Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
The man was in his late twenties, and Tom had seen how he’d flinched when the word “arthritis” was uttered.
In many people’s minds, that was an old person’s disease.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t.
Athletes, people in the military, painters, construction workers, dancers—all of them were at risk of early onset arthritis.
The patient didn’t want to discuss that or his diagnosis. He wanted to discuss available surgery dates.
Cut and go was not Tom’s philosophy.
His patient had lived a life of extreme physical fitness. Adding two sessions of PT a week to relieve pain and get the muscles doing what the bone shouldn’t be doing was not a tough course of action.
But the season was over, the man had plenty of time to recover from a surgery before the next one, therefore, he wanted to cut.
Tom was at the time in his life where his paycheck wasn’t about performing. He had a clearer picture of what the future meant when you did not need to be in peak physical condition, and if you weren’t, time was of the essence to get you back to that place. He could now see the ramifications of not considering that a great expanse of your future did not include competing. He was fully aware of the fact that a career in professional athletics as a player was a blink of an eye in a lifetime. Decades would pass after you retired, and you would not want to live those with degradation of function or worse, chronic pain, and worse than that, future surgeries that might include joint replacements.
Not to mention, surgery was always a risk. Tom felt, if there were viable options, anyone should exhaust all of them before being anesthetized and cut open.
His patient wasn’t interested in Tom’s wisdom.
They often were not.
It was the same frustration a parent had, that frustration of a doctor when a patient wouldn’t hear them, and in Tom’s case, that doctor also being a retired pro.
Thus, although it was likely Tom would have made the same decision back when he was competing, he was feeling mildly impatient as he headed to his office.
Though, now that his day was effectively done, he was more than mildly impatient about something else.
When he was in town, and not somewhere calling a tournament, his clinic days were Wednesday and half day Thursday.
After he finished his notes for that day, and ran through emails, his Thursday was complete, and he was headed home.
He entered his office thinking about that.
His workweek, as it was, was over. He had Clay and his family coming on Saturday. Dinner with Mika on Saturday night.
As far as plans, there was nothing else on his schedule until he hit the clinic again next Wednesday.
He was a voracious reader, and he was into a good book.
He swam laps in his pool every morning. He played at least a round of eighteen holes once a week. He had four friends who lived close, two in his neighborhood, who were tennis partners. As such, he was able to get a match or two in every week. He also did bi-weekly weight training.
He had lunch or dinner with Chloe and/or Judge when they were in town, used to do the same with Sasha (he suspected that would be on hiatus for a while) or drove up to Prescott to see them, or Genny and Bowie, and to hike.
And there were some programs he followed on TV (though, he wasn’t generally a TV person).
He liked to cook and try new recipes.
He’d hear of interesting wellness concepts, and he’d give them a shot, like hot yoga (not a fan) and meditation (he’d added this to his daily routine).
He wrote papers with his colleagues. He completed his CME credits. He had his summer camp, though other people administered it. He was a spokesperson for the Trail Blazer program. And he sat on a couple of boards.
Now, he had the cats.
Yesterday, since he was going to be at the office all day, he’d brought them in. They’d captivated the staff and weren’t alone for long, but the alone times were good. They needed to be able to be without Tom, or anyone, eventually.
And that was the day’s test. His neighbor had gone to his house mid-morning to check (and she reported they were fine, all were napping when she arrived—animals were survivors and perceptive to their conditions, dangerous or safe—humans could learn a lot from them).
They had to wait for him to get home.
But very soon, they wouldn’t need him, and three of them would be somewhere else.
That was it.
That was his life.
Most would see that as full.
Further, he understood he was lucky and could afford to live as he did.
But Tom, who spent thirty-five years with an all-consuming singular focus, the next nineteen with a wife, a family of growing kids and two careers, now had an empty nest that felt very…