Eff Five

The clocks seem to have stood still, yet the emails pile up unread.  My mind is locked away in a fog bank.  The desk lost behind the low lying clouds and the mist hides the work to be done. Thoughts bounce around and around, not making progress just reliving the words heard, the facts to be faced and the limitations to be confronted.

“A man needs to know his limitations” are words that gnaw at me.  The line is from a Dirty Harry clip, and the context is wrong for my application.  I don’t know, maybe in a way I did just sit down in the car with the bomb about to explode.  It was Detective Callahan that triggered the timed detonator on the bomb. It was in the car that drove away as he uttered that line – and then the car explodes – bad guy gone. My dilemma is not so dramatic really, and likely to be temporary, but it feels like a big deal.  

Blood counts, red blood cells in particular are a measure that all anemic patients know and live by. Lately those numbers have not been so very good.  They’ve been a bit pathetic; they’ve been anemic.  Not so low as to render me bedridden, nor in need of a transfusion, just enough to make people worry about me, and enough to limit activity.  In other words, the best advice for these times in an anemic life is to ‘take it easy.’ In the scheme of things it’s not so bad, however….

However, when you see your wife cutting the lawn because you need to get your rest, you’re not feeling very useful.  You need to know your limitations, but how do you know them until you’ve pushed on your limits?  And perhaps there’s a way to minimize the impacts.  To steal another Clint line.. maybe there’s a way to “adapt and overcome” as so aptly stated by Gunny Highway.  So, if you don’t have to push a lawn mower, but just walk behind it.. that would be good.  It was a good idea, and expensive acquisition.  The mower is a top-rated mulcher with single pull start, 4 cycle motor and adjustable speed control.  It’s an awesome machine, red and black, with a glossy gray life-time warranted mower deck.  It’s good. Adapt and overcome.

It’s not good enough.  This soldier was overruled on the idea that it would be a walk in the park; sidelined based on a F1 discharge – unfit medically for duty, my tour is delayed.  The gorgeous machine does take some getting used to.  I did take a couple passes of the yard to see how it performed, and I can say that the speed is plenty fast, and the start is pretty abrupt.  It’s going to be a learning process to get the full swing of it, but I digress.  Let’s just summarize as this..  Failure.

Even pulling weeds was on the list of ‘hazardous duty’ for someone with immunosuppression issues – F1.. maybe we can change that to F2 as in failure 2.  To be fair though, I think this could be overcome with the proper hazmat clothing of masks and gloves – it would just be more uncomfortable than without. It's not yet clear if that will clear Headquarters and medical council.  

F3 occurred somewhere on the battlefield called the lawn.  The ring, one of three I have, was placed in the pants pocket for safe keeping.  The side pockets, though, have more of a vertical line entrance, and when bending down to pick weeds, they can open and allow items to slide out – items like a ring.

So I guess, this squad member is feeling on the ropes.  It’s not a good feeling to be unfit for field duty. Moved to light duty indoors, the results were no better. 

There were no superior officers indoors, so there were no orders to follow.  A missed opportunity to show initiative resulted in reprimand later on.  Laundry freshly dried was available and overlooked, but noting that it was now scattered across the floor where it would not be missed, my mission was clearly laid out before me.  It was completed with aplomb. You never saw folds so neat, and the laundry basket was stacked with the utmost precision.  I’ll call this a mixed bag, F4 for failure to recognize a mission need, but P1 (pass) for accomplishment.

A review of other items revealed a lack of consistency in writing and communications proficiency. That one hurt. F5.   Eff Five.  That sounds familiar…  TORNADO…  Yes, that’s how this soldier feels.  An Eff Five tornado just ran this private over.  Well that’s how this soldier felt yesterday anyway.

I’ve heard that failure is nearly always a step in the path to success. My hope is that blood counts recover and that field duty will resume.  I know that’s not guaranteed and as this body ages, more limitations will be knocking on the door.  Somehow, the capability to push or walk behind a lawn mower shouldn’t be the defining characteristic of how I view myself. Admittedly it’s still a struggle right now.  Resistance to disease will always be a factor in this life, more so for mine than for many others. While it’s a factor to what risks I take, it doesn’t need to be a defining characteristic either.  Anyone can lose a piece of jewelry, and if it happened on any other day, I doubt it would have impacted me quite the same way. Writing, well there’s only one way to get better at that.. research, learn, and try again.  Purchases, even those with the best research behind them, don’t always live up to the high expectations we have.  Adaptation can only go so far, and we all have limitations to face. It’s life.

Pain is uncomfortable.  It is also inevitable. To a large degree it is also controllable.

So, the Eff Five is gone and I’ll dig out of my storm shelter.  I’m taking a breath.  I’m holding (figuratively right now) the hand of my love, and together we’ll plot the course that best fits the changing tides and breeze.  The new course started last night as we saw a beautiful sunset while having an ice cream cone on Solomons Riverwalk.

Life doesn’t look so bad through that lens does it?

Maybe I have started to adapt and overcome, maybe that fog is finally lifting..

Blessings,

Brian