Metal Plates & Aging Gracefully

Two years ago, my youngest Dalmatian, Mac, broke his leg in three places while colliding with his older brother as they jumped high to compete for a ball. He had a twelve inch metal plate and twenty screws implanted to save it from amputation. You can still see the bumps under his skin and it always gives me the shivers to see his leg disfigured, however slightly, in this way. 

During his recuperation he was confined to a crate in the family room for over four months, under the restraint of leashed walks only. To watch him confined in this way twenty-four hours a day was both sad and frustrating, as he was a young and rambunctious dog. Four months is an enormous amount of time, but he bore it with stoicism.

At last, however, he did recover and he now jumps joyfully in the air and clambers up and down over the sofas and our bed. You would never know he had injured himself–until the other day, when we came home from a short trip to find him limping and hopping around on three legs. The stairs were nearly impossible. 

Frightened by the possibility that he might have fractured the leg again, I took him to the vet who took an x-ray of the leg and diagnosed the problem as a soft tissue injury that did not involve the bone. Mac improved for a week, but then began hopping about on three legs once more. Back to the vet, who this time diagnosed arthritis. It was, she postulated, causing pain in the leg and making him limp. Although my gut told me this might be incorrect considering his history, I have accepted it for the time being and we put him on a joint supplement and fish oil, with a temporary anti-inflammatory to keep him more comfortable. 

His diagnosis of arthritis made me think. I, myself, received a similar diagnosis for my foot last week, as it has become painful to walk on. I now wear a sneaker with a metal plate in the sole, just as Mac has a metal plate in his leg. I never expected that the two of us would have this in common! 

Arthritis is usually a disease of aging, and for me, two spots in my foot have no cushioning between them and are rubbing against each other bone on bone. I turn sixty-seven in July and can’t quite believe that I have the same problem that plagued my grandmother at the end of her life. 

And yet, I am a grandmother too, with two little grandsons, one nearly three years and the other getting to be three months. Now I have a painful condition common to grandmothers and it makes me think about my own aging in a new way. 

With the COVID pandemic having kept me from my hair salon, a long gray stripe graced the top of my head and I considered abandoning my blond highlighted hair and going totally natural, as have several of my friends. However, as I looked at the silver framing my face, I decided I couldn’t stand the idea and last week went in to have it colored once again. What a relief to look in the mirror and see my younger self, albeit it one with some wrinkles and sags.

Mac is aging and so am I, but he takes on the condition with much more equanimity. He is still the happy-go-lucky dog who seems like a pup rather than an aging “human years” dog, and that is a joy to see. While I don’t like that he has arthritis any more than I like the pain of my own, his acceptance of his age is a good example. There is nothing more beautiful than aging with grace, as well as continuing to challenge yourself to jump high for a ball–despite the limits Brad and I have now put upon that sort of energetic leap from Mac.

Maybe someday soon I will accept my own increasing years and let my hair grow in gray. Maybe someday soon I will stop being surprised to wake up in the morning and remember I am a grandmother. Maybe someday soon all this will come as a relief. 

I remember my Nana and how vital she was at the end of her life. Aging can be marked with happiness, as is Mac’s, if only we make peace with this process, which is both inevitable and natural–metal plates excepted! I am working on it.