Category: Prayer

Positive (Productive) Solitude—How Being Alone Can Make You Happy

A recent Greater Good Science Center on-line magazine article really caught my attention. Although the post’s title, “Three Emerging Insights About Happiness,” could have been a ho-hum trigger, the email subject line snagged me:

“How Being Alone Can Make You Happy.”

I perked up and quickly clicked through.

Why?

Because I tend to like being alone, even though I extol the virtues of socializing.

I know. That sounds disingenuous and a little dishonest. But it’s true.

Let me explain.

Although many people would swear on a Bible that I’m a total extrovert, I’m not. In fact, I’ve taken several personality tests—including one when I entered graduate school eons ago, and another one maybe a handful of years ago—that indicated I was borderline sometimes-extrovert, sometimes-introvert. It just depended upon my mood and the social situation. And it still does.

Maybe my initial college introversion came more from being insecure about whether or not I actually deserved to be attending graduate school where I was; and being downright terrified about whether I had the brains to actually be successful in graduate school.

I loved socializing and could chat up a storm (still can) and can easily and comfortably work my way around and through groups of people. But I grew up an only child and learned to spend a lot of time alone. Spending hours in a gym, working out alone (with just my dad or another coach) simply re-enforced my aloneness. I didn’t always like it, (I often loathed the isolation); and it made it difficult to develop friendships, but I learned and adapted.

As a writer, I spend hours alone in a VERY quiet house every day, except when my Shetland sheepdog Dolly ruins my eardrums barking.

So with all of that in mind, I read the article with tremendous interest, trying to glean insights for those of you who would like to spend time alone, learn to spend time alone, need time alone, and would love to know what benefits you can get from that alone time.

 

Greater Good Magazine managing editor, Kira Newman, highlighted three main (revelations-to-her) takeaways from her recent excursion to Melbourne, where researchers from over 60 countries gathered for the International Positive Psychology Association’s 6th World Congress. She said that the findings the researchers shared “added depth and complexity to our understanding of major keys to a flourishing life.”

Newman went on to say that attendees heard about when kindness makes you happier, and when it doesn’t. Now the latter part of that statement in itself—especially with the “Be Kind” movement in full swing—is a revelation for many.

She also noted:

“Researchers also addressed modern obstacles to happiness—from the way we’re hooked on technology to a widespread sense of disconnection and loneliness.”

Defining positive solitude—

It is well known that social connection is one of the keys to happiness and longevity. For many, feelings of being separated from others—on the outside or forgotten—equals loneliness and disconnection.

But a group of researchers—Martin Lynch, Sergeyt Ishanov, and Dmitry Leontiev—at Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics—have investigated “the phenomenon of positive or ‘productive solitude.’”

Newman asks,

 

“Does solitude have to be a negative experience? Can time alone feed our well-being?”

 

She explains that positive, or productive solitude is in contrast with the more unpleasant experience of being alone.

 

“Productive solitude doesn’t occur because we fell disconnected from others; it’s something that we deliberately seek out.”

 

Productive or positive solitude is when we use the solitary time not for negative ruminating or feeling sorry for ourselves because we’re alone, but using the time for

  • Contemplation
  • Reflection, or
  • Creativity

In other words, it’s time spent being intentionally productive engaging in something that will enrich your life physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

The benefits of productive (positive) solitude—

Researchers note that people who practice periods or times of positive solitude tend to feel more positive emotions, like:

  • Relaxation
  • Calm
  • Greater pleasure
  • Greater meaning
  • Less of a sense of void in their lives.
Who benefits most from productive (positive) solitude?

It’s not surprising to learn that introverts tend to benefit most from practicing productive solitude. After all, introverts easily tire from too much social stimulation, or having to socialize with large groups of people, and get re-energize with alone time.

But another group also benefits:

Those who enjoy emotional and psychological maturity.

 

Would you count yourself in that category—an emotionally and psychologically mature person?

That’s one of the primary goals of my website, which hosts this blog—for all of us to grow into emotional, psychological (and spiritual) maturity.

