We miss the exit for the ER
and go around again. Ned says "This will make a great
journal entry." All I can say is "owwwww!" every time we
hit a pothole and "ouch" when we round a curve. Yeah,
this'll make a great journal entry all right, assuming I
can write it. I feel like my life is suddenly being
managed by the Red Sox bullpen.
My 52nd birthday did not start out
to be a disaster. Oh sure, the plumber was late this
morning because of the snow and because there is another
street with the same name as mine on the other side of
town. I thought there was some law or fire code against
that. Anyway, the plumber called from his truck on the
other version of my street and I talked him turn by turn
to my house. What I thought was a small leak turned out
to be a broken pipe under the sink, the one connected to
the faucet. Replace pipe, install new faucet: $400+.
Ouch. Just what I always wanted for my
birthday.
I had cleaned the snow off my car
in anticipation of having to move it for the plow, but I
really didn't think they needed to do the "move all the
cars and clear the parking lot" thing. I stopped watching
for the plow and sat down with a cup of tea and Sea
Room, a book by a guy who owns a couple of islands in
the Hebrides, which Nancy gave me for my birthday (the
book, not the islands). Sometime later a guy from the
plowing company bangs on my door and requests that I move
the car. It seems odd as the snow is melting already, at
least on the pavement. I obediently abandon tea and book.
I drive around for awhile, do errands, drive around some
more until more than enough time has elapsed to plow.
They haven't plowed.
Then I made the big mistake of the
day. Tired from getting up early, I stretched out on the
bed to listen to the radio for awhile. I started to drift
off to sleep. I was in that weird semi-sleep state when
the phone rang. I leaped off the bed and ran for the
phone, somehow thinking it was the condo management
company calling to yell at me to move the car or risk the
wrath of my neighbors for being the one to prevent them
all from being plowed.
This snow plowing thing is the
single most anxiety-provoking thing about living here.
You sometimes have less than three minutes to get your
car out no matter how much snow there is and how much
they've plowed you in. You can be sick, dead, or in
Antarctica and still be expected to move the car
instantly. No matter that they'd had hours to do this
earlier and they probably didn't even need to do it for
this storm. The phone ringing with the snowplow rule
anxiety still roiling around inside my head with me half
asleep is way more than enough to overrule common sense,
zen training, serenity and whatever all else.
The next thing I knew I was on the
floor in the hallway with my left arm twisted underneath
me in a most unnatural position. It hurt. Movement in any
direction caused so much pain I felt like I would faint
and throw up at the same time. Then I noticed my nose was
bleeding. Dripping on the carpet in fact. Wilbur ran
around me in circles meowing like crazy. I crawled to the
phone and pressed *69 just in case it was about the
parking lot. It wasn't. It was Leslie from the cat
shelter. It wasn't anything urgent. I tell her what
happened. I think I dislocated my shoulder. She suggests
a trip to the ER.
Can I afford an ambulance? Does the
town have an ambulance? Ambulances can never find
units in this complex. The condo association has worked
on the signage a zillion different times to no avail
because the front doors don't face the street. And what
about that other street with the same name? They'll never
find me. I called Ned instead and talked him through it
like with the plumber.
So there we are missing the Marston
Street exit and looking for the emergency entrance
discussing the Red Sox bullpen, 19th century nature
writing, and exclaiming "owwww!" a lot. This is exactly
how I wanted to spend my 52nd birthday.
Except for not being able to show
them my insurance card because my wallet is in my left
pocket, getting checked in and stumbling to X-ray goes
really smoothly. The x-ray tech takes a set of pictures,
looks at them, announces they are too light, takes more
pictures, also too light. Ned keeps asking the x-ray tech
if I can get something for the pain. He goes off to
Tripoli bakery and comes back with cannoli to celebrate
my birthday. A nurse comes by and looks at the x-ray then
hurries away with a disgusted look on his face. The tech
takes more x-rays. I feel like I can't stand up anymore
and I do not want to eat cannoli. I try to give the
cannolis to the x-ray tech but she doesn't want them.
Ned was reading The Wild Sports
and Natural History of the Highlands by Charles St.
John when I called him and had the presence of mind to
bring it with him. He read to me while I waited for Nurse
Steve and then Dr. G to look at my x-rays. They decide I
have indeed dislocated my shoulder really badly, but they
can put it back in. They hook me up to some monitors and
start an IV with two drugs, one of which is supposed to
relieve the pain and the other one to make me forget what
they are about to do. Nurse Steve asks if it's OK to cut
my shirt off because attempting to take it off over my
head will hurt a way wicked lot. So terrified am I of
anymore pain and not particularly attached to the shirt,
I give the OK.
Ned reads St. John to me the whole
time I wait for the drugs to take effect. He tells me the
chapter headings and asks if I have a preference. I pick
something about short-eared owls. A nurse wheels a woman
into the cubbyhole next to mine. She's on some heavy pain
meds. The owl chapter segues into a detailed description
of the life histories of every species of field mouse and
rat that these owls eat. I am entranced, murmuring "this
is fabulous" periodically. The woman in the next
cubbyhole groans something that could be either approval
or disapproval at some passages. When Ned asks if we're
bothering her, she says "Keep reading". At some
particularly 19th century sentence she says "You can tell
that was written over a hundred years ago. No one writes
that way now."
Dr. G asks me if I remember having
my shoulder put back in. No. I remember something about
grouse in the Highlands. Ned keeps reading while I wait
for the drugs to wear off enough so I can stand up for
the "after" x-rays. Dr. G gets interested in St. John.
"Who is this writer? Where did you get this book?" He and
Ned discuss the particulars.
The "after" x-rays require several
tries again. Gee, I always thought I was fairly
photogenic. The tech still won't accept the cannolis. She
suggests Ned and I celebrate my birthday with a good
stiff drink. He explains we're both on the wagon so we'll
have to have cannoli instead.
It's 36 degrees out and I am
wearing only my bra and this complicated immobilizer
sling that keeps my left arm strapped to my body in what
they call "handbag carrying position". I didn't bring a
jacket. This isn't going to work. Nurse Steve disappears
to some other part of the hospital and returns with a
shirt that will kind of almost button over this
immobilizer contraption so I won't freeze. I yell ouch
way fewer times on the way back home.
While Ned goes to the drugstore to
fill the prescription for the giant ibuprofen pills, I
dig out my baggiest flannel shirt and button it easily
over the immobilizer. Armed with the cannolis and the St.
John, as well as the giant ibuprofen pills, I settle in
to celebrate my birthday.
Ouch.
