Pickles

It has been a while since I blogged, well it feels like forever. Maybe just two to three weeks?  But I want to blog about something that is very near and dear to my heart: Pickles! A some what funny (to me any way) little story about pickles.

So every night I get up maybe 4 or 5 times due to the meds (from the surgery, remember me mentioning that in previous blogs?), usually about 2-3 hrs apart.  Last night at my 2am awakening, I felt like having a pickle.  I knew we didn't have any in the fridge as the keeper of the inventory of the fridge.  So I went to our little food pantry shelving area, and looked at the underside of the second to highest of the shelf (much easier to spot a pickle jars bottom than to try to see around everything, or get a chair only to be disappointed).  Much to my delight, I had foreseen my need for pickles and had a pretty decent jar of Mt. Olives Kosher Snacking Dill Pickles waiting to be enjoyed.

Okay, before I go any further, a little background history is in order so this tale could be just a bit funnier.  My surgery was on the left side of my back, going into my left lung.  It follows the curve of my shoulder blade and I joked that it appears that the doctors removed one of my wings.  As a result, my left back, oh probably 5 or 6, ribs were broken to access the lung.  If anyone has broken a rib, I think maybe they would sympathize starting now about this ordeal.  For those who haven't, it really isn't all that bad, until you try to take a deep breath, or cough, or laugh, or stretch, or twist, or reach, or sleep on your back, or sit on a couch or chair, or ride in a car when it feels like the person is throwing you into the car seat and slamming on the breaks (which Kris isn't, it just seems that his driving is exaggerated due to the injury), well I guess basically anything.  It feels like someone has beaten me within an inch of my life, just on my left side back AND front ribs with a 2x4.  Yes, that's accurate.  The pain meds help a lot, but because I am afraid of becoming addicted to the medicine, I limit myself to a pain pill only when I absolutely need it.  My goal isn't to be 100% pain free 100% of the time, my goal is 100% pain free for a while, then about 75% pain free for a little while longer, then 50% pain free for some more time, when I get down to 25% pain free, that's when it is time to take another pill.  By doing this, I stretch the amount of time I need to take a pill, the amount of time my body needs to cope between pills is slowly being increased, allowing for, gasp, you guessed it, some pain in my life, but eventually it will be manageable with maybe one dose (my goal is NONE) of over the counter pain meds.  And this does work.  Within two weeks, I think, of returning home from my last surgery, I was taking only Tylenol, and by time a month had come and gone I was only taking Tylenol in the morning ONLY if the pain hadn't subsided within the first hour of being awake and moving around.  Now this rib thing feels like a different story.  Like it is possible that it is going to take longer than two weeks to ween me off the meds and possibly longer than a month before I have few rough days surrounded by lots of good days.  Here it has been a week since I have been released from the hospital today and I have only managed to spread my meds out once every 4 hours, and starting tomorrow I will attempt every 5 hour for a few days, and if I reach 4.5 hrs and just can't take it, then that's cool, I will take a pill.  I guess on the other hand that isn't bad considering when I was released I was taking a pill every 2 hours.

So back to my pickle story.  I see the pickles and what does any person automatically do?  I reach up for them.  With my dominant hand.  Which happens to be my left hand.  A little zing of pain reminds me that I can't use my left arm for anything (might as well put the darn thing in a sling), so I drag the chair over with my right hand and pick up the jar of pickles with my right hand and help balance it with my left.  I put the chair back.  By now my mouth is salivating, dreaming of the salty goodness about to enter it.  I take off the joke of a plastic seal around the lid.  I attempt to use my left hand to unscrew the pickle jar.  Up until now, everything in my life has been predominantly left handed with few exceptions, such has, I learned to use a can opener twisting with my right hand (the intended way), and I drive using my right hand mostly on the wheel, and I use my right foot for the gas and brake petals, and I find it easier to kick a soccer ball with my right foot, but that's about it.  So I go to open this pickle jar and my back shrieks in protest from the exertion I just put on it.  Oh yea, I think to myself, can't use that arm.  So I twist with my right hand.  I wish I could say that was the end of my story, that the pickle jar opened and I was rewarded.  Nope, sorry, not going to happen.  So the lid does not budge at all using my right hand.  Really?!?! Am I this weak that I can't even open a stinking pickle jar?  Then this thought crosses my mind: "yes I am, because even when my left side is not injured, I have to, about 50% of the time, get Kris to open jars, bottle, etc".  So I remember some old wives tales on how to open a stubborn jar.  I tapped the jars lid on the counter around the edges, not exactly an easy feat considering I only have 50% of my strength, and it isn't my best strength. I try again.  I try with my left hand JUST in case tapping the lid loosened it just enough but my right hand sucks that much.  This goes on for like 5 minutes, using a butter knife to tap the lid, to tap the bottom, using one of those wine gripper tools, everything I can think of, all the while, alternating between left and right weak hand/arm strength.  Then I decide that maybe the problem isn't in the lid so much as the grip on the jar while trying to turn the lid.  So I sit on the floor, put the pickle jar between my bare feet, and try again.  And again.  And again.  At this point I am almost CRYING from frustration, with thoughts crossing my mind such as: if I break the pickles jar I can just pick out the pickles I want from the glass and get my pickles, and maybe I should go wake up Kris to open the jar, and maybe I don't need a stinking pickle after all!  I think I probably gave up three times, only to come back a minute later to try again.  In all, it took me 15 solid minutes of brute strength to open this pickle jar, and honestly, the reward wasn't that great.  Not since my back was hurting now, and I was already almost crying from frustration (sometimes those feelings are hard to rid even once you have succeeded at something).  I have since considered writing to Mt. Olives, thanking them for their superb ability to maintain sanitation and shelf life for their pickles, but maybe they could consider making a jar that is easy to POP for those less fortunate, less strong, possibly elderly (like my grandma who has rheumatoid arthritis so bad that her fingers are bend sideways and she has a hard time even picking up a cup without an handle).

So that's my pickle story.  It is kind of funny.  In a very pathetic way.  I guess you just had to be there to find it funny (I can laugh now, a day later about it, having told the story to Kris and mom and both of them getting a laugh out of it). Pickles.  Mmm, think I will go eat a few now that they are already opened...