 

Tips for achieving positive solitude effects—
  • Deliberately schedule alone time to do something you enjoy, without interruption.
  • Spend solitary time in a peaceful setting, like nature.
  • Disconnect from social media, turn off your phone and computer, tuck them away and focus on something else—like prayer, drawing, meditating, stretching, thinking, daydreaming, doodling, coloring. Even cleaning out a room or closet can reap positive solitude rewards, especially if that chaotic space makes it difficult for you to feel peace and tranquility or achieve any type of productivity.

 

What positive/productive solitude isn’t—

Positive solitude isn’t time spent alone doing regular work or trying to catch up on office demands.

 

Deterrents to positive solitude—

If you aren’t used to practicing positive solitude, you may find your normally busy or over-stimulated brain challenged, and rebelling. The brain loathes change and habit-correction.

But persevere! It may take you a few attempts (or many) to discover what you’d like to do during your alone time, or determining what activity gives you the most bang-for-your-time buck.

  • If you must, set up a positive solitude reward. Your choice.
  • Deliberately schedule alone time for doing something you enjoy.
  • Think of it as time spent cultivating new attitudes, and growing happier!

Again, persevere!

Happiness gained from positive solitude awaits you!

 

NEXT WEEK: What does “feeling active” have to do with your happiness factor?

If you have any tips for other readers on how you spend positive solitude time, please share them, so we can grow and explore together!

Until next week, enjoy your solitude.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

How to Pursue, Build, and Nourish Friendships

Have you ever met anyone who seems to yack and yack and yack and doesn’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise?

Most of the time they’re usually talking about themselves, their activities (or lack thereof), or their problems. They can be exhausting to listen to.

 

I’ve had some interactions like that, especially with new acquaintances, people I’ve just met or recently met. On a weeklong writing retreat, I spent much of the week listening to one woman’s life story, (which was quite a story), with all of its pitfalls and sadness; although she frequently interjected words of praise to the Lord and joy and how much she liked to write.

On the last day of the retreat, I sat at the dining room table with her, listening to her tell me—and the other seven writers seated at the table—about more gory life history. When it was time to leave, I said goodbye and started to go. She looked at me and said, “Wow. We have to leave already, and I didn’t even get a chance to talk to you and hear your story.”

The first thought that crossed my mind was Of course not. You were too busy telling yours. I’ve been with you for a week, and you never asked.

I’d been in close proximity and boarding in the same house with her for six days, and not once did she ask me about me, or my life.

 

The heart of the matter—

She may have just been a talker, but—as much as I tired of her droning and was irked by her assessment—and insinuation that I’d withheld information from her—I sensed something else going on.

This woman was either scared or lonely, which meant she talked incessantly to cover her fear; or people never really listened to her. Or she didn’t have enough close friends that really listened and gave her honest feedback.

That’s where so many of us find ourselves these days—scared and unsure of ourselves around others, especially strangers; or just flat out lonely. Plugged into the Internet or television with no real friends to share life with. Covering up our loneliness with busyness and cramming too much activity into a day. Being pressed on all sides by family and work.

And that’s one of the reasons we’ve been covering friendship building on Meditation Monday blogs for the last month.

 

Our purpose—

God didn’t put us on this orb and allow us to populate it because we’re supposed to live and go it alone. We need to make connections and share life. At the very least, we are to be Jesus-with-skin-on to others.

This post will give you another idea for building friendships.

 

Connect or reconnect with old friends—

Having a connection to your past through someone else is important. Someone you grew up with, came of age with, slogged through growing angst with.

I think we intuitively know that and that’s one of the reasons so many in their 40s, 50s and 60s (or older) start looking for “old friends or classmates” and try to reconnect or establish a new friendship through a common bond.

 

Regretfully, high school friendships dropped off the radar for me some time around the birth of my first child. I’d done a pretty good job of maintaining contacts during college and then beyond, but either busy life or inattentiveness caused my connectedness to whither away. Then the same thing happened to college friends, as we moved on, moved away, and started careers and had children.

