Tomorrow Is Another Day

It's Christmas morning. My gift today is a seething ache in my hip, the hip where I had a chunk taken out to be used as a bone graft in my right hand. The doctors warned me that I would likely suffer more long term pain thanks to the carving out of my hip than in the rebuilt scaphoid bone. They alluded to arthritic pain; they were right, more the curses to them for it.

Oddly enough my left hand hurts too, as well as the bicep in my left arm along with the muscles in my right leg. It's strange that dead muscles can hurt, but I assure you they can. It would be nice if I could blame this on ALS; I cannot. These aches are a simple function of growing old, a process from which I gain no exemption even though I have a terminal illness.

I am convinced these added aches and pains are simply a result of being here on the coast. It's wet here, a kind of winter dampness that creeps into every ache and injury of years gone by. The dampness here seems perpetual, unending, created at creation, continuing until the end of time. It hangs heavy over all things, the very air weighted with it. To walk in it is to wear it; to roll in it is to have dampness cling to you, your body magnetic to the moistness.

So I ache, every motion wrapped up in a subtle pain. Were I mobile, could I walk, I would shake off this ache, moving muscle and joint, pushing blood and energy into my body's limbs. Could I climb, I would climb the stairs, walk the pathway, feel the cold and shake it off with the warmth generated by my own being. These things I cannot do. I am captured, a prisoner of what remains of me and those remains are simply limp, unable to do those things that would shake this ache.

As with this day, this ache will pass. As with this day, a better day will come tomorrow, a better time awaits. Nothing lasts forever, not even ALS. Each day is a transient visitor, bringing what it brings and taking what it takes. I will return home to Calgary where the air is dry. My ache will ease. Spring is out there, waiting for me. The cold will leave. Summer will come. To quote Scarlett O'Hara, "After all, tomorrow is another day".