Personal Injury

Sunday mornings, there's no DJ who mans the radio stations.  It's all run via computer software and in the course of playing music for the first few hours, the station will repeat some of the segments that other DJs had produced throughout the week.  One of the subject matters covered this week, people who wished they had a more interesting story as to why they sustained an injury.  Right away, I recalled the day I tore my bicep and the harrowing details that followed.

PART ONE: THE INJURY

I had been off of work prior to this injury, due to..., what else?  An injury.  I had a traffic accident that had resulted in a serious back injury which required months and months of rehabilitation.  I'd returned to work only weeks before this event occurred.

I worked nights at a local retail establishment and in the mornings, before we were set to depart for the day, we'd perform a thorough clean up of discarded packaging and other refuse.  We had put a stand up air compressor out that night and had an empty box, which we had filled part way with plastic wrap and other shit.  It didn't weigh very much at all, but when I picked the box up to place onto a flatbed cart, I felt something snap inside my arm.  It took me by surprise and as I recall, I scurried backwards into the racking, holding my arm with my free hand.

I'd be lying if I said it hurt a lot, because to be honest, it actually kinda felt cool, but it's definitely not something I wish to repeat.  It felt like an unraveling, which in actuality, it is.  I recall the blinds that my great-aunt, Chrissie, had at her house.  As a child, we weren't allowed to adjust the height of them because, I'm guessing, at some point, one of us idiot kids, tugged on the blind and let it go, sending it skyrocketing to the top of the window, thus requiring a tall ladder to scale to retrieve and return to the lower portion of the window.  If you've experienced this, you'd be familiar with the thwap-thwap-thwap sound the blind makes as it reaches the top.  This is exactly how my arm felt.

I knew right away what I had done to myself and when work was finished, instead of heading home for some much needed rest, I instead found myself in the waiting room the the University Hospital.

PART TWO: A QUESTIONABLE DIAGNOSIS

The case was performed by medical interns, who first