Take two of my excuses and call me in the morning.

This is just hard!

So my arm, it’s still boogered up. (technical term) And I’ve got nobody to blame but myself at this point, because apparently I just can NOT follow directions. The PT says “ice it twice daily, exercises twice daily, take anti-inflammatory meds and DON’T USE IT.” But I hear “ice it once a week, and if you remember to do it a second time that same week you deserve a Pop Tart. Do exercises whenever you remember. If you don’t remember at all for one whole day you’ll totally make up for it by doing it 6 times the next day, and don’t worry if doing all those exercises in one day makes the arm hurt more. Anti-inflammatory pills are hard to take, so why even bother. Try to use it more than you think you ever used to use it; in fact use it pretty much constantly.”
The hardest one is to not use the arm. Because what that has made painfully obvious (yes, the pun was intentional) is how much I use my left arm. Apparently my right arm is the brains, but my left arm is the muscle. So if something takes dexterity or agility or any other “-ity’s” I use my right arm, because it is precise and careful and has skillz. (with a Z!) That means I use my left arm for carrying heavy things and pushing stuff and punching the bad guys. And it’s not like I can just stop carrying things or punching bad guys! That way lies MADNESS!

Also I just forget not to use it. I remember eventually, but mostly because my using it hurt something and at that point the remembering is just mockery. My day is filled with this:

• reach for big, heavy hospital door with my left arm.
• “ouch, that hurt my left arm pulling this big, heavy hospital door open!”
• let go of door with left hand, try to open it the rest of the way with my right arm.
• somehow get all tangled up in my own arms.
• look like a complete dork.
• rub my arm because it’s too late anyway and now it hurts.
• wonder how I don’t poke my own eye out with forks more often, given that I’m such a moron.
• buy corks to put on the end of my forks for future eye protection.
• reach for the next big, heavy hospital door with my left arm.
• repeat until crazy/crippled.

And then I go to my PT appointment the next week and I lie to her about how bad I’ve been. I lie to my Physical Therapist. How sad is that? She says “how has it been going?” and I start off honestly; I confess that I didn’t do my exercises as much as I should have. But she always wants numbers and facts and details! It’s like the third degree and I panic! All that pressure, people! (I can’t tell – are you buying these lame excuses?)

The end result is that I usually say something like “oh, I only did my exercises once a day several days.”

“Did you ice?”

“Um, sure! Bunches of times!”

“And have you been trying not to use it?”

“Trying. Yes, I’ve been trying that.”

…but I think she knows I’m full of it, because then she does some “massage” which is actually latin for “hurting, hurting, more hurting and if you hadn’t been a big liar this would feel nice!” Sigh.

(oh, and yes I did use both hands while typing this.)

(oh, and I think I completely forgot to go to my follow-up doctor’s appointment some time this week.)

(oh, and Tuesday I tripped on the same stairs. I didn’t fall, but I’m more sure than ever before that they’re out to kills me.)