I’ve begun rectifying that, with a very close high school friend. (I honestly didn’t have too many really close BFFs. I was too busy swinging from uneven bars and being a gym rat to nurture friendships the way I should. And I realize now that I also had too many hang-ups to be a really good friend. It’s one of my biggest regrets.)

 

I’ve managed to keep in touch with a friend from my freshman year in college, even though she transferred to another college our sophomore year. She lives up the road from me in the north Phoenix area. We mostly communicate via text message, but sometimes it’s a visit, (I flew to Las Vegas to visit her once, drove to Central California from Southern California another time, and enjoyed her guest bedroom after a Phoenix writing retreat on another).

Even when months slip by, she knows I’m only a phone call away; and we’ve prayed each other through some pretty rough times. And I recently learned that she and her husband are buying a retirement home just minutes up the road from where we bought our retirement lot.

And I count myself blessed that my beloved and I came of age together in college. As my youngest noted the other day: “You and Dad sure have a lot of good stories together!” We do. I only hope I can remember them in another ten, twenty or thirty years!

Tomorrow—Tuesday, August 13—will mark 36 years of married memories and 40 years of significant other memories.

 

Maintaining or building a friendship—

Regular conversations, cards, text messages go a long way in maintaining a friendship, or even building a new one.

I’ve recounted the story before about an older woman I’d been doing Bible study with calling me not long after the birth of my youngest, which was a difficult, isolating time due to his prematurity and sensitivity issues. I did not hear the phone ring, so her call went to voice mail. When I listened to it, I broke down in grateful heaving sobs.

“Hi Andrea. It’s Louise. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking about you, and if I didn’t call to let you know, you wouldn’t know that.”

What a simple, beautiful call that was to an exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed parent of a new preemie.

I wasn’t alone. Someone was thinking of me.

 

And now that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed about my mother’s condition and having 100% responsibility for her, her medical care, and her funds, I’m in need of more phone calls like that—calls of empathy and sympathy, especially from people who have walked through this kind of valley. Ones that know what it’s like to care for an aging, dementia-ridden parent that never treated you all that well to begin with and who still communicates with a barbed-wire tongue and combative, screeching decibels.

As one person told me, after she gave me priceless direction on how to set up in-home medical care for my mother: “I totally get what you’re suffering. Other people who haven’t gone through what you’re going through don’t get it. They never will. And don’t expect them to. Talk to people who understand.”

It was a fluke that I’d even connected with this woman on the phone, the owner of the company I needed to contract with, who only answered the phone because her receptionist was on vacation. She was patient, informative and compassionate. I knew I was talking to a kindred spirit, and that God had placed her in my path to give me some emotional (and eventually physical) relief.

I heaved grateful sobs when I got off the phone with her.

One connection with a kindred spirit.

And I’m considering finding a support group to encourage me on this new season of my life. Hopefully I’ll make another friend. I already have one who’s is undergoing much of the same, and we are supporting one another.

 

Keep trying—

The goal is to keep trying. Persevere. If one person doesn’t show interest in spite of all of your efforts, then graciously move on and try someone else or another setting. Invite someone out to lunch or over for tea, to try to connect. Usually you’ll know immediately whether or not there’s a potential heart bond.

I’ve come to realize that I can’t just dredge up high school friendships that weren’t there in high school, or pretend some existed or went deeper when they didn’t. I can go to my high school reunion and enjoy conversations without expectations of being asked to join “the group” for outside social events. I can move forward from where I am, at this age, with the needs, weaknesses, goals and gifts I have now.

In this season of my life.

 

Be realistic—

Don’t spread yourself too thin. Work on maintaining and deepening the precious friendships you do have and focus on the new person or two you’d like to spend more time, or encourage. I’ve noted a couple of people I can tell need someone to come alongside them, as encouragers, so I’m making plans to spend some time with them.

Start with something low key, like grabbing a cup of coffee, going to a movie, inviting someone over for a swim if you have a pool they’d enjoy.

