I made it through forty-two years or so before the integrity of the bag of skin and muscle that holds everything else in place was compromised. Intentionally compromised, to be sure. Systematically compromised. But compromised nonetheless: a small incision just below the navel, just wide enough to slide in a cable and a few instruments, but wide enough to lay you out for a week. A week of realizing anew all the various activities that require the now-incapacitated abdominal muscles. A week of wondering when things will return to normal, thinking that perhaps they won’t, knowing of course that they will. A week of feeling silly for being so thoroughly knocked off one’s feet by a procedure so relatively-minor.

And in that time, everything else goes on as normal. The Boy discovers new things, the Girl goes to school, our youngest cat transforms into a full-blooded hunter.

Of course one thing that does change: the interest in a silly online scrapbook. But with the return of mobility and the disappearance of pain, perhaps that will return as well.