Tag: clumsy

I’m Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

It’s been almost four weeks since my surgery and according to my doctor, I’m healing nicely.  He said that I’m to continue doing what I’ve been doing.  Keep walking to a minimum, elevation and ice in the afternoon.  I still can’t make my normal ten hour work days, but I hang in there for eight hours.  I figure that’s pretty good, longer than some.

Bonus – I haven’t fallen for two weeks since I had a twofer in two days.  That’s what I’m worried about.  I know me too well.  Grace is not my middle name.  I can find more unique ways to cause injury to my body than the average person.

The dogs are getting more comfortable around my crutches too and that is a big cause for concern.  Both have decided that the gap between the crutch and my body offers a great pass through, kind of like walking under a ladder.  The only bad luck is mine, they won’t get hurt, but I will.  They don’t care, they’ve seen me fall down before and it’s a great source of entertainment for them.  I’ve seen them laughing at me.

The doctor has given me a monster sized black walking boot to try to minimize my use of the crutches.  It took me four days to be able to shed the crutches and just use the Frankenstein boot.  It’s big and clunky but now I can walk and carry a cup of coffee at the same time.  WooHoo!

Things are looking optimistic, I can maneuver around better, help Mitch more and have a lot more freedom.  So what’s the problem?  I know me well.  Now that I have more mobility, I know that it’s just a matter of time before I do something stupid, reach for something too high, turn too fast or get tripped up by the dogs and then it’s CRASH!  I’m not being a pessimist, I’m actually being a realist, I just know me too well.

If you don’t believe me, ask Mitch, he’s walking around watching my every move, car keys close at hand waiting for the trip to the emergency room.

There Are no Witnesses in the Dark

In the early predawn mornings when it’s still very dark, no one is awake to see what goes on during my walks with the two terrorists, aka Orso and Charlie.   Only the deer and raccoons are around to witness their antics.  I’m talking about them jerking me around, getting the leashes tangled up and charging at the nocturnal animals keeping my chiropractor in business.

It’s bad enough going on a walk in the dark and twisting an ankle stepping off the road into the ditch, which I have done on more than one occasion, causing me to wonder if I’m going to be able to walk home when I’m a mile away from the house.  No one else is around to see my gracelessness or help me if I get hurt.  It’s just the dogs and me.  I’ve even fallen over a giant boulder in the middle of the road.  I’m that graceful.  At least in the dark no one else is there to laugh at me.

Not today though.  After I got home from work this evening, I took the dogs on their afternoon walk which is when everyone is coming home from work.  The walk down to the dam was uneventful, a very pleasant stroll for the three of us.  The dogs were behaving themselves and enjoyed the romp at the dam.  On the return trip home we ran into a friend and his two dogs, which I used as a training session for Orso, working on his sudden aggression lunging at other dogs.  So far so good, Charlie was a champ and behaved perfectly and after a rough start Orso got into the moment and behaved very calmly walking back and forth in front of my friend and his dogs.  We almost looked like a Cesar Milan episode.

After the successful walk-by the dogs and I continued on our way home.  We had just rounded the second curve in the road when Charlie circled around behind me to pee on a bush causing me to try and whip the leash over my head and twist my arm around when Orso stepped back toward me.  I tripped over Orso and fell hard twisting my ankle and knee.  Right there in broad daylight for everyone to see.  As I sat there in the road feeling foolish, Orso came over to check on me and let me know he loves me even though I am the most graceless woman in the world.

There’s something to be said for walking in the dark.

Grace and Brains Too

With my usual grace, I was able to maim myself once again with yet another innocuous object.  In this case the skeleton key on my necklace was the weapon of disfigurement.  Mitch constantly asks how I am able to cut or bruise myself on something that doesn’t pose any threat to the majority of the human race.  I have a gift that’s all.  I don’t a pose a threat to anyone else, just myself. 

My injury occurred at work on Friday, while trying to be ecologically conscientious.  The company I work for recently passed out blue bins to each of us for the express purpose of paper recycling.  We are responsible for filling the bins and then carting the bins downstairs to the warehouse and dump the paper in specially marked boxes.  I normally try to empty my bin when it’s about half full, because when the bin is full of paper, it is very heavy.  Or maybe I’m just a wimp.  But in this case I haven’t had a chance to empty it in about a month so it was pretty full and heavy.

I lugged it all the way to the warehouse and when I hoisted it up to dump the paper into the box, the lip of the bin caught the skeleton key whipping it up and smacking me in the middle of my forehead cutting me.  I almost made a smart ass remark about workman’s comp when I turned around to see the HR manager waiting patiently for me to finish dumping my bin so she could dump hers that she had pushed in on a cart.  Not only am I “graceful” but evidently not very smart either.

An Abusive Relationship

“Are you in an abusive relationship?”  the Emergency Room admitting clerk softly asked me looking me straight in the eye, watching my reaction carefully.

Mitch was sitting behind her across from me oblivious to the question.  Did he know how lucky he is I like him?  With just a slight change in my expression or lifted eyebrows not to mention if I had burst into tears, it would have been a long time before Mitch saw the light of day again.  I was sitting in the Emergency Room admitting office with the two bones at the end of the middle finger on my left hand jutting at an odd angle for the second time in a three month period for the same injury. Maybe that was why she asked, or maybe it is standard procedure to ask every woman that comes to the emergency room with an injury.

Absolutely I was in an abusive relationship, but the abuser was me not Mitch.  I am the clumsiest the person I know.  I find new ways to cut, burn or bruise myself every day.  I walk into walls, miss doorways and trip over my own two feet.  Mitch is always amazed at the unique and seemly innocuous items that have the ability to draw blood on me.

This time I had been doing yard work while Mitch was working on one of the cars.  I walked into the garage to get my garden cart and noticed a spider walking across the top of the cart.  I hate bugs, spiders in particular and usually scream loudly and flee the immediate area as quickly as I can, knowing that they will hunt me down and eat me if given the chance.  But on this day, I was wearing gloves making me invincible, or so I thought.  I wanted my cart and here was this gigantic menace keeping me from my cart.  Mitch was under the car so he was no help, I would just have to confront the monster myself.  As the spider walked nonchalantly the top of the cart toward the edge to disappear and prepare for a sneak attack I decided to swat him with my gloved hand.  I swung my hand down with such force to annihilate the beast and caught the top edge of the cart causing the first two bones on my middle finger to dislocate and jut up on top of the third bone and knuckle of the finger. 

As usual I starting crying like a baby, causing Mitch to come up from under the car to see what I had done to myself again.  He offered to pull the bones back into place for me.  Are you kidding me?  I told him I wanted to go to the emergency room and I wanted him to take me.

He looked at me and said, “I am right in the middle of fixing the exhaust on the car, can’t you drive yourself?”

“Fine I’ll just walk then, don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself.”  I wanted some sympathy and wasn’t getting it.

He dropped his tool on the floor and said, “Fine let’s go.”

I wanted to get cleaned up first because I was filthy and sweaty from the yard work but “No!” Mitch said that if he had to go dirty so did I.  No fair.  So here I sat sweaty with dirt and grass stains on my clothes sitting in the emergency room waiting for a shot to numb my hand and have a trained professional jerk my finger back in place.