Don’t be too hard on the friends who go for months or maybe longer without getting in touch with you. Extend them grace and the benefit of the doubt. Check in with them via text or a call or email to let them know you’r thinking of them and love them. Yours may be the most uplifting, positive message they’ve heard in a long time. Life and time zip by quickly before people realize it; and life is hard—harder for some than others.

Be creative. As I tell my kids, try to find some common ground and interest you can connect on. You’d be amazed at what blossoms for your efforts!

 

 NEXT WEEK we’ll see what the Blue Zone researchers discovered about the importance of lifelong friendships.

Until then, branch out and try some new things, do your best to connect with an old friend, work on deepening the relationships you already have.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

How to Make the Most Out of Life: Building Friendships

Want to broaden and strengthen your friendships and relationships? It could be one of the most important things you do to make you physically, emotionally and spiritually healthier.

 

Last month we started a series on developing and building friendships, something all of us need. Even the most righteous and Spirit-filled believer needs someone with skin on her. Even our Lord had His special twelve, and his intimate three. Why would we think we could go it alone?

Last week we looked at taking the first step on that journey: taking your whole person into account. Rather than take a shotgun or dart-throwing approach to friendship building, we need to know ourselves—our strengths, weaknesses, desires and needs—as we embark on friendship finding and building. In a nutshell, we need to discriminate based on that list.

 

Getting practical and proactive in friendship building—

After you’ve taken your whole person into account and made a thorough personal assessment, you can move forward. Today we’ll look at two suggestions for friendship building.

 

  1. Get yourself out there!

You won’t make too many friends, or strengthen old friendships, if you don’t get busy and get visible. Some of the best ways are to:

  • Try something new—a painting or drawing class, taking music lessons, joining an exercise class that gives you the opportunity to interact with others.
  • Volunteer—join a board that works to achieve something you hold near and dear to your heart. When I volunteered at the local food bank, I had the pleasure of meeting all sorts of interesting people and even having the opportunity to interact with some of them outside of the volunteer setting.
  • A friend of mine who recently moved to another state got busy joining the local Newcomers Club, a church and one of its small groups, and Bible study. She also has a knack for talking to nearly every new person she meets, so she quickly racked up new friends and opportunities.
  • Join a hobby group—our younger son, who is 24, recently commented to my husband that he realized the one thing that was missing from his life was a hobby. My husband laughed, probably because he has too many hobbies going. “I really need a hobby,” Cory said. He correctly views a healthy hobby as one that helps him release work stress and engage his mind in different ways than his work does. It’s a win-win physically, emotionally and spiritually.

 

  1. Find a place to gather with others.

People tend to like having a place to go to meet others, and it needs to be a comfortable place. Your local Mexican restaurant is likely not it. Why? That type of environment is too noisy and too busy to be able to focus on others and share your heart. Some places that make gathering locales are:

  • Library activity rooms—a writers group I belong to meets every Friday in a nearby library. It has been a fabulous place to meet others and make some new friends.
  • Quiet coffee shops
  • Parks
  • Community Centers
  • Meet-up Groups
  • Church rooms available for meetings
  • House rotation—have others over for tea, lunch or dinner and then ask others to host at their homes, if they are able. That way one person doesn’t feel burdened with hosting every time. We rotate between homes in one of my writing groups. And if someone needs to bow out at the last minute for some reason, another member quickly jumps in to fill that roll. There are only five of us, so it’s a close-knit group.

 

Think of other places you can meet, or groups you might want to start.

In response to a prompting I felt from the Lord, I started a small women’s group about a decade ago. We met at my home the second Saturday of every month and arranged occasional get-togethers with the family members in our backyard. Grilling, swimming and dining on S’mores made over an outdoor fire pit are quick ways to form friendships! The group last seven to eight years, and we opened our hearts to one another and formed special bonds. We studied the Bible together and prayed fervently for one another. When one of us had family issues or faced illnesses or death, we circled the wagons around one another for support.

 

As you read this post, does anything come to mind that you’d enjoy or think you’d like to start? Pray about it and about the people you think the Lord would like you to be-friend or gather with.

 

He knows best what your needs are.

