Just Because

Note:  I wasn't going to share this story with y'all, but the fact that it's so telling of my personality and my life on so many levels, coupled with a recent comment made about one of my tweets, inspired me to say what the heck.  Karen Anne, this one's for you.

Not much goes on around the Kelly House these days.  I stay up as late as I want and wake up when I want and eat whatever I can manage to cook using mostly only my left arm and watch some television and read a lot.   I still have to wear that damnable figure-of-eight splint, but at least now I get to remove it when I take a shower.  Getting ready for the day goes something like this:  unbutton jammie shirt and remove it awkwardly, cursing because it catches on the splint; rip the velcro off the left side of the splint and take out my left arm and then sort of do the Harlem Shake until the splint falls off my right arm; take a shower (being really careful not to lean over or move my right arm too much--just try that sometime), towel off; put on bra by fastening in front and scooching it around to the proper position; thread my right arm carefully through the splint, stick my left arm through the splint, pull the webbing strap with my left hand across my back, under my left arm, and stick the velcro onto the left side of the splint by my neck; put on big plaid flannel shirt very carefully without moving my right arm too much; put on either yoga pants or sweatpants; sit on my butt and have a cup of coffee because I'm already worn out.  Repeat in reverse at the end of the day.  It's aggravating. 

I haven't been to work at The Real Job since October 1st and haven't worked on the house since October 2nd, and so temporarily my life is nothing like it used to be.  It's not going to last forever and none of it is Big Stuff, but it's all the little stuff added together that irritates me:  I haven't put my own hair in a ponytail in weeks, or worn a baseball cap, or swung a hammer, but the thing that bugs me most is that I haven't been able to wear any of my own shirts.  See, everything in my closet is pullover:  long and short sleeved t-shirts, camis, hoodies, tanks tops.   Since the injury, I've alternated wearing two big plaid flannel button shirts that I borrowed from my son. So not only do I not feel like me, I don't look like me, either.  Then last Saturday I got a cardiac monitor in the mail.  I have to wear it for four weeks, 24 hours a day, except when I'm in the shower or doing "other aquatic activity".  It has two leads (long wires) on it, one that I attach to the right side of my chest and the other to my left rib cage.  I think getting that cardiac monitor was the beginning of the breaking point.

On Monday morning I snapped.  "By gum," I told Louis Cat, "I am gonna do something today that makes me feel like the old me."  I decided to wear my new Kansas City Royals t-shirt.  It's long-sleeved, v-neck, and super cute.  "Girl cut", I think they call it, because it fits close to the body.  It took me almost four minutes to get that shirt on.  I know, I timed it.  Add my favorite jeans and my Chucks sneakers and I was a happy girl.  Never mind that I looked like a hunchback or possibly an FBI agent carrying a shoulder holster under my clothes because the splint stuck out in back.  Never mind that I had wires sticking out of the bottom of my shirt and going to a little black box that was definitely not a cute handbag.  I was wearing a t-shirt for the first time in several weeks and I was happy.

Now, y'all who have read this blog for some time know that one of my biggest faults is that I do not think ahead.  Tear cedar shingles off the house with no plan for what to do if the clapboards underneath are rotted and need to be replaced?  It'll all be fine!  Knock down an ugly wire fence to replace it with a picket fence without the slightest idea how to build a picket fence?  No problem!  Climb up on the roof without considering that I might be too scared to get back down?  That's me!

So about 11 p.m. my plan to put my jammies on and then read a couple hours before going to sleep ran aground when I discovered that I could not remove my shirt.  First I pulled on the left sleeve with my right hand, thinking that I could pull my left arm all the way out of the sleeve and then push the shirt over my head, but the shirt was too small and my right arm too limited in movement for that to work.  I tried variations of this six or seven times. Louis watched me with his ears laid back.  Then he got Florian and Gracie, and all three cats sat staring at me like, "Really, dumbass?  Didn't think this through, did ya?"  Then I thought that maybe I could pull the back of the shirt up over my head, like when you're in a fight with the fat kid at school, and take it off like that.  The shirt kept getting caught on the back of my splint.  I was scrunched up awkwardly with my left elbow pointed up toward the ceiling and my right hand behind me, trying to reach the shirt hem in the middle of my back, when I got a text message from my neighbor Jeff.  

