The Lame Woman's Tale

         

                                     

           

                               

                                                

 Take a seat. This one. It isn't too deep. It isn't too soft. It isn't too hard. It's just right. Made of solid brass, it will not blow away in a wind storm. Indeed, you'd hardly be able to pull it away from the table if we got together for a game of Canasta. 

When I told Ellis I needed solid upright comfort after sleeping on the couch this last week, he had a bear of a time dragging it into the living room. But I'm glad he did. This chair, like my bed, was going to save my back. 

My first night back in my bed,unfortunately,was hell. it wasn't at all what I had hoped for. My knee was aching like it had never ached before. Icing hardly helped. I couldn't find a comfortable position. My head wasn't up high enough. My feet were bound too tightly by the blankets.  I couldn't fall asleep; Ellis was on my side.  My back was happy flat, but my knee was screaming all night till I broke down and took 1/2 a pain pill. The Grandmother clock in the hall chimed four sixteen. 

Morning dawned three hours later. Hung over, but pain free, I got up, dressed and one stepped it downstairs to my spot on the couch. The physical therapist was expected at nine; I needed plenty of coffee and wake up time. As Ellis and I were discussing what we were going to discuss with him, the phone rang. It was my doctor's nurse calling to  ask how I was doing. My hellish night spilled out unedited.

Rhonda was sympathetic, then turned professional.  She told me everything I had done wrong the last week. Fresh out of surgery, I had quit the pain pills way too soon, exercised with too much gusto and traipsed about the house as if the doors from surgery hadn't just swung shut behind me. She confined me to my couch with knees elevated above my heart and said, "Ice, ice, ice."  So there sits my chair, a still life, with no one in it.