It's May In March! ! ! ! !

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

One of the toughest things about recovering from my operation is the planning involved in even the most simple and mundane activity. To get up out of a chair for instance, I have to have my crutches within ease reach. I have to make sure that the area around the chair is uncluttered. I have to position my crutches so that I am pushing up and out with my arms as I am lifting with my legs. I have to be conscious of my balance until I am "in balance" for one out of every 15 or so maneuvers is a little "off." This also means I have to plan on "returning to the landing site" each time I "take off."

I have to constantly remind myself not "to reach" but to move to whatever it is I want. I also have to remember to take everything I need to perform a "particular" function. I have developed an ability to have a mental check list and to run down it whenever I move between here and there to do this and that.

All of this sounds a bit complicated but for a sailor, it is almost second nature. Whenever I am sailing, I am forever mentally going over the lists of necessary things to do to say change course, drop anchor, raise or lower sails. If I think out and plan out each maneuver, it usually goes off without a hitch and if there is a hitch, it is most often anticipated and accounted for. Still, it doesn't mean that I have not during my recovery already left some "vital item" in at the farthest point away from where I need it to be at one particular moment.

The weather has been spectacular and I have been forced, forced mind you, to sit outside and soak-up lots of vitamins (A(?) and/or D (?)). I am still suffering the fatigue attacks but they seem to be getting few in number and are are spacing themselves farther and farther apart. Sleep at night is longer and deeper and less interrupted. Rather than awakening every 45 minutes or so, I am actually making it almost all the way through the night. What usually wakes me now is not so much a FLOMAX moment as it is sliding my arm across the rip saw blade made up of the staples on my hip. Thankfully they will be gone on Wednesday. Huzzah!

I am spending some small time figuring out how to do all of the maintenance on ABISHAG with the limitations of movement I will have. If I am told one more time that I can dislocate the hip by bending, squatting or twisting the wrong way, I think I will scream. Maintenance on a sailboat is all about bending and twisting and squatting, not to mention stretching and reaching. Perhaps, I will win Powerball and will be able to hire a limber soul to handle it all. Not likely, but you never know!