"Whatcha doin?" it said.  

"Nothin much," I replied.  

He texted back about his lack of success hunting that day.  

"I can't talk right now," I texted, "cause I'm kinda in the middle of something."

Jeff was immediately suspicious.  "Middle of what?  Are you doin something you're not supposed to?"

"No," I said.  (Which was sort of the truth.)

"You're not up on a ladder are ya?" he texted.

Hell's bells.  "No, I'm just busy." I texted back.

"Busy with what?  Don't hurt yourself again." Jeff is nothing if not persistent in his worry.

Then the phone rang.

For the love of Pete.

"What in the world are you doin?" he asked.

"I'm--nothin--I'm just..." I faltered, trying to think of a reasonable excuse.

"Why are you out of breath?" He laughed.  "Did you find a boyfriend?  Am I interruptin something??"

"No, of course not.  I don't have any boyfriend.  I just--well--I just--I kinda did something stupid and I'm tryin to fix it."

"You need some help?" he asked.

"NO!" I said, a little louder than I meant to.  "I mean, no, it's okay."  I was in the kitchen with scissors, seriously considering cutting my brand new Royals shirt that I paid 40 bucks for off my body because that seemed like a better option than telling this guy what was really going on.

"It doesn't sound okay.  If you need some help, just ask."  He paused.  "You know what?  That was a dumb thing to say.  I know you.  You don't ask for help.  So I'm gonna assume that something happened and you need help and I'm just gonna come over there and help you unless you tell me right now not to."

Oh crap.  "Um...give me thirty seconds to consider this, alright?"  My mind raced.  I weighed both options.  For the past ten minutes I'd been trying to get this shirt off with no success.  I was sweaty and tired and my right shoulder was starting to hurt and I really did not want to chop into a brand new shirt.  On the other hand, I really did not want this guy to come over to my house and help me take my shirt off, and in the process see my stretched-out pink Walmart brand bra and my pit-stained splint.  (Hey, you wear a splint under your arms non-stop for three weeks and see if you can avoid pit stains.)  On the other other hand, everybody else I know is already in bed.  "Come on over," I mumbled.  I didn't tell him what the problem was, preferring the element of surprise.  In the time it took him to walk down the alley, I made a couple of last-ditch efforts to get the shirt off by myself, which of course failed, and when he tapped on the back door I was close to tears from frustration and embarrassment.

He walked into the laundry room.  "What's up?" he said.  Then, seeing my face, "Uh-oh.  Are you all right?"

And then I kinda lost it. "I feel like an idiot.  I put this shirt on because I just wanted to wear a t-shirt for once, for God's sake, and now I can't get the shirt off, and it's stuck on my splint, and this stupid cardiac monitor is in the way, and I feel like an invalid and I can't do anything at all by myself, not even take off a shirt, and I feel dumb because you have to help me with something so simple!"  I may have been wailing a little.  I was certainly sniffling and teary-eyed.  

"So you need me to take off your shirt?" Jeff asked.  And then he hugged me and said, "Honey, that's no big deal.  I think you might be over-reactin just a little bit here.  Go and get another shirt, and let's go in the kitchen so we're not standin right in front of the window, and we'll fix you right up."  

And then he very carefully pulled my shirt up over my head, and I pulled my left arm free of the sleeve, and then he slid the shirt off my right arm, looking pointedly at the floor the whole time, and when I had my other shirt on and buttoned, Jeff said, "You shoulda just called me in the first place instead of gettin all upset about it."  I started to answer and he said, "Oh, I know.  That's not what you do.  You try to do everything by yourself and never ask for help.  I think you think it's weak or something to ask for help.  That's why I've been clearin the snow for you out in the alley and by your carport every winter without askin you first."

"That's you who does that?" I asked, amazed.  

"Yep, that's me.  For the past three years."  He paused and then, anticipating my question, "Just because."

I Am Old-er

Satchel Paige once said, "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?"

