I don’t feel as good this morning as I did yesterday, but I am pretty sure it is something to do with popcorn lathered in butter and covered with salt that I ate before bed last night. Again with the no bone pain, which is astounding. THis genuinely feels life changing. One of my daughters looked up the condition I had before surgery, and she read out some of the symptoms, and one section included the statement “slowly sucking the joy out of your life.” I have apparently had this for a long time, and the joy has been gone for as long. I cannot remember not feeling a deep abiding pain that I could not shake, and that always slowed me down. To feel ‘normal’ is to feel like I spent 55 years of my life being robbed, and shorted on everything. But to really confirm this, I need to do some things, and experience some things that would have slowed me before, and that I should have been able to do all these years. One in particular is my photography.
Yes, even my photography feels like it ihas suffered. Why? Because I like good cameras, and good cameras are often very heavy. Be it my Hassalblad 503CW, or my Nikon D850, those camersa have weighed a lot. But both are able ot capture detail in the images that none of my other cameras throughout the years have been able to. I remember my first shots with the Hasselblad. I took a picture of a girl and when I got the negatives back and scanned them at high resolution, I looked at her eyes, and in them I could see the building behind me when I took the image, and the car parked in front of it, and the oulines of the grass, and a fence. They all appeared in such detail in someone who’s waist up portrait took up less than a third of the image space on the negative. Then there is the D850. A full frame sensor at 45MP, mounted behind some of the best glass in the world, and it does essentially the same.
Well, these cameras are both made with a metal chassis, and in particular the case of the Nikon, it is fully loaded with electronics and both weigh a hell of a lot, especially with their massive lenses with superior elements. I have always begun to hurt from the moment I have lifted either of these cameras. I mean this from a guy who begins to hurt when he is wearing more than just one shirt, such as GAP style layering, or a even jacket. As things have been clearing up for me in that realm, I have to wonder if I can now carry the camera more easily to go out shooting with it? Will it be okay to try to haul a second lens?
It has hurt to just lift the camera, making even shooting portraits difficult, and carrying to s shoot or hiking to a location with a camera has been all but impossible. Go back to 2006, when I first started this blog, and you will see I was shooting from rail journeys and on bike rides. Well, that is because I hated carrying the camera, and needed to mount it on my bike rack just to be able to have it with me. I mean, to really illustrate my level of pain in all this, I have not even been able to put my cellphone in the front pocket of my shirt without it weighing down and hurting my spine.
I’m going to recover from this buttery popcorn by eating some decent food today, then maybe this evening or this weekend I will try hauling my camera around a bit here at the house, and see how it goes. I’ll know. It really has always been that bad.
So the question is, am I going to stay where I am at in life now? Or do I take this new found lease on life and get after my dreams? Of course I do!
Brain fog has been another issue symptom of my issue, and I cannot say I have lived life without it. I have always hurt for memory. There is a reason I know history in generalities, and cannot remember specific dates, and why my own expertise in anything has always been limited to the same kind of generalities. I don’t feel like I have ever been a complex thinker. Then again, there are some levels of complexity to which I think it is a waste of time going into the weeds after, or down the rabbit hole chasing. But I am still waiting to see if the brain fog clears and anything changes, or if I am just stupid. Probably that. Be it whatever on that score, I will not be distracted by the constant low level hurt anymore, so even if there is no difference on by brain fog and thinking, there will be less distraction, and that is extremely promising.
To say this moment in life has been nothing short of miraclous is short of how it feels. I keep expecting my shoulders to start hurting, my spine to radiate pain, arms to want to fall into a resting position and feel like they are pulling me down. But instead, I keep feeling nothing. Not even a twinge in my internal organs! Has life really been taking this much from me?
When Jordan was here yesterday I took a short turn on the log splitter, and nothing of it bothered me, or left me feeling wanting. Instead it was lift the log, split the log, throw the pieces, and lift the next one without any of the drag of sore knees, hurting joints in my elbows, shoulders, and wrists, or my hips and back making me feel like everyting wieghs twice as much as it does.
So, where do I go from here? The house needs work. The photography wants love. Wood wants working. My world needs cleaning up, and the idea of keeping up with it should not be so damned challenging. I also need to lose weight, and I need to be more fit. I need to eat well! Better than I did last night! Generally, that’s not hard, and I even feel motivated for it as I feel better. I don’t know to what extent I should try to exercise some, or just rely on increased activity?
But yeah, I genuinely feel that much better these past few days. My body is probably still adapting to the lower calcium in my blood. In a couple of more weeks, I should know. I’ll need to do some more blood tests to see where I am on things like my cholesterol.
Anyway, here I am. Things are different. The joy does not feel like it is being slowly sucked out of my life anymore. But I don’t just want to be bouyant. I want to lift off, and fly. I need to be cautious to not think I can do more than I really can, and I need to adjust slowly. Adapting to new capabilities must be cautious, so I don’t harm myself trying to do more than I can.
Yeah, I want to change just about everything, including posting in my blogs and such, and photgraphing and working my wood hobby into some kind of business, too. But the first thing I need to do is get myself into the condition to do all of this, so a little more activity in my life.
Sorry, this is all about me, me, me. I have a family, too. One of whome will be out here with us soon. And I am excited about that!
I feel so optimistic! It has been hard for me to feel that way for years now. How could I when everything has felt so hard to do? I suppose i fI had felt like this from a young age, I would have taken it for granted. Not taking it for granted is why I am gushing about it now. On the other hand, I think I could have done so much more with my life had I not been constantly fighting the obstacle all these years. If I had not been bound with a millstone, I may have done better in my career, with my education, with building the wealth I needed to care for my family better. I hate that this has come so late in life, but I am so glad it has come. I never knew there was a problem that was curable. I fell for the propaganda that I was a lesser person because I could not keep up with the pack.
I don’t want to jump the gun, and I hope what I am feeling is real, and it is permanant. It feels it. I hope I don’t screw it up by injuring myself trying to do something a 55 year old just can’t. I hope I can quickly pace myself into a new life. Well, not a new life, but the one I am living, only fuller. Much fuller.
Even as a young child, pre-ten years old, I was hurting, and unable to play as hard as the other kids did. So much has been robbed from me.