Walking the Path Out of Knee Camp

We are gradually leaving Knee Camp.

It’s been okay there. The camp counselors are nice, and we learned a lot of new camp songs. We learned to tie new knots and how to replace the runners on walkers.

We also got a refresher on patience and teamwork that included sessions about exasperation and resentment. Let’s be frank. Knee surgery is no picnic, either for the person whose knee it is or for their companion.

The caregiver and care-receiver roles are new coats for a couple that has practiced a 50/50 division of labor (more or less) for forty years. One person is totally focused on learning how to move well, and the other is obsessed about the first person falling. In between there is impatience with the rate of healing but from different points of view. It’s complicated.

Meanwhile, there is always garbage to be taken out.

Who does what when is the stuff of relationships. Caregiving – either temporarily or permanently – scrambles the recipe. I’ve known this from afar as a friend casually mentioned how her brilliant husband could no longer be left alone, and I realized that she was tied to him all of the time.

That’s not my situation. My comrade in Knee Camp did the whole circuit at the dog park this morning using his walking sticks from Christmas. He is on the path to wellness, being again a robust man. But, to be sure, I got a taste of what could happen in the future. We both did.

We mull it over, each in our own way.