Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I was trying to apply my spray deodorant, which was easy enough on the right side. I just grabbed the can with my left hand, aimed at the armpit, and voila! Protection courtesy of questionable ingredients, which may or may not have dire consequences for our health down the road, but we use it anyway because we do not want to be a stinko. I guess we all figure that if it kills us, we’ll at least die smelling fresh! You’ve got to give it to the personal hygiene folks; that’s some seriously good marketing. Spraying the left side was the tricky part. The fingers of my right hand, which protruded from the brace I had been instructed to wear, were not capable of applying even a small amount of pressure. There was no way to spray my left pit with my left hand, so I tried setting the can on the counter and crouching down so my armpit was level with the spout and sort of mashing the top with the forearm of my good hand. No dice. I tried triggering it with my right elbow, and this sent the can careening across the bathroom where it launched itself against the shower wall.
Gol dang it! It was clear that I would need a different solution, so I rifled through all of my bathroom products and found a small sample of some kind of roll- on stuff which promised 24-hour protection. I shudder to think what kinds of compounds make that possible, but it was a thousand degrees outside, and I had a dog to walk. I could not pry the lid off, so I stuck it between my molars on the right and tugged with my good paw. Success.
I grabbed an SPF 50 shirt and painstakingly threaded it over my banged-up arm, did my best to tie my sneakers, and then, with considerable effort, managed to harness up my 90-pound dog. We were off. Admittedly a little worse for wear but undeterred from our morning ritual.
When I recounted the story to Eric, he was not all that amused.
“Why do you think this happens so often? These accidents?” He asked. “Is it your eyesight? Could you have an inner ear imbalance? I’ve seen you nearly get creamed by traffic in the city so many times. It’s like even when you are looking, you don’t see where you are going. It’s very worrying.”
That was a reasonable line of questioning. He had a point. I do have an explanation of sorts, but it’s a long one, and knowing why this stuff happens has done exactly nothing to change this state of affairs, so after some 60-odd years, I have decided to just accept the situation.
That was the day after I took a pretty good fall in Griffith Park. It was a beautiful morning, and I was ambling along my favorite path near the creek in Fern Dell when my foot must have caught on a tree root or small divot. I flew a couple of feet and landed hard; my head went thwack against the cement, but thankfully, my right arm took the majority of the impact. Knees scraped; left elbow ground up and bloodied; the shirt sleeve shredded. I was a bit dazed at first, and it took a minute before I could try to stand. Fairness stood watching the effort, his back leg shaking.
I sat and gathered my wits, then walked well over a mile to get home. It wasn’t good. I knew that, but I am fairly unfazed by these sorts of events. I drew a bath so I could wash all of the affected areas and let the warm water comfort my battered flesh.
There was a decision to be made, and I honestly did not think twice. Urgent Care or the ER or some such event was definitely on the horizon, but I had a hair appointment, and that would have to come first. Anette, who handles my color, cut, and all the things that need handling on my head, was leaving for Europe. This was her last day at the salon before a three-week tour. My roots, which are white and silver, were already beginning to draw attention to themselves, peeking through the honeyed blonde I have chosen to obscure them with. I know that I am not fooling anyone. We all know that someone my age is hitting the peroxide, but to allow physical evidence of that in the form of inch-long regrowth is the stuff of scandal.
I dressed carefully, my right hand already beginning to balloon, filled a towel with ice, and headed to the salon. I drove with my left, careful not to rest my torn-up elbow on the window. By the time I arrived, the sleeves of the white shirt I had thrown on for sun coverage were wet with blood. Anette eyed this warily as I hung it on the hook at her station.
“Shouldn’t you maybe go to the hospital?” she asked gently. “That hand is pretty bad.”
“I will after this. No reason to go running over there. The hand will be the same kind of mess three hours from now, but my hair will be a bigger mess in a month, so let’s just get it done, and then I’ll go.”
She nodded and set about mixing my color, tightening my extensions and all the attendant fuss of a hair appointment. We chatted about her plans overseas and how I was feeling about the movie I am making at the end of the month. My ice was melting away, so Anette ran to the AM/PM to get more while my hair dye processed. After two hours, I was ready to head out, sporting blonde locks and a fresh blow-dry
As I dressed, Anette eyed my swollen hand with apprehension.
“That is really … you really should have that looked at. Urgent Care at least.”
I planned to do just that, but the swelling indicated I could be in for a longish visit to the medical folks, so I ducked home first to take the dog out for a pee break. I worked in a call to my sister Laura, who said I should just bite the bullet and go to the ER because most of the clinics and walk-in joints don’t have X-ray facilities.
