My new normal

Paul Kandarian

The new normal. That’s a pretty popular phrase in recent years. The pandemic? The new normal. Brutally divisive politics? The new normal. Warmer winters, rising tides, the end of civilization as we know it? The new normal.

We adjust and move on, except in the case of global warming because that’s a keeper, sadly.

I’m turning 70 this year, and can live with that because you ain’t living if it’s the alternative. But since I hit 65, it’s like my body said, “OK, that’s it, we’re done, time for more aching joints and constant pain! You’re welcome, former stud.”

And that’s exactly what’s happened. I’d wake up in years past when this or that hurt but confident by the next morning it would pretty much be gone. I could count on it. I remember a pain I’d get in my lower back that hurt like hell for maybe an hour or so when I was in my 40s and 50s even, and not sweat it because it wouldn’t last.

Now everything lasts. Except the confidence it won’t.

I have arthritis in – hell, name a body part – but mostly in both knees and both shoulders, a double header of constant pain that can make walking a challenge and reaching for anything high on shelf damn near impossible and an exercise in creative profanity.

The new normal.

And that’s the sucky part. It’s so routine it’s normal that I walk in pain, wake up in pain, work in pain, try to sleep in pain and know it ain’t going anywhere. Carly Simon didn’t have time, room, or need for the pain, but then again I didn’t either when she first sang that because I was 21 at the time.

Temporary pain is now permanent pain and youth isn’t the cure any more, it’s medicine. Cortisone for example. I’ve had two shots in my right knee and so far (knock wood) so good.

But now, just for the hell of it and who knows, arthritic companionship, my left knee got lonely and decided to join the pain parade. It’s killing me now. So I’m scurrying for a cortisone shot in that knee, but those docs make appointments months out because us old folks are lining up for shots like we used to line up for tickets to a Carly Simon concert.

The new normal.

I fully realize the alternatives and probably will do them sooner than later. Knee replacements, for one thing. Make that two, in my case. As I understand it, hips are the easiest things to replace and recover from.

Knocking wood on that one; my hips don’t hurt yet, which is surprising because they’re halfway between my bum knees and shoulders and it would provide a nice symmetry.

Oh, here’s a lovely bit of irony. I’m an actor and about eight or nine years ago, I did patient education videos for New England Baptist Hospital, the go-too ortho spot in the area. I played a patient undergoing a knee replacement. I joked at the time that I hoped not to be back doing it for real and have to watch myself in the videos.

My knee doc is at New England Baptist. Art imitated life and damned if it didn’t just trade places.

I also go to a top shoulder doc at Mass General (how lucky are we with arguably the best medical care in the world right up the road?), a guy a lot of my friends use and swear by his ability to fix them up without the last resort of total shoulder replacement.

“What can you do for me doc?” I eagerly asked when I went to him a couple years ago before the pain really set in.

He sighed. “Nothing, sorry to say. It’s bone on bone. You need replacement.

Try cortisone if it starts to really hurt. I warn you, it’s a pretty serious recovery from replacement surgery, some take to it well, some don’t. If you don’t, you’ll hate me so I tell my patients there’s two kinds of pain: tolerable and unbearable. When it’s unbearable, it’s time.” paul K a N daria N is a lifelong area resident and, since 1982, has been a profession writer, columnist, and contributor in national magazines, websites, and other publications.

The new normal.

I take ibuprofen, get massages, ice things down, heat things up, wear a knee brace, do physical therapy, exercise, take natural supplements, and realize that the pain that was fleeting 50 years ago decided to finally come home to roost.

And speaking of a half-century: I’ve played ice hockey, as a goalie, for the past 50 years or more, which may be responsible for some if not all of this. Flopping around with 40 pounds of gear on is finally taking its toll. Now I face the very likely option of quitting the only sport I love and has been a huge part of my life even as it lapses into a new normal of exhibiting a lot less of the old goaltending skills I used to have and a whole lot more of the new normal pain I have now.

On the day I wrote this in late January, it was beautiful, sunny, fairly mild, and I’d just come back from a rigorous hike over mucky, marshy wetlands to do something else I love: rooting in the cold mud for oysters, clams, and mussels and then hiking to look for edible mushrooms and greens in the forest. I wore a brace on my bum knee. I have an ice pack on it now. I just downed 800mgs of Ibuprofen and am pounding my shoulders with the pulsating power of a Theragun.

And that’s also my new normal. Grateful and happy for it.