Dear Parishioners,
Some four weeks ago, after returning from New Orleans, I drove to Chicago to see my surgeon because there was something just not right about my leg. Go figure! When I saw him he asked when I wanted to be operated on because the retinaculum was torn again and he was going to have to repair it. I was waiting for a date out about a week and he gave me three hours and an appointment in his OR.
Later that day, while speaking on the phone with a friend I needed to adjust my position and asked for a pause in our conversation. As I tried to move I could not because there was something wrong with my leg. Much to my surprise (aka shock), there was a very large cast on my leg that ran from my big toe to my hip. I then realized the cast and I were going to be friends for three weeks, no matter what. Fortunately, they modified the cast so I could walk with it.
Learning to walk with a cast on your leg is not easy and puts a hitch in one’s giddy-up. I learned to walk with a distinct hitch as I pulled the weight of the cast forward with my leg. Wednesday, July 7th, the cast was cut off of my leg to the great joy of my friend and surgeon. My leg had not atrophied as expected and the surgical site looked great. Henry looked at me and said: “I think we have finally come to a point, Denis, where our professional relationship may be at an end. Thank goodness.”
Dr. Henry Finn is a world class surgeon, meticulous to a fault, and greatly frustrated by the set of circumstances that has kept our professional relationship alive from January 5th until now. Our friendship and love for each other has grown deeply through all of this. Leaving Weiss Memorial the other day was like leaving behind a family of wonderful friends and caretakers just like all of you.
The cast was replaced with a Velcro brace. The amazing thing about this brace is that it doesn’t weigh anything near what the cast weighs, but there is still a hitch in my giddy-up. I have learned how to walk with the cast on and now I have to learn how to walk with the brace. A whole new set of muscles and a whole new set of motions, there is much to laugh about and many great lessons to learn. Just like in life, we learn in every direction we turn.
It is strange, because through all of this I have experienced a wonderful peace. I am not a great patient, nor do I like being taken care of, but I have had to surrender to a process that would bring me to wellness and it was rather DIFFICULT. Never once was I alone through all of this: from Henry and his team of physicians and nurse anesthetists, to the floor nurses and therapists who cared for me as if I was one of their children, to a team of doctors here in Grand Rapids who literally saved my leg from amputation, to all of you who lifted up my spirits and held me in your hearts. Just like in the poem Footsteps, “…you carried me when I felt most alone.”
By the way, the new knee works just fine and I have realized I have a lot to be grateful for, God is good! Here’s to a summer of gratitude and hopefully some golf.
Blessings and prayers, Fr. Denis
