Look Ma -- one hand!

Previously on a very special episode of “Unlikely In Love”…

[Femtastic trotting down fire stairs, slippy-trips and grabs, grabs, GRABS for the handrail. “Aiieee, I fall! Curse you, gravity, you pushy betch!” she hollers as down she falls. She brags, cocky-like, “oooh-di-oooh, look how very unharmed I am! Look how I fall and walk away without a single scathe! Marvel at my indestructible nature and quake! Quake I say!” and then the next day “whimper, keen, oh woe is me and my poor, poor hurted wrist. Lavish me with sympathy if you please. And also bon-bons and free spendy cable…”A trip to a nurse who says “yup, that’s what happens when you let yourself fall down the stairs, dope.” Femtastic whines on her blog “woe is me, I’m all injured and sad.” The readers boggle at her lameness.]

OK, so the safety nurse said “Ice it.” and I did, and gradually it got some better, and then more better, and now it’s almost all better. And yay! But as the wrist was getting better the pain was creeping up and eventually set up camp in my elbow. But say I “so what?”, right? I just have to keep icing and eventually it will work its way up to my shoulder, and then my neck, and then my left eye (ouchies!) and finally a headache that will float up into the ether. No problem!

Unfortunately the ouchies really liked the view there at Camp Elbowatchatoozie and they’re enjoying s’mores and ghost stories and Little Bunny Foo-Foo and won’t move on! So for at least a month I’ve had this stabby little pain in my left elbow. I have it when I pick things up heavier than about 5 lbs. Or if I twist my arm hardly at all. And also when I scratch my back or open heavy doors or about 6 other simple, everyday things. The pokey nature has had me convinced that it’s a piece of something sharp which has declared its independency from a bigger thing and is now floating around inside my arm, reading Kerouac and sketching passing blood corpuscles. Into the Wild, bone-chip style!

I finally called the safety nurses, who sent me to the sad, sad worker’s comp medical offices out by the Costco. The doctor came in, and I told him my story and the evolution of the stabby pain and my theory of a roaming sharp bone chip. I also told him that I’d tried and tried but could find no specific place where I could push on the arm and make the stabby pain happen. And he reached over and said “What about here.” And poked this one spot and I fell over dead from the fantastic pain. Then he told me that there are tendons that connect to the elbow right at Camp Elbowatchatoozie and I torqued them when I tried to stop my fall with the hand rail, which is, by the way, super-similar to ‘tennis elbow.’ In fact, that’s even what he wrote on my file. So now I have a worker’s comp claim for bad backhand. L-A-M-E.

So to make the stabby pain go AWAY I should do the following things:
· Wear this strap on my arm.
· Ice the arm twice a day
· Go to physical therapy and do exercises twice a day
· Don’t use my left arm.

So far I’ve done the following things:
· Remembered the strap

I never remember to do the exercises and ice is so cold and hate to take any pills (thus dooming my future plans to become a raging Vicodin addict. That and the fact that Vicodin freaked me out with no up-side, so…) and what would be great is if it could just get over it please! Sigh. Bruises just go away. Cuts too. What is the deal with internal strains/sprains/idises/etc. that they just linger and loiter? Ridiculous…

Also ridiculous is the fact that every bit of injury from that fall resulted from my grabbing the hand rail. Which didn’t even keep me from hitting the ground. Basically I just wound up lying on the floor, my hand finally clutching the hand raid 3 feet overhead. (and, by the way, worst hand rail usage ever!!) Next time I’m just gonna fall and hope I don’t die. (too much.)

All of this was to say sorry that I didn’t write more this week. I was supposed to not be using my left arm and hand and stuff. And if I tried to write this without my lefties it comes out “Piouly on y pil pio o “Unlikly In Lo”…” Not so good. Hopefully the week off will be the miracle cure I’ve been looking for. (or I could do exercises and take painkillers and ice things. But probably not and also ouch.)