One Railing Is Enough

I'm Jean Ross. Karl Loren is my husband of 32 years. We both do Kung Fu together and we both now have yellow belts.

We moved into a new house in January 2006 -- this was the first house we ever bought -- so it was very special to us.

We had lived in our previous luxury house for 14 years and loved it. But it was a two-story house, we rented it and I just didn't like the stairs.

As I was getting older I would often think, "If we ever buy a house I sure don't want a two-story house."

We spent more than a year looking for the house to buy and when we first saw THIS house we fell in love with it. Maybe I noticed that it was two stories, but there were so many other things about it that I wanted it to live in.

The previous (rented) house had two railings on the staircase -- so I could hang on both sides. These came in handy when I had my artificial knee installed -- I used those railings a lot.

Then, in 2004 I got caught with deadly cancer of the esophagus. I had many months of standard chemotherapy and radiation. The surgeon was my last hope and told me, after suffering the terrible debilitation of chemo and radiation, that the surgery that was called for would take about 11 hours, then 30 days in ICU and that I would have about a 5% chance of making it.

The photo on the left, just about two years ago as this is published, showed me at the depth of my despair -=- ready to die. I had lost all my hair and a great deal of weight. I lost most of my muscle and could hardly sit or stand.

I'm a yellow belt today!

Soon thereafter I was admitted into a hospice to die -- with two physicians certifying that I had less than 6 months to live. My husband and I planned my memorial service. I had lost a great deal of weight, of course all my hair, but also all my strength and muscle.

It was from this near death-like condition that I quit any more chemo or radiation, found a second-opinion surgeon, had surgery, got pronounced cured of cancer by two MD's. I still had no strength, no muscle and had to be on a feeding tube to live.

That changed gradually, so that by April of 2005 I was ready to go through a detoxification program to handle those harmful chemotherapy drugs and the radiat5ion.

At the same time I decided, with my husband, that we both needed the discipline of a martial art -- I found Grandmaster Moon at the Young Moon Moo Kwan -- and haven't missed a week, then added the second weekly visit for a private lesson.

I have change a great deal.

They helped Karl too. Two different times he had an artificial hip put in -- those were times when he used a wheel chair, then a walker, then a cane and finally, those railings were the only way he felt safe going up or down the stairs.

So, we moved into this new home in January 2006. I certainly knew it was two stories and that I would have to go up and down those stairs several times per day.

At first I really worried about that.

What made it much worse was that the staircase had only ONE railing == one side!

So as we were looking around "our" new home we made up a list of more than 20 big and little changes we wanted to make -- and found a handy-man who could do the big tasks.

We gave it to him in writing -- "Fix the stair case so that there are two railings, and make the new railing strong enough to support the weight of a person."

We talked to him about that railing and got some ideas of how it could be designed and installed.

But, other repairs were either easier or cheaper so we had him working on those first.

Now, I had been going to Kung Fu class once per week, with Karl. It was the Saturday Morning Beginner's Class.

Starting sometime in February we signed up for one private lesson per week. That made a tremendous difference in my committment and progress!

The private lessons are very different and you can move much more rapidly with Grandmaster Moon designing JUST the right exercise or movement that helps you move forward. On the right is the image of me getting ready to go on the "community clean up campaign" which is the feature here of an entire photo gallery tour.

The weeks went by -- I "knew" that the expected railing was on our "to do" list, but I never realized how dim that need was getting.

It dawned on me, late in June 2006, that I had not thought about those railings for many weeks.

It then dawned on me that I no longer felt I needed those railings.

Can you imagine, if you are one of those young people, what it is like, at 69, to change from a "person needing two railings" to a "person who doesn't need two railings?"

To change toward being a person who goes out to clean up trash in the street!

It is not a big absolute change, but it is the change in DIRECTION of need!

That has been such a subtle yet undeniable change that I marvel. I doubt if anyone would start taking Kung Fu for the PURPOSE of eliminating a two-railing staircase from their view, but once I realized that I didn't want or need that second railing I also realized what a wonderful blessing Grandmaster Moon has brought to me.

The image on the right is me, on July 7, 2006, in the front of my home, in my dressing gown, joining my husband for morning exercises. I'll tell you this, "I wouldn't have done anything like this a couple years ago!"

There are more -- I will be writing about them.

Jean Ross