This past Monday I went to the ortho clinic. I had xrays and then I waited nervously as the FNP looked them over. "It looks good," he said. "Actually, really good. I'm going to go ahead and release you. Merry Christmas."
Ten weeks and four days. From the date of my fall to the date of my release from treatment, ten weeks and four days. The doctor originally predicted it would take me twelve weeks to heal. This might be the first time I've ever gotten anything done ahead of time.
I wished him a merry Christmas too and turned to go. He paused in the doorway, grinning. "Now this doesn't mean you can go straight to the lumberyard, pick up fifty pounds of materials, and start working on your house." My reputation precedes me. I laughed. "What can I do?" I asked. "Anything you want," he said, "as long as it doesn't hurt or put too much pressure on that collarbone."
Anything I want...anything...
First things first: get rid of that damn figure-of-eight splint. As soon as I got home I threw it on the floor and stomped on it. Then I grabbed a lighter with the intention of destroying the splint by fire, but since my entire yard is covered with about six inches of leaves and it was really windy that day, I decided not to risk burning down the whole neighborhood.
Then I called my friend Tom, who's been a coach and a trainer for years, and asked him how best to rehab my shoulder and right arm. He advised me to use my arm as much as possible without pain and to work on flexibility. I've been working diligently, and every day I make a teeny-tiny bit of progress. (Kinda like when I was scraping paint off the house--work hard, barely visible results.)
And last, I called Mare to tell him the good news. Y'all know I can't stay mad at him for long, and especially not when he blames himself for my injury. He says if he hadn't come along and pissed me off, I wouldn't have passed out and gotten hurt. I counter that I could've passed out at home all by myself without him there to put half a roll of paper towels on my dented-in head and then drive me to the hospital, and that might've been worse.
So what's next? This winter I'd planned to pull up the subfloor in the back bedroom to investigate why the floor slopes sharply down towards the back of the house (I suspect decades-old termite damage to the floor joists, which was noted in my house inspection) and repair that, and then, if I hadn't run out of winter yet, I planned to put a new ceiling in that room. There's no chance of any of that happening now. So, I'm taking the rest of the winter off from any serious work on the house.
And I'm making plans for spring. Big plans.