The TV

I have never been much of a TV watcher.  People sometimes view this as a sign of cultural snobbery, but I just have never liked to watch it much.  There is something about the electronic voices that don't work with my ears, and I have never been great at sitting still.  When I do watch, it is likely to be either as a social activity, i.e., the whole family is watching something, or an experience in train wrecks.  Stuff that just seems too awful to believe will catch my eye and I will end up watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians, or something like that.  For years I would try to not even own a TV, but people kept giving them to me because they couldn't believe I didn't want one.

Doc loves TV.  He keeps it on all the time.  He reads while it is on, or plays on the computer, or knits, or just sits and watches it.  A few years ago, in time for the Superbowl, I went and bought a nice, fairly large TV for the living room.  I bought him a recliner that he said was comfortable, even though I hate it and it looks awful in our living room.  Everything is all set up for him to enjoy.

He never uses the TV.  He never sits in the chair.  Instead, he sits in bed and watches the TV in the bedroom.  I HATE having a TV in the bedroom at all, but I relented because it meant so much to him and because there have been times when he couldn't get out of bed for extended periods of time.  I thought he needed the entertainment and distraction from pain.

I wish I hadn't.  I wish I had stuck to my guns and never let the thing in my room.  Not only does he keep it on way too late, making it impossible for me to sleep, but he also never leaves the room.  He is no longer part of the family in any real way, except as the bill payer.  That is not what I ever wanted.  When we first married, we would play games together, cook together, and take care of the kids together.  He used to make their lunches, pick them up after school, do work around the house.  Now he sits and watches TV.  He never knows where the kids are, where the groceries are, or how to find the pot or pan he would need if he were going to cook.  He does always know where the remote is.

Of course many things are harder for him than they used to be.  That is part of the reason he doesn't do as much, but I think the TV really keeps him from participating in life.  It is too easy to turn it on, stay in bed, and watch someone else's life flash by.

Almost Four Years Later

If anyone had told me that my life would still be this unsettled four years later, I am not sure I would have believed them.  It turns out that post-amputation life is never the same.  There are some things I may have been able to anticipate, and others that took me completely by surprise.
The first months actually went much more smoothly than I expected.  Not that they were easy, but he learned to walk with the prosthesis relatively quickly, and was proud of himself for that.  Learning to use it turned out to be the easy part.

I thought that once a prosthesis was fitted, that was it and wearing it was just a matter of getting up in the morning and putting it on.  There are people who wear their prostheses all the time.  It turns out that it isn't that simple.  Tissues swell and shrink; weight is lost and gained; a perfectly fitting prosthesis one day may not fit the next.  The bucket may crack, the battery may not charge correctly, and it may just be too hot to imagine wearing 7 lbs of metal and plastic on the end of your sweaty stump.  It seems that we spent more time getting the leg trimmed and reshaped and refitted than he spent wearing it.

As the months wore on and he was still unable to do much more than walk around the block or through the grocery store, he became depressed.  He tried to do less and less.  Every time he looked at the things he hadn't finished, instead of becoming energized to do more, he became dejected and did less.

Always one for big plans, he kept talking the big talk.  He was going to do a marathon.  He was going to do the Boston.  He was going to learn to swim with one leg and go diving again.  He was going to ride a bike.  In reality, he became more and more confined to his bed.  I became more and more frustrated.

It is possible that I said things I should not have said.  That I have yelled more than anyone should.  I have tried wheedling, cajoling, bribing him to do something.  I spent too much time sitting next to him in bed, getting depressed myself.

It would be nice if I could tell you some story of a huge turnaround, but the fact is, I can't.  I have started doing more things I enjoy, finding alternatives to the architecture career that hasn't materialized, and forcing myself to do things outside the house a little more.  In response, he is trying a little harder.  The depression has lifted a little bit, but it is still lurking.