Monday

Lessons from Rehab

I’m lucky: aside from some minor elective procedures and one C-section delivery, I’ve entered hospitals as a visitor or volunteer, not as an inpatient.
A hip replacement — common, but invasive — recently changed that. I write this one month post-op, looking back on physical healing and life lessons learned. My appreciation for the good health I enjoy, the family I depend on, and the professionals who restore us to wellness is reinforced.
Since my early career as hospital manager at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham (now Brigham and Women’s) to a pioneer post in Rhode Island’s first HMO (RIGHA), and eventually commandeering the state’s largest reproductive health surgi-center, my respect for those who heal has become boundless. Social services, maintenance and dietary staffs work in quiet chorus and respectful concern as the overburdened but omnipresent nursing staff — the sentinels of healing — monitor the unimaginable magic performed by the blessed medical and surgical teams.
Personal miracles wait to be recognized all along the healing curve. I celebrate daily tasks long taken for granted, until they were temporarily lost in my post–surgery inability. Suddenly I can latch my shoe buckle, or get into or out of bed on my own. I am rediscovering — slowly — the miracle of walking without assistance. I am now bonded with millions who have never been able to tie their shoes, walk alone, feed themselves, or generally navigate their world independently.
My mother valued independence as part of her obsession with avoiding debt in all its forms. She raised me on mantras of self-sufficiency: “Never be subject to anyone” and, my favorite, “Never owe anyone: it’s always better if people owe you!” Such mandates may build strength of character, but they make it difficult to ask for a bedpan, a wheelchair, or pain medication without worrying about creating a debt.
Once home (48 hours after surgery), visiting nurses and physical therapists help me heal and thrive again. Still, the image of others who were not so lucky lingers — people struggling daily with life’s demands that require a mobility they do not have, perhaps have never had, and may never hope to enjoy. Some will never cross the finish line that I am approaching daily.
Every person — and writers in particular — should appreciate life’s precious lessons. Human emotions and challenges we may all confront eventually are windows to understanding the common human condition.
Once healed, I shall return to Italy, as I do each summer. People ask if I have visited this or that church where some miracle is alleged to have occurred. I reply that I volunteer in a food bank for Italy’s homeless, or visit a shelter in Rome where abused women were being kept safe long before Hollywood invented #MeToo.
In these places, where I can give back, I put my gratitude to work helping others overcome physical and emotional challenges. My brief flirtation with disability helps me appreciate their lot. To be truly whole again, I must settle the debt I have to them, as my mother mandates.
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Mary Ann Sorrentino (thatmaryann@yahoo.com), a monthly contributor to the Providence Journal, writes from RI and Fla., and, in summer, from Italy. 

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Mary Ann Sorrentino

Mary Ann Sorrentino
Italy Series of articles runs Aug./Sept/Oct 2015

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About Me

Hillsboro Beach, FL/ Cranston, RI, United States

"JOACHIM" - Oct. '92-March '08

"JOACHIM"  - Oct. '92-March '08
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Castel Del Monte