today is the anniversary of my wrist surgery. actually, to the date, tomorrow is the anniversary — but i felt that having surgery the day before thanksgiving was more significant than having it on 24 november, so i shall celebrate wristmas every year at thanksgiving. really, it’s one of those “the five days of wristmas” things, since i broke it effectively early sunday morning, then suffered monday and tuesday, then had surgery wednesday, then SUFFERED thursday. so today’s wristmas eve. maybe tomorrow i’ll celebrate by taking some of my leftover vicodin.
i have said a lot of things about the scar, not least pejorative of which was nicknaming it the “Creepy Frankenstein Scar,” but actually? i kinda like it. it’s distinctive, and i’m not ashamed of having this strange and very obvious scar on my wrist. i worked very hard at getting beyond the trouble its source caused me. so i kind of like my little Creepy Frankenstein Scar. love me, love my scar!
nevertheless, it is interesting to me to look back over the past year. it’s at least in part because, when i first broke my wrist and the people in the ER in atlanta told me that i was going to require orthopaedic surgery to repair the rather impressive damage i’d done (and to think i didn’t realize i had actually done anything really bad to myself for at least twenty or thirty minutes! hooray for endorphins!), they estimated i was looking at “at least” a year until i was really going to be normally functional again. of course, i chose to travel back to chicago and have the surgery taken care of here — and, in retrospect, i’m immensely grateful for that decision because i cannot imagine having gone through the days immediately after surgery without the support of my friends or in some cold hotel room in a strange city — and i believe that, based on my recovery from the injury, i received outstanding medical care and that’s part of the reason i am blessed, for lack of a more secular word, with damn near normal functioning today. my undying thanks are due to the people who helped take care of me — sean and stephanie (who helped me and all my ‘i’ve just got done with a week of travel’ luggage out of the cab from o’hare, made me dinner and made sure i had everything i needed, walked with me to fetch prescriptions, and generally went far beyond the call of duty), dan who ferried my stoned ass home from the hospital that day after my surgery, michael for bringing by his much-needed moral support, and everyone who dropped by to visit me when i was trapped in my 600-square foot home for ages on end, tactfully saying nothing about my completely stoned self, all of them. of course the medical staff who put Humpty Wristy back together again, especially Dr. Mass who was kind and answered nearly all my questions; the florist who delivered and, when she realized i couldn’t actually handle the door
and the bouquet, carried it inside; the peapod delivery guy who helped me get everything into my kitchen and didn’t even look impatient when it took me a minute to sign the receipt; the walgreen’s pharmacist who filled my painkillers without making me wait 30 minutes because i was nearly in tears when i showed up to fill the prescription.
but! let’s not get too thoughtful and pensive. let’s look back at some of my greatest hits from that time.
things are going relatively well, wrist-wise, these days. i still have chronic minor pain, and i guess at this point i’m resigned to having it pretty much forever. but i’ve got a full range of motion back, and i can do things like pushups or downward dog without a whole lot of grief (though i do usually pay a price for them later, it’s not significant enough to make me stop).
so, i suppose really, it’s worked out pretty well for me. i was terribly worried at the outset that i was looking at a very real need to change lines of work — what good is a system administrator who can’t type? — and that seems to have been a groundless fear. my life is pretty normal, really. and that’s something to be thankful for.
of course i still don’t know if i’m going to set off the airport metal detectors.