 

Next week we’ll look at two more ways to bolster friendship building.

Until then, check library bulletin boards, community center activities pages, and Google search for meet-up groups in your area. You’ll probably be surprised to find the number of activities that will spark your interest.

 

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

5 Life Lessons Learned in the Emergency Room

I was doing a lot of yelling and repeating myself Saturday night and early Sunday morning in a hospital emergency room. After six hours of it, I was getting a bit exhausted and frustrated. Like it or not, though, it had to be done. There was no way around it. But I ended up learning a lot of lessons.

 

Emergency rooms are not where you look forward to spending your Saturday evenings, especially when you have a movie date planned with your beloved, and you’ve just spent the most glorious day with him—lingering over a l-o-n-g, delicious brunch, shopping, and sweating during a workout in the gym.

Then, on the way home from my glorious day, looking forward to that movie date, I got the call: my mother had fallen and been transported to the nearest hospital. My beloved and I found ourselves making a swift U-turn and heading to the ER in our sweaty gym clothes.

 

I spent the next five hours—except for a brief sandwich run—standing (and sometimes sitting) in a tiny ER cubicle keeping my mother company, communicating with her patient and efficient nurse, and awaiting the official diagnosis of her clearly fractured collarbone.

It’s not easy communicating with someone who’s nearly deaf. If she could still read lips, it would be easier. But she can’t do that anymore, either. Macular degeneration has wiped out all but the shadows from her vision. She looks at you but doesn’t really see. So I have to raise my vocal decibels to painful ranges (for both me and other people in earshot) to be heard by her. She often only manages to catch snippets of the sentence or conversation.

 

Saturday night I was in the happiest and most compliant of moods, thanks to my already-stellar day, so I tolerated the mental and physical strain fairly well. And I kept reminding myself of several things:

 

1. My mother wasn’t being difficult on purpose.

Although my mother has a reputation for being extremely difficult, she wasn’t Saturday night. That was the first miracle. She actually let me talk to the doctor without interruption. She was scared, she needed me, and she finally trusted me to make decisions for her, without her muddying up the process.

 

  1. I reminded myself to smile. Often.

A very wise man once wrote that laughter and smiling are good for the bones, and he was so right. It helped relieve my stress. While my mother’s sensory issues aren’t a laughing matter, my having to repeat myself a half-dozen times became funny. Sometimes I tried imparting the message several different ways—dumbing down complex words that would be hard for her to decipher. It became a mental challenge for me. Smiling kept my mood lighthearted and less defensive.

 

  1. Life gets interrupted, and oftentimes it’s better to go with the flow than wrestle with it, internally or externally.

Sometimes, letting life just be the way it is results in enjoying the otherworldly peace we all seek. By that I don’t mean taking a morbid, fatalistic attitude toward it, but adopting an attitude of security and trust in the One Who does have control over the situation, knows how to handle it, and has your best interest in mind.

 

  1. I had a loving advocate available to me in the waiting room.

It certainly helped knowing that I wasn’t alone in this burden. My beloved was running interference by going home, tending to the dogs, gathering items for my mom at her place, and being a good listener (and sometimes yeller when I couldn’t get a message through). He asked me at one point whether he should just go home. I told him I needed him there, even if he was parked in the waiting room doing work on his computer. Thankfully, the young man at the front desk finally allowed two visitors in my mom’s cubicle, so he was able to squeeze in with us the last hour and a half.

 

Lessons learned—

And, of course, after the worst was over, my mother was safely ensconced in a hospital room, and Chris and I were able to go home, I started thinking about how much all of it reminded me of everyday life.

 

  1. We can spend a lot of time yelling at others about things they can’t or won’t hear.

Often, especially with our children, we need to sound like broken records—repeating, repeating, repeating, until it sinks in (or doesn’t, and they have to learn it the hard way on their own).

 

  1. If we do have to repeat, repeat, repeat, it’s often best do to so with a smile in your heart, if not on your face.

We don’t want to look like condescending jerks when we’re doling out advice. The smile is more for you, the repeater, so your words come across as more loving than angry or frustrated. You know, like at the end-of-your-rope mad.

