stand, I remained seated. I was able to turn my head to the right and have a direct view of Pentatonix and their high energy performance. I was mesmerized by the beautiful harmonic sounds and thunderous clapping. Rick, like
everyone else, was standing and clapping along. The next second, I felt a searing pain in the front of my leg. I whipped my head around to see what had happened. An elderly gentleman, in front of us, had lost his balance and the full weight of both he and his chair crashed backward into my knee. I was unable to move. Rick suddenly turned and was alarmed as he saw tears running down my cheeks. The immediate crowd around us were understandably focused on the gentleman on the ground.
What they did not see, but Rick did, was that the man fell directly on my recently repaired surgical knee which took
the full force of the impact. Please dear God, not now, I thought to myself. Not after all this. The people in front helped the gentleman up. He was shaken but OK. Rick was momentarily angry with the man, but there was nothing to be done. The fall was accidental; the gentleman certainly hadn't intended to lose his balance. There was no point in talking to him about what happened. We slowly made our way to the arena exit. The good news was that, with time, the bruise faded and the muscles to my leg and knee slowly returned to normal.
Each of us will sometimes experience an unexpected setback just as we are making good progress. The unexpected can happen to anyone. And for some, the consequences can be a lot more serious than an injured knee. I think of someone like actor Christopher Reeve, the man who portrayed Superman.
In 1995, Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down after a horseback riding accident. He was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Virginia. The accidental fall caused him to break his neck. Following his accident, Reeve became a prominent advocate for spinal cord injury research and rehabilitation. He founded the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which has raised millions of dollars for research and provided support to individuals with paralysis. Reeve’s activism also extended beyond the foundation. He used his platform to champion the importance of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and even testified before Congress a number of times, starting in 1997 when he advocated for federal funding of stem cell research. In his own way, Reeve became an altogether different kind of Superman.