Remodeling

We remodeled the downstairs back corner of our house recently.  We ripped out a small funky 4x4 foot room that first was a woodshed 40 years ago, and which we had later closed in for a sort of study/junk room.  We tore down the room’s roof and walls, leaving just its foundation, which we used as the corner anchor of a nice new 12x16 guest room.

Remodeling, by definition, requires tearing things down before building the new.  Unlike new construction, in a remodel something has to go.  Seems the most common remodels are kitchens, involving lots of tearing out of cupboards and countertops.  Mercifully, our corner remodel didn’t get in the way of making dinner.

I have already used this column to sing the praises of the crowbar, my favorite tool in the destruction phase of this remodel.  Out of the room’s old roof and walls I pried many ancient bent nails.  Some went into the trash and others  we used as cheap rebar in the new foundation, stirring it in with the concrete.  Then with my fancy titanium hammer, I pounded many new nails into the fresh beautiful pine rafters and cedar wall boards. 

I once took a college course in human anatomy. (I talked about that in the crowbar column also. Yes, I used a crowbar there, too.)  We learned about bones and muscles and tissue and organs.  We dissected a human cadaver.  And we crammed for the tests by memorizing the names of lots of medical terms. I have forgotten a lot of it, but I’ve always remembered the cool names of two crucial cells we have in our bones; osteoblasts and osteoclasts.  Together these cells perform an essential function in our bodies, from birth to death.  I had to get out my old anatomy textbook to remember that phrase: “bone remodeling.”

Osteoblast cells (“blast” means to germinate) form new bone by synthesizing dense collagen and calcium to make our bones’ “mineralized matrix,” which is stronger than steel.  Our skeleton is our body’s structural support, obviously, but it’s also a storage place for minerals like calcium and phosphates, germinated there by the osteblasts.

This process begins in the womb and continues throughout our lives.  In the first year of our life our whole skeleton is rebuilt anew 100%, and even into adulthood 10% of our skeleton is reformed every year.

But the rebuilding can’t happen with only the octeoblasts laying down the new matrix.  No, first there must be destruction of old bone to make way for the new. Osteoclasts “dissemble” the bones in a process called “resorption.” (I think they don’t want to call it destruction.) 

(Get the analogy with our house?)

My anatomy textbook says, “Bones appear to be the most lifeless of body organs, and once they are formed, they seem set for life.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Bone is a very dynamic and active tissue.  Large amounts of bone matrix and thousands of osteocytes are continuously being removed and replaced within the skeleton.  The small-scale architecture of our bones constantly changes. 

“As much as half a gram of calcium may enter or leave the adult skeleton each day.  The distal region of the femur is fully replaced every 5-6 months in adults.  Osteoclast cells maintain, repair and remodel bones by releasing enzymes and acids that digest parts of the bone matrix.  Old calcium ions are released from the bones and they enter the tissue fluid and the bloodstream.  Then the osteoblasts go to work forming a new mineral matrix.  The process continues for life.”

It’s funny what we remember from old classes; my recollection was that these two kinds of cells were like armed combatants in my skeleton.  The good osteoblast cells go to work every day building up our bones, but they must struggle against the forces of the evil osteoclast cells whose job it is tear them down. 

It is true that the clasts get the upper hand as we age.  That’s why I have calcium pills on my shelf, along with Vitamin D, which helps the body absorb calcium.  I’m just giving the blasts a fighting chance.  I don’t want to become one of those old ladies with osteoporosis, which means the osteoclasts have totally outstripped the osteoblasts.  (I learned recently that most old folks who fall down and break their hips actually break their hips first, it just crumbles inside, and then they fall down.)

But our bones are living, dynamic tissue, not inanimate roof rafters and nails.  They are always changing. We can improve the odds that there will be more construction than destruction, but with no destruction there would be nothing new. 

And sometimes the clasts go to work because they have sensed a need for calcium in some other part of the body and they come to get it in the calcium storeroom known as our skeleton.  They are not so much destructive soldiers as resource managers. 

I have no enemy within, those mean old osteoclasts.  It’s called life.  The cells give, the cells take away, a time for blasting and a time for clasting.  And sometimes the clasting makes room for something new and stronger, or uses those old nails to make the new foundation stronger.

I was talking with a friend about acceptance and he said, “Yes, I’ve been trying to take some bricks down from my usual walls, not just build them higher and higher.” Good remodeling advice.

Copyright © 2015 Deborah Streeter