 

  1. A lot of our communication with God must seem like yelling to Him.

Because my mom can’t hear, she tends to yell when she talks, even in places where being subdued is the expectation.

We get nervous about our situations, and then we YELL! Like God’s going to be able to hear us any better or move faster on our behalf, or move us and our problems to the head of the problem line. Like babies, we don’t think He hears us, so we make sure He—and everyone in the room—does. I started laughing thinking about what it looks and sounds like from His position.

 

  1. We interject ourselves into the situation in a belief that we’ll solve the problem sooner or better, ignoring the fact that God really does love us, does have everything under control, and not realizing that our interjection only muddies the outcome. I wonder how often we slow the process down by getting too involved, by trying to control others and the outcomes.

 

  1. Life is always better when you have an advocate, one you can trust and lean on.

For a Christian, your first advocate is Jesus Christ. He’s the One with a direct line to the Father. He’s the One you take your problems to for solving. And when you do, you trust Him to do just that. And you demonstrate your trust by stepping back, without interrupting or trying to manipulate or control the situation, let the Father and Son discuss it and plan a perfect course of action.

 

Another type of critical advocate is the one with skin on. The one who shows up with you, waits hours with you, listens with you, maybe talks for you, intervenes for you, supports you, and provides a shoulder and hand to lean on and grasp. An advocate who will laugh and cry, and be a sounding board. An advocate that will also carry your concerns and pains and cares to the throne of grace.

Every difficult, stressful and exhausting thing about Saturday night was relieved and tempered by my having the most important person in my life by my side. And then knowing—when I filled out the prayer request card in service Sunday morning—that I’d have a church body lifting my mother and me up in prayer.

It made life so much more bearable.

 

And then I learned one more lesson.

While situating my mother in her bed in the hospital room, the tech tried talking to her from the end of her bed. “She won’t be able to hear you,” I told her. She nodded, and then did the most loving thing.

She walked to the head of the bed, leaned over, and got as close to my mother’s ear as she could to speak to her. She still had to crank her voice to a louder-than-normal volume for my mother to hear her, but her actions caused both of the you-are-such-an-idiot, Andrea; and you-better-be-taking-notes lightbulbs to snap on in my tired brain.

 

That nurse talked to my mother as God usually talks to us.

He gets as close as He can—as long as we let Him near—to speak to us. Sometimes He whispers because whispering forces the hearer to listen more closely. He doesn’t usually yell, although sometimes His anger has been known to rouse Him and crank up His volume. Sometimes, when we don’t listen or convict ourselves, He disciplines us to a point that we feel as though we’ve had our legs cut off from under us.

It’s a position I need to take more often with my hard-of-hearing mother. It’s a position I need to take more often with my loved ones.

Rather than standing up, or even leaning over a little to yell, I need to come as close as I can to speak—in an even, slow cadence.

In love.

 

Until next time,

Repeat yourself with a smile in your heart, and move in close!

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and an award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Arthroscopy and a Miracle

A funny thing happened on the way to my knee surgery. Something wonderful and rather miraculous.

But I still don’t know when it happened.

Let me explain.

 

A little history—

As a competitive gymnast, I put my knees—and body—through the contortion and compression ringer. Way back in high school I was slapped in a thigh-high to ankle leg immobilizer because of excruciating knee pain and unceremoniously diagnosed with “chondromalacia,” a condition that develops when the smooth, lubricating underneath surfaces of the kneecap get damaged or wear down from…well…wear and tear. At fifteen, I was already experiencing severe wear and tear.

The pain kept me from sleeping. I couldn’t find a comfortable position for it. Keep it bent too long, and I’d have to straighten it out to get it to calm down, at least a little. I needed to sit on the aisles for theater and movie attending because keeping it bent, with the kneecap surface grinding into my femur, was intolerable. Changes in air pressure exacerbated the pain, as did lying out in the sun too long. Adding any excess poundage to my medium frame also worsened the problem.