I know how old I am.  Forty-six.  Two months from today, I'll turn 47.  I hadn't really given my age a whole lot of thought until I got hurt and they screened me for heart attack and stroke at the hospital.  "Pish," I thought, "I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke.  That happens to old people." To begin with, I know from working in emergency services that those things sometimes happen to young people as well, but it's the slow dawning that I'm not one of the young people anymore that took me aback a bit.  I might be 46-almost-47 in Real Years, but in Jayne Years I'm about 30.  Thirty sounds good.  I can handle being 30.  Most days (before this happened) I felt about 30.  Heck, most days I acted about 30...or 12.  But I'm pushing 50.  My cholesterol is a smidge high, arthritis made itself known about five years ago, my son's pushing 30, and I haven't been able to drink more than 3 beers in a night without a hangover since about 2006.

On Monday I went to the outpatient clinic at the hospital again.  I've been there more in the past six weeks than I have in the past six years.  Chris, the Family Nurse Practitioner in the ortho practice (who should tour the country teaching other health care providers how to be just the right blend of intelligent, attentive and caring) told me that my fracture's healing but not as fast as he'd like it to be.  Apparently, fractures of the clavicle build tissue first, and then bone on top of that.  I have some good tissue building, but no bone growth yet.  Chris explained, "If you were a little kid, your fracture might be completely healed by now.  But because you're--" he paused to look at my chart, probably to get my age.  I helped him out.  "Because I am old."  He laughed, "I wouldn't say old, but I'd say old-er."  He continued, "Because you're older, it takes longer to heal.  I'm not comfortable with you going back to work yet or resuming much activity until you get some good bone growth."  Off work another three weeks, and the only activity I can do with my right arm is some small range of motion exercises, which I've been doing diligently.

I tried to explain to my son how weird it is to know in your head that you're 46, but to feel in your heart much younger, and that realizing you're middle-aged is kind of a kick in the pants.  Dylan said, "Mom, you're only middle-aged if you live to be at least 92.  If you die younger than that, then you're already over the hill."  Thanks, son....

What It Isn't

Way back when, the day I'd injured myself and I was sitting in the ER (which seems like a hundred years ago but was really only 6 weeks or so) the ER doctor told me, "We might not be able to find out what it is that caused you to pass out, but we can find out what it isn't."

In the ER I had a list of isn'ts:  it isn't a heart attack, or a stroke, or low or high blood pressure, or some weird cardiac episode, or low or high blood sugar.  That's all very good news.  I'd rather not have any of those things.

But I still wanted to know what it is.  So I went to my regular doctor, and she ordered more bloodwork, because I couldn't remember if I'd eaten the day I took the header into the corner cabinet and the door jamb, and some things are better measured after fasting.  And now I have another list of isn'ts:  it still isn't low or high blood sugar, or thyroid, or a weird hormonal thing.  (I was wondering if maybe it was some monster hot flash that felled me.)

In other news, I visited the orthopedic surgeon a couple of weeks ago (and got to see the nice Family Nurse Practitioner rather than the not-nice surgeon) and found out that my collarbone is knitting together, but the ends of the break are overlapping rather than being side by side.  The overlap isn't much and he said it can heal that way, but to keep it from getting worse I had to further limit my movement.  So, I've been reading a lot lately, and I've watched more television in the past six weeks than I have in the past six months.  (Is it just me, or are the same shows on every night?)  I'm still in the awful figure-of-eight splint, but apparently the thing does help.  I'm still off work until I go back to the ortho on the 18th and I'm really hoping he releases me to go back to work then.  

So we still don't know what it is, but I'm inclined to go along with my doctor's theory.  She thinks that because I was arguing with Mare just before I whacked my head that maybe I was so angry and frustrated with him (gee, you'd think she knows him) that I might've had an episode of vasovagal syncope.  In plain language, that means he pissed me off to the point that I lost consciousness.  This is not difficult for me to believe.  Usually when he makes me angry I throw a hammer at him, but I didn't have one that day.  I'll have one close at hand from now on.  Better he should get hit with a hammer than I should break another bone. 

Not The Smartest

Three weeks post-injury.  Nine more to go.  Ugh.

The first two weeks were ugly.  The less mentioned about those the better.  Suffice it to say that it's possible to move your shoulder or sternum, and therefore your broken collarbone, even while trying your darnedest not to, and that narcotic painkillers are a wonderful thing.

