All is Revealed - Ode to Being Sixty

Six months ago, on the morning before Rosh Hashanah, the tip of the middle finger on my left hand found itself crushed in the metal folds of our garage door. Once I was able to extract it by pushing the door upward I found the bottom of the finger nail protruding above the cuticle and blood dripping from what was once the nail bed.  At the urgent care center, a thoughtful and calming physician’s assistant calmly removed the remainder of the nail, placed three stitches and updated my tetanus antibodies while I assiduously looked the other way to avoid any glimpse of the digital carnage.  Six months later, the nail has finally fully grown back and, except for a vestigial numbness, that may or may not be permanent, the finger looks and acts normal.

At the end of February, I had the first in what will be a series of surgeries to install multiple dental implants in place of teeth ravaged by years of periodontal disease (a hereditary gift from my father – I would have preferred his good looks or his athletic abilities but apparently these were recessive genes.)  Both this surgery and a second in late April caused weeks of remarkable pain and discomfort, as foods with any texture or the slightest positive or negative PH caused raw, exposed tissue to vigorously pronounce their disapproval.

About that time, a routine medical examination revealed a slightly depressed hemoglobin count.  Suspecting a leaky pipe, a surgical probe and then a miniature camera encased in a swallowable capsule explored my esophagus, stomach, small and large intestines.  Nothing unusual was detected and I am prone to believe that the only outcome of these procedures was that, to this day, a miniature camera is methodically snapping pictures from bowels of Atlanta’s waste disposal system. This was an unfortunate choice of words, but, nonetheless I will leave it for impact.

Other than being profoundly unpleasant, what these medical incidents have in common is that they each revealed a part of me that, under normal circumstances, remain hidden and protected.  Tips of fingers bereft of nails are not meant to be exposed to daily encounters and, in the absence of the protection of such nails, even the most basic functions, became painful and difficult.  My oral surgeries have reduces the simple act of eating from one of pleasure to opportunities for exposed tissues and nerves to be assaulted – say by a wayward clump of oatmeal or a grain of rice.  And as for the pill cam, cameras belong strapped around the neck not coursing through it.

These corporeal assaults brought back less than fond memories of surgery to remove my spleen thirty one years ago.  An idiopathic blood disease caused my platelet count to drop to 1/10 of the normal range and when several courses of steroids did no more than make me look like the latter life David Crosby, surgery to remove my spleen because the only treatment course.

For those who have not had major surgery, it is quite difficult to describe just how unpleasant it is.  Upon awakening from the anesthesia I was engulfed in pain.  Further, having all one’s midline muscles cleaved makes any movement; laughing, sitting up, drinking, waving your hand, both profoundly painful and difficult.  In the most absolute manner possible I had been opened up and thoroughly revealed.  There were no pretenses; no defenses; no hiding; no faking and certainly no cover ups.  “Hineni” – Here I am; Ecce Homo – behold; here is the man.  I had been fully and completely exposed; not only for the surgeons who sliced into by abdomen and rummaged through my entrails, but to the family members and hospital professionals who witnessed me at my weakest, most needy and most vulnerable.  These extraordinary individuals, most notably, Jo, my blessed bride (of just one month at that time), embraced me as I was and, with great love and devotion, nurtured me back to health and wholeness.

Here's the thing: “V” does not always stand for victory.  If there is a lesson here, it is that there will be a time in our lives when it will stand for “vulnerable”.  We will all be made raw with pain and heartbreak.  The deepest recesses of our bodies and souls will be revealed to others.  We will find ourselves helpless and, perhaps, hopeless. It will be at these moments when we allow ourselves to be open for all others to see and bared at the deepest and most profound levels that we will learn about humanity and about our own humanity.  With the love of others, we will heal and, while vestigial pains and grievous memories will remain, we will be stronger and wiser.  And, in the oddest way possible, life will be sweeter.

Scars and all, it is good to be sixty.  The alternative is far less appealing. I thank my family and friends for your companionship, love and support.  Be patient with me, I’m still figuring it out.