The condition was still giving me fits in college, and my team physician prescribed 7 aspirin 3 to 4 times a day. It certainly reduced the inflammation, but I was too exhausted from anemia to stay awake or experience discomfort. That was a rough college semester.

 

Athletic Training to the rescue—

Once I completed my athletic training degrees (B.S. and M.S.), I understood what my “mechanism of injury” (cause) was and how to deal with it and became a specialist in the biomechanics of the lower extremity and learned how to treat my own knees as well as my patients’. I developed a knee treatment and exercise protocol to keep my legs strong and avoid further injury.

But I couldn’t reverse the damage done. And while hiking the sometimes-brutal landscape of the Camino de Santiago last fall, my kneecaps (and femur) once again fell victim to the ravages of bone-to-bone grinding. I ended up hobbling (yes, HOBBLING!), into Logrono, our last town on our first journey.

 

Seeing a doctor—

After our return from the Camino, I made an appointment to see a local orthopedic doctor that specializes in regenerative medicine of the joints. Maybe he could help me?

After examining my x-rays, and pointing out the frayed surfaces of my kneecaps, he said he could probably help me regenerate some of that surface cartilage through stem cell injections. Cells extracted from my own tummy fat. (How wonderful that they’ve found something useful for it!)

Because the cost is exorbitant, and insurance companies won’t pay for it, I’d need to save to have the procedure, which I hoped to do last month, after I’d made enough recovery from my November toe bone spur-removal surgery.

But something happened during the rehabilitation from that bone spur. Either I put too much pressure on the right leg, and damaged my meniscus; or an already-damaged meniscus was further eroded during my rehab. One Friday back in January, I saw my stem cell doctor again, told him my right knee felt as though it was hanging by a thread, and wondered what he suggested. He said he wanted to get a look inside the knee to see what was going on. That meant an MRI, which he ordered. (That’s what I hoped he would do.)

 

But the following Monday afternoon changed all my plans.

On the way out my front door to get into the car and drive to Phoenix for a three-day Crisis Management seminar, I finished off what I’d started.

It didn’t take much. It often doesn’t, especially when you get to a “certain age.” I stepped backward off the landing, planted my right foot, turned the key in the lock and pivoted on my planted foot.

Bad move. And a ripping sound toward the back of my knee confirmed it.

After crawling back into the house, (wailing in pain and frustration to my two attentive and sympathetic dogs), icing, and awaiting my husband’s return so he could take me to the after-hours clinic, I got my MRI moved to “stat,” and slid through the magnetic tube that Friday. The following Tuesday I was back in my doctor’s office.

“Good news,” he started, “is that you don’t have arthritis in the knee joint.” I was thrilled, especially after a grizzled Physician’s Assistant with no bedside manner assured me in the after-hours clinic that I had arthritis and my meniscus had to be “mush” due to my age. It meant no knee replacement necessary, for the time being, at least. Then he continued. “But you do have a meniscus tear. They’d normally just let it go, but you have a flap on yours. They’ll need to cut that out, so the knee won’t lock up on you during activity.”

Since he doesn’t do surgery, he recommended another doctor, a believer in stem cell therapy. My doctor hunted him down and brought him back to the room. (Impressive service!) The surgeon told me it was an odd tear (of course; I don’t do anything “normally”) and there wasn’t much to be done but snip that flap off. “And clean up anything else I find in there.”

I knew what that meant: clean up any of the chondromalacia debris. I wasn’t in hurry. Wanting to build some strength in my legs before undergoing the knife, I scheduled surgery for six weeks later.

 

The surgery—

That morning, Chris said he’d never seen anyone more ready and excited to have knee surgery in their life. True. I was excited to find out what was going on there, myself. I sort of felt as though I had this morbid desire to use myself as a guinea pig. I chatted up a storm with everyone. Even the anesthesiologist and I got into a discussion about walking the Camino de Santiago. Fifteen minutes later the procedure was over. They’d blocked out an hour.

Chris had just settled himself into doing work on his computer in the waiting room when my surgeon bounced down the hall toward him, a jubilant smile spread across his face. “Come in here,” he said, as he waved Chris toward a private consultation room.