This week has been slightly better as far as my injuries.  The cat-shaped scab fell off my head and left behind a small red divot.  I was pretty disappointed that I won't have a cat-shaped scar on my head to forever mark me as a Crazy Cat Lady.  It's been slightly worse as far as how I'm dealing with inactivity.  I texted my son with a long list of things I thought I might be able to do, and his responses to them varied from "probably not" to "hell no".  

But today I thought I'd figured out something I could do:  run the ShopVac on the floors, which are pretty dusty and furry after three weeks.  The ShopVac was already in the middle of the back bedroom, so I wouldn't have to drag it out of the closet or lift it up the step between the laundry room and the kitchen; there's an easily accessible outlet in the back bedroom (no reaching for it); and it has a great long hose and wand on it, so I won't have to extend my left arm out very far.  I never thought I'd be excited about vacuuming, but I was.  Thrilled, even.  I ran it all around the back bedroom and my bedroom (which took three times longer than normal with only one arm and the restrictions on my movement) and then I went into the kitchen.  I should mention here that I have a contractor-grade ShopVac, so the thing's pretty powerful. Florian Cat's toys were scattered all over the kitchen floor and I was pushing them out of the way with my foot when I sucked up one of them partway into the wand.  The canister of the ShopVac was all the way across the room, so instead of turning the thing off, I pinched the ShopVac hose between my left arm and my body so I could yank the toy out of the wand.  Nobody came over this morning to put my hair in a ponytail for me, so I had a full-on Roseanne Roseannadanna thing going on today.  You can guess what happened next.  Yup.  Sucked my hair right into the ShopVac.  I let go of the wand, thinking gravity would help me.  Not so much.  The ShopVac traveled up my hair and stuck to the crown of my head, and I couldn't pull it off because I'm not supposed to lift either arm, right?  So I hobbled across the room with this thing stuck to my head, turned off the ShopVac, and the wand dropped off my head.  Not the smartest thing I've done lately.

I think I'll go back to sitting on the bed reading a book.  It's safer that way.

Twelve Weeks

Monday I went to see the orthopedic specialist. 

He walked into the room and said, very accusingly, "I looked at the x-rays from this morning and your fracture has shifted.  What have you been doing?  It was perfectly aligned on Thursday and now it's shifted. You must decrease your level of activity."

I fixed him with my best you're-an-asshole glare, a look that I've perfected over years of, well, being surrounded by assholes.  It must've worked.  (I think the black eye and my crazy hair helped the effect.) The doc actually took a step back, tilted his head to the side, and said, "I apologize.  Do you live alone?"  I nodded.  "It's very hard to manage a clavicle fracture if you live alone."

I sighed.  "Doc, I can feel the damn thing moving.  It clicks.  That's a little unnerving."

He checked my splint, a figure-of-eight brace that I'm pretty sure was once used as a medieval torture device.  "The splint isn't properly placed," he said as he hopped on the table behind me.  

Then he put his knee in my back and tightened the splint.  I said a bit of the Rosary in a way not typically prayed.

And then we had a little conversation about what I cannot do, which is pretty much everything, during which he scared me into compliance by threatening surgery if the break gets out of alignment again.  "Do not lift anything, do not stretch, do not extend either arm past 45 degrees, do not remove your splint," he warned. Got it.  He scribbled a note that I can't go back to work until he sees me again in three weeks.

As I left his office, he paused in the hallway, looked back, and said, "If you need anything, just call the office. You're my patient for the next twelve weeks for the same price, so don't hesitate to call if you have questions or needs."

"Twelve weeks?" I said.  "I won't really take that long to heal...right?"

"It will take every bit of twelve weeks for that fracture to heal, yes," he said.

"Twelve..." I gulped.  "Twelve weeks...."

About Those Plans...

Somebody said, "We make plans and God laughs."  (I don't know who that "somebody" is or was.  The interwebs says John Lennon, a Yiddish proverb, the tv drama Private Practice, or Woody Allen.  Take your pick.)  I don't think God really laughs at us, especially not at our misfortunes, but I do think that every once in awhile something happens to make us remember that we're not as much in charge as we think we are.

