Oh $h!t

I could feel it in my bones.  We were in beautiful Gulf Shores, Alabama for an art show and let me tell you, I was stoked!  This was going to be an amazing weekend.  We were staying with our good friends at their beach house and we were going to drink good wine, eat amazing food and make a lot of money.  Set up was earlier that day but it was stressful and hard.  High winds whipped across a lazy pond and turned it into sweet tea colored white caps.  That didn't make any sense, did it?  Oh well, I'll just blame it on the oxy.  Yes, I am swimming in oxy induced euphoria at this moment and typing one handed with the speed of a drunken tortoise.

The sunset was gorgeous that afternoon.  Our hostess needed Mr. MoonDog's help in scraping a days dead pelican off the pier so her dogs wouldn't roll in it, or worse, so I hung back and took some photographs.  

Anyhoo, we had an early dinner and I decided to shower so I could lounge around, drink more wine, relax and enjoy the evening in the comfort of my PJs..

...

Hot water, excellent pressure, a nice relaxing shower, man I was feeling good.  Grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself, hoisted my left leg over the tub, then grabbed the shower bar as I was pulling my other leg out, you know, instinct, like reaching for the stair rail when you're too lazy to take the elevator.  Well let me tell you, that shower bar is NOT as substantial as stair railing.  It came right off and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling out of that tub in slow-mo and already seeing stars.  And in my mind I could see Mark and Helen scraping me off the bathroom floor like they did that poor pelican.

My chin hit the toilet, my knee ground itself into a vertical toilet paper holder and I ended right up on my left side in a very wrong way.

I didn't have to scream because they heard it happen and Mark was there in two seconds flat. It took him a few minutes to collect me off the tile though.  The pain was intense. 

I did not cry.  I did not sit down.  I put on my pajama pants and that was all I could manage.  The twins were simply going to have to hang out and be free until I could figure out how to get them inside a t-shirt without passing out.  I realized that Alabama is not that far from New Orleans.  Should he load me up and take me there?  Ollie Ollie Oxy Free.  (Hell no, I will not be oxy free for a looooong time...)

...

So here was my dilemma.  The booth was set up.  In 10 hours, I was going to be taking people's money in exchange for my very hard work and I had a really good feeling about this show!  My man explained that he and Helen would go at first light and break down the booth and we'd head home and to the hospital. 

"Shut up", I explained.  "We are in fact going to stay for the show, OW, at least for the first day of it and I will, THIS HURTS LIKE A MOTHER, be fine.  I pulled a muscle or tore a tendon.  I will be fine". 

And I lay there.

All night.

In pain. 

Not one drop of sleep. 

Thinking about dead pelicans. 

Wishing I had a wineglass full of morphine. 

Wondering why women flash their ta tas during Mardi Gras for some cheap plastic beads.

(Make a note to tell Mark Holt in the morning that IN NO WAY is he to give away any of my glass beads to any woman who should happen to come into our booth and flash her boobs at him.)  

No amount of begging or pleading could convince him the next morning.  And he was right, of course.  It took me 15 minutes just to stand up from the bed, and another 37 hours to get dressed.  

We pulled out from the venue about an hour before the show was to start.  

...

The P.A. at the doc in the box took an X-ray and told me I had a broken arm and that I needed surgery, most likely that very night.  I was instructed to go straight to the Emergency Room.  He offered to give me a shot of something for the pain but said it would only last a few hours.  I refused it because he pissed me off when he didn't tell me what I wanted to hear.  That I still had a whole bone without any flaws whatsoever.  He could not give me a script for pain meds but told me they could at the ER.   I guess a broken arm doesn't warrant pain meds on the off chance the person it's attached to might be a drug dealer.  So I decided to hold out for the far superior cocktail the hospital would surely offer me once there.

 

The hospital X-rayed me again.  And I was right.  This nice lady shot me up with something that made me feel so good.  Like winning an art show award good.  Like new car smell good.  Like how kissing Brad Pitt would be good.  The Doctor there agreed that I needed surgery but wanted me to see a specialist on Monday morning.  He called in some "Brad Pitt Got a New Car Award" drugs for me and I knew I was going to get some sleep for the first time in two days.  I even forgave Mark Holt for hitting the largest pothole he could find whilst exiting the parking lot of the CVS.  $)@*&%#!!!

...

The totally worst thing about this injury is getting out of bed.  It literally takes my breath.  I have to pivot my body and work to bring myself up into a sitting position.  It takes me over five minutes.  It actually hurts so bad I want to sleep standing up.  But once I'm up, the pain is manageable.  I'm currently taking my drugs every four hours. 

Monday morning was my appointment with my new Hero.  He specializes in Sports Medicine and takes care of all the FSU athletes.  I should be a piece of cake then, right?   He looked at my X-ray, looked at me, looked back at it, and said, "I think we can heal you without surgery".  The tear I cried a second after that was not because of pain.  

Relief washed over me and stayed, even when he told me I'd be in my sling for 8 weeks or so.  Even when he said it would take many months to heal.  Even when he said I'd need something for pain for a long time.  

So here I am.  Broken humerus, broken show season, broken towel rack in my friend's beach house.  Broken spirit though?  I don't think so.  Maybe just a little bruised. Strike that.  A LOT bruised.  But nothing like that decaying carcass that once soared above the waters from whence it retrieved its dinner with its mighty beak and transferred it post haste to its eager gullet.  Because I am not dead and rotting on a pier and because this little white pill takes my appetite right off the table and because my battered and bruised body gets to lay up in a reclining chair for the foreseeable with my Malteses while my man takes care of me like just now when he delivered my next dose of euphoria...

Imma be just fine.  I can feel in in my bones... 

 

 

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