An Unfortunate Injury

It has always worried me that my work, making lampshades, is so physically intensive. Truly it is also one of the things that I love about my work, being so directly connected to the material, dealing with the combination of brute force and delicate finess. But I am 52 years old, and at some point, the demands on my body will be more than I can handle. Hopefully that issue will not catch up with me for many years... but I think about it a lot.

This winter, I had the opportunity to experience my physical limitations. I injured my knee on January 2nd -- it happened playing indoor soccer. I have played for years without any trouble, but in a League designated as "recreational, low impact." Mostly people between 30 and 60 years old, plus a few of our teenage children. There is a culture there that makes it very unlikely that anyone would get hurt. But on the January 2, my son's team, which I coach, didn't have an opponent, so we invited parents to play in a scrimmage with the kids. And, being the coach, I probably was trying too hard to keep up and show off my remaining skills. So I hyperextended my right knee. Instantly I knew I had a significant problem.

Then next day I saw my doctor, and it appeared to be a stretched ligament. But over the weeks, as the ligament healed, I had some lingering pain that kept me from doing anything but light work in my shop. Finally an MRI revealed that I had damage to my meniscus (the cartilage that lays between the upper and lower leg bones). I had arthoscopic surgery on March 7, and the damage was even worse than was originally thought. As I write this, 9 days later, the recovery is well under way, already less pain than I had before surgery.

It seems likely that in a couple of weeks, I will be back on the lathe making shades. I can't tell you how much I have missed it. This is not only a business for me -- it is a love affair with the wood, the process, and the dramatic final product. It has been a struggle to not let minor depression get the best of me. And to find projects to do (such as catch up on cleaning up the mounds of paperwork in my office!). But now that I have turned the corner and am close to full recovery, I am practically giddy.

From a business point of view, this has not had that much impact. I always keep a huge inventory of shades on hand, so that when a cliient asks for something, there is a relatively good chance I will have it on hand. It takes the pressure out of the day-to-day aspects of my business when I am way ahead. So even as I have been unable to make new shades, I have been selling on a regular basis. This metaphor just popped in to my head: the bear, whose instinct is to think ahead and eat and eat and eat, more than is need for the next 24 hours. Then when the Winter comes, the bear can enter hibernation and still survive quite well, living off the stored energy. In the Spring, the bear awakes, and gets right back to eating eating eating.

Winter is ending, I am ready to eat sawdust and put on new inventory! Can't wait.