I started out this morning full of plans:  help my son move some furniture, get the second coat of paint on the back wall of the house, get under the side porch for a better look at what's needed to fix it, run some errands...but it was storming when I woke up so I decided to take a little nap and re-adjust my plans later.

About noon Mare knocked on the door, and I went to answer it in my favorite Hello Kitty jammies.  He apologized for not showing up to hang the clapboards (whatever, Mare) and we chatted for about half an hour.  Suddenly I felt yucky, really yucky, so I walked into the kitchen to sit down.  I made it to the kitchen doorway before I, in Mare's words, "dropped like a sack of taters".  Passed out cold.  On the way down I somehow managed to hit the door jamb at an odd angle, which broke my collarbone, and then I face-planted into the corner cabinet and opened up a small cut on my forehead.  That'll teach Mare to no-show when he's promised to help me!  He drove me to the hospital and spent the next three hours in the ER waiting room while they ran me through x-rays, a CT scan, bloodwork, and an EKG.  All in all, it's good news:  everything came back normal and the break is clean so the bone guy doesn't think I'll need surgery.  My glasses are shattered and my Hello Kitty jammies look like something out of a horror movie.  Come to think of it, I look like something out of a horror movie.  

I'm lucky.  Lucky that I wasn't alone, lucky that I wasn't hurt worse, lucky that I have health insurance to help pay for all this, and especially lucky that I have friends and family who care about me.  I'll try to remember all that in the face of the ortho doctor's warning: "No construction for you for the next six to eight weeks."  Ugh.  

Poor Little Porch

Poor little side porch.  She's been sadly neglected for many years.

This porch is on the east side of the house.  She still has her original spindles and beadboard ceiling, but she's suffered a lot of indignities over her lifetime.  I thought she was original to the house, but when I found Sanborn maps for my neighborhood, this porch wasn't shown as part of my house until the 1910 map.  (Incidentally, that's about when the back of the house was added on, too, the part that's gray in this photo and what I showed you in the last post.)  There were doors at either end of the porch at one time; the thresholds are still there and I can faintly see the ghost marks of some small hinges, probably for a screen door.  When I bought the house, the porch floor was covered with icky brown carpet and there were no porch steps.  I ripped up the carpet right away, and bought the steps that are there now.  (They're actually interior stairs, salvaged from an old house, but it's better than having to jump off the porch.)

The porch floor is tongue-and-groove and it has some damage.  After extensive testing--which consisted of jumping up and down in various places--I concluded that the damage is water-related and that it's mostly at the front edge of the porch.

Those two holes you see at the edge of the floor, though, aren't damage.  I think they're from porch railing that used to be there.  Back before I painted that trim board green, I could see the outline of the rail post on it.  I think the railing went along the edge of the porch to where the original steps were.  There doesn't seem to have been a railing on the other side of the steps, though.  I really wish the porch could talk, so she could tell me what she used to look like.

If she could talk, I think she'd shout, "Get that stupid, ugly plywood off of me!!"

I don't know much about the porch's history, but thanks to my neighbor Floyd I do know why the porch has plywood all over it.  Seems the previous owner, a sweet little old lady named Esther, had a live possum in the basement once (which kinda puts my dead rat in the ceiling to shame) and was convinced that it had made entry via the side porch somehow so she had the whole thing boarded over.  I tore the plywood off and looked underneath the porch.  For a couple of seconds I considered getting under there for a better look, and then it occurred to me that I could stick my phone's camera under there and get the same end result.  This is what the camera saw:

I'm not sure if that's a basement window or what--so it seems I will have to crawl under there, eventually--but whatever it is was possum-proofed by another piece of plywood and a couple of cement blocks. Note the big gap at the top.  Why, a clever possum could squeeze through there in no time.  This whole contraption makes me laugh.

What I don't find funny at all, though, is this rotten board on the front of the porch.  Part of it looks like chocolate cake and has about the same consistency, too, so it needs to be either replaced altogether or have a new board sistered in.  

I'd like to at least get that board fixed, as part of my tucking-in-for-the-winter plan.  If I'm being really ambitious, I'd like to get the porch floor painted too so that it survives the winter.  I'm worried that if I don't do repairs to it now, I'll have to replace it in the spring.  Poor little porch.