The surgeon tossed the glossy pictures of my internal knee anatomy toward Chris. “Look at this!” he gushed. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Chris pretended to know what he was looking at as the surgeon pointed out the structures. “See her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament)? That glossy area indicates it was damaged, and then healed. That’s remarkable. And see the color of the ligament itself? It’s shape?” Chris nodded as he stared at the picture. “That’s what a ligament of a twenty-year-old athlete looks like!”

Chris’s gaped at the surgeon, who continued. “And, aside from the tear, her meniscus are also in near-perfect condition—healthy, good density. All I had to do was snip off that flap. And see the fibers branching out from the tear edges? It’s healing itself!”

Chris threw out a couple of “Wow” comments as the doctor continued. “And see the smooth cartilage on the bones? She has NO arthritis. Absolutely amazing!”

Then the doctor flipped to the second sheet of pictures. “Now there’s the war zone!” He pointed to the pitted kneecap surface, with the fragments of sheared and scraped-off cartilage hanging off the kneecap and floating in the joint fluid. “Typical gymnast knee. Lots of brutal shear force. I just cleaned off the mess. The good news is that she actually has about 1/3 of the surface cartilage left for stem cells to bond to. She’s a prime candidate for the treatment!

“I don’t know what you guys are doing, eating or exercising or good living. But whatever it is, keep doing it!”

 

Recovery—

Chris couldn’t wait to share the good news. I was thrilled. At my post-op appointment, the surgeon confirmed what he told Chris and said he didn’t think I’d ever need a need replacement.

I lay on the couch post-surgery and bragged to anyone who called to check on me that I had the knees of a 20-year-old. But it didn’t take me long to think a little deeper about what had transpired.

I’d turned 61 just four days prior to surgery. Twenty years old was four long decades ago. Even if I took into account:

  • my pension to eat well and consume a lot of anti-inflammatory foods;
  • my liberal use of anti-inflammatory meds during my twenties;
  • the likelihood that I’m blessed with good genes, (my mom is 97 ½ and without any skeletal problems);
  • and my athletic escapades and genetic bent toward strong, powerful muscles that hold joints together;

 

I can in no way account for all of those factors subtracting 40 years from the age of my knee.

 

Somewhere along the line, some heaven-sent miracle arrested the aging of my knee; or I received a healing miracle sometime during the last 40 years.

I won’t know this side of heaven what the answer is, but I’m SOOOOO grateful. I probably won’t need my knee sawed out and replaced with a bionic, titanium alloy model. Something that’s so often done these days that it reminds me of assembly-line surgery.

 

Healing process—

So now I’m working on rehabilitating my knee. Recovery is creeping along much more slowly than I predicted, but I’m guessing that’s all in God’s plan too. Another lesson in slowing down, trusting. Practicing peace in the face of incapacity and pain.

Surgery recovery has a way of putting life into perspective. It whittles life down to what’s important and really urgent.

Turns out not much is really urgent, although we elevate a lot of things in our lives to urgent. Sometimes I think we do that to make our lives seem more relevant.

And we get brainwashed into believing that unless our lives seem relevant, then we aren’t relevant.

I’m also amazed once again at how God has created the body to heal itself. Sometimes that’s a slow process that needs cooperation. Otherwise, healing can go haywire. I confess I’m not always a patient person, so the healing process is also a lesson in patience, another product of the Spirit’s fruit.

 

Any way you look at it, it constitutes a miracle.

There’s a lot to be learned from an injury.

Youthful knees or not!

Photo:

By the way, the above picture is not a photo of the moon. It’s the inside of my knee. The damaged part of it. The grayish area is where the surface cartilage has been worn down, “like sandpaper,” the surgeon said. Gymnastics. All of the surface should be pearly white.

Hopefully it will become that way if and when I have those stem cell injections!

I’ll be praying for another miracle!

 

Until next week,

Shalom,

Andrea

“Certainly there was an Eden….We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it.” —J.R.R. Tolkien