Ewwww. NO. A big fat no on the damnable ER if I can help it. I actually like hospitals. I like the people who work in them and have compassion for the people that need to be in them. The nurses and doctors are up to their necks in paperwork and charting and rules, rules, rules, but most of them still manage to administer care with a heady mixture of knowledge, kindness, and grit. The people who staff them are remarkable citizens, and I commend them at every turn, but the emergency room is for folks who’ve been shot or lost a limb or had a giant tree fall on their person. It is not the correct purview for a lady with a bum hand, a gooey elbow, and very good hair.
I could not use the fingers on my right hand, which is dominant, so I used the left to hunt and peck through GOOGLE, one letter at a time until I found a location that had full X-ray services and, as a bonus, a parking lot located in the rear of the building. Huzzah!
“It’s probably nothing. I am just being silly to worry about it, but better safe than sorry, I guess,” I said, smiling at the pretty young nurse who was checking my vitals, which were predictably fine, though my blood pressure was a bit lower than my normal, which is very low.
“BP always this low?”
“Yes. I take after my Dad. His resting heart rate was so low that his nurses used to check it again and again, thinking there must be some mistake. He was fine, of course, until he wasn’t. He made it to 93, drinking champagne all the way home, so a good run, I’d say. I am okay with that hereditary scenario.”
The attending physician’s assistant rolled in. She was beyond pretty, a stunner. The place was lousy with competent beauties. I was impressed.
“Looks broken, a fracture at the very least. When did this happen?”
“About 8:30 this morning.”
“We are just now seeing you?” She looked at me askance.
“Well, I thought some ice would do the trick, but it seems not to have done so.”
She gave me the once-over, then instructed the nurse to take me to X-ray. The whole business was handled swiftly. The X-ray technician turned out to be another beauty, and I thought to myself that it was a good thing they were located in West Hollywood, where the female form does not sway a lot of fellows; else I could imagine legions of straight men limping in with fake ailments, just for a chance to feast their eyes on the drop-dead gorgeous staff in that joint. The Physician’s Assistant returned shortly after.
“We will wait for the radiologist to take a look, but if you can see right there,” she pointed to the back of my bad hand near the wrist. “You can see a fracture. We’ll need to put you in a brace for 6 to 8 weeks.”
“Ah, okay.”
“You are going to have a pretty good black eye, but your pupils are not dilated, so I think that will be the worst of it with the head injury. We need to clean up that left elbow, and I am going to give you some prescrip
tion ointment to put on it. Going to give you an oral antibiotic as well to have on hand just in case.”
“Blah blah blah.” Was what I heard at that point. I was supposed to go cook dinner at my sister’s, and that was off, dammit, and this all sounded like a big hassle. I would have to go to the pharmacy, elevate my damaged hand, and most of my plans for the rest of the week would be considerably altered. I decided to drop by the girl’s place for a few minutes before heading home to the drudgery of semi-convalescence. On the way there, the pain I had somehow not felt until that point became acute. ‘Stupid, stupid consequences,’ I thought.
The girls fed me, loaded me up with Motrin and an ice pack thingy. Little Kalen gave my knees a sweet hug, and I headed out to hit the pharmacy on my way home. The next day I went to Trader Joe’s and bought a lot of stuff that could be heated in the microwave and got on with the business at hand of caring for my bum hand.
THE BODY IN QUESTION.
Fairness and I have kept up our walks but have mostly stuck to well-paved roads and even-ish sidewalks. Two days ago, he begged to go to the park, the same one where I had gone ass-over-teacup on that fateful morning. I studied the ground with every step, cautioning the dog to “stay with me” and forbidding him to tug on the leash. He kept one eye on me the whole time as we hiked our favorite trails. I thought about what Eric said, about how disconnected from my physical form I always seem to be, to the point of not acknowledging pain. I know it’s the PTSD. I have been to my fair share of therapy sessions, and I know that leaving my body is how my psyche learned to cope with the physical and mental trauma of my childhood.
I also don’t care.
I am 67, and this is the deal. I cannot imagine that I am going to have some great transformation at this point. I am likely to go on banging my head on my way through life and stubbing my toes and bruising my shins. I should probably give up strenuous outdoor activity and ride an indoor bicycle instead. I should stick to non-injurious forms of exercise like Yoga and Pilates, but we all know that ain’t gonna happen. So, I have devised a plan. As soon as my right hand works well enough to hold one, I am going to get a stick, a proper walking stick. I may get a few. A stick for rough terrain and one for city streets, a hand-carved number for dress-up walks; I’ll get one with an electric charge at the end that can ward off intruders, both the human and canine variety. There are a lot of options when it comes to sticks for carry. I have seen a few folks in the park, trekking along while using ski poles for balance.
We are all crippled in one way or another, and at this stage I think it is fair to embrace our handicaps and just get on with it. I have zero appetite for personal growth and no interest in changing my routines.
I am going to get me some sticks, by God, and I am going to stick to my ways in more ways than one.
On we go …
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