Fabrication

A number of years ago, I suffered an injury to my left arm.  One morning, while tending to some work stuff, a task I'd repeated every morning for countless years.  It was a part of my routine, when suddenly I felt a snap in my left arm and I could feel my bicep unraveling within the arm.  It felt exactly like a window shade when it's accidentally let go and it flies up to the roll, making a flapping sound at the end. Fwap! Fwap! Fwap!  I never heard any sound, obviously, then again, it was November and I was wearing a heavy jacket.

As an avid viewer of professional wrestling, I knew almost immediately what I had done.  It was obvious to me that my left bicep had ruptured and had retracted up into my upper arm.  Then, when I removed the heavy coat, I saw that my bicep had done just that.  I knew that my morning was not going to be my going straight home to sleep after my graveyard shift, but that I would be making a trek to the Emergency Room.

I can't recall how long of a wait I had before getting in to see doctors, but I do recall that every medical practitioner I interacted with claimed, without examination, that I had merely strained the muscle because if I had torn it, I'd be in much more pain.

I've always harboured a theory that fear drives pain.  That fear of the unknown, is what comprises a majority of pain.  Granted, if you stub your toe or have a limb torn off in some kind of violent farming accident or whatever else we human beings get ourselves wrapped up in, you're going to feel pain.  However, in this instance, because I knew first hand what I had done to myself, there was discomfort, but little pain.

Among the tests performed on me that day, was an ultrasound.  I laid back on a gurney as three young medical students moved the probe over my arm.  During this time, my insistence that the injury was a torn bicep, I kept getting rejected.  That my claims were stupid and misinformed.  "No way!" the lead insisted, "You'd be in intense pain if you tore the bicep."

Just as the young doctor-to-be finished that sentence, the surgeon came inside the darkened room that was lit only by the computer screen.  The surgeon asked how everyone was and before I could utter a single word, the young doctor at the helm of the Ultrasound Machine, piped up, laughing while he delivered his response., "He thinks that fear causes pain and because he thinks he knows what the injury is, is why he doesn't feel any pain."  I remember the whole room going silent, waiting for the surgeon to support them and laugh off my claims.  Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Sounds about right to me."

The trio of young doctors, two males and a female, lost all expression from their faces.  They'd just been schooled by the patient, me, and confirmed by the surgeon.  He scooched in between the doctors manning the Ultrasound, the light reflecting off his face.  I saw a middle-aged man with curly salt and pepper hair, wearing a bowtie.  I can't recall what his name was, as he introduced himself, but I do remember that his first name was Jeffrey, so I knew I was in good hands.

He confirmed that the ultrasound was inconclusive and that he'd likely have to do surgery to confirm the extent of the injury, but in examining my left arm from the outside, it was at best not torn all the way through, but in all likelihood, from the description I told about the unravelling feeling, that I had probably tore bicep.

The surgery was on December 4th, my late-father's birthday, so I knew I was going to be okay, and the next day, following the surgery, I had a chance to sit down with the surgeon to discuss what he'd found.  He explained that I had, indeed, tore the bicep, further explaining that it was a perfect tear.

Apparently, the tendon not only tore at the bottom of the bicep, but it had done so almost cleanly.  The doctor explained that he only had to trim a small portion of the end, before looping it through the two bones in my forearm to reattach the tendon on the underside of the bone.  Because such a small portion was necessary for removal, that I would most likely have full range of my arm when it healed.

It's very true.  In the decades since that injury (I can't believe it's been close to twenty years since that had happened), I have had full range of my left arm.  It's not nearly as strong, but I'm right-handed and the left always was a weak duckling, so no big deal.

The contraption I had to wear after surgery, to ensure the repair would heal properly, was insane and overly bulky.  The injury and surgery both occurred in the winter months so putting on and wearing a jacket was near impossible for a one-armed man, but I did manage to get out once in awhile, always being met with questions and queries.  The real reason behind the injury was stupid and uninteresting, so I came up with a much more interesting and entertaining reason behind the injury.

One time in January, a little over a month after my surgery, I was visiting a friend who lived in a small town outside Saskatoon.  We were conversing at a small table in the bar, when the waitress/bar maid came over to our table to ask if we wanted more to drink.  Seeing the contraption that my arm was twisted into, she asked what had happened, thus thrusting me into my tall tale.

I explained that I'd been downtown, doing Christmas shopping, when I heard a woman scream, "Stop him! He has my purse." I told the bar maid, that I snapped my head around toward the scream and saw a young fellow racing toward me, carrying the woman's purse.  Without hesitation, I explained, I immediately threw my arm out to clothesline the fella as he ran past.  I was successful in bringing down the assailant and retrieving the purse for the woman.

Looking up at the astonished look on the barkeep's face, I added a nugget that I never thought meant anything, claiming that there was a write-up about it in the Sunday Sun, which was a local newspaper for the City of Saskatoon, at the time, adding the title, "Local Samaritan Saves Christmas for Out of Town Shopper".

She was flabbergasted.  Speechless, but impressed.  "I'm going to go home and look for that article." she said, turning around to go back to her post behind the bar.  My friend, whispered to me, "She's really going to do that, you know.  People around here keep all that shit, ya know."  I just shrugged it off and never came clean.  Not until this blog, anyway.

What had really happened was: When it was time to take the garbage out to the bins after working the nightshift, my bicep tore off the bone when I attempted to pick up a large container of garbage.  That's it!  Boring as shit!  Lies or not, that story needed embellishment and I think my cover story was brilliant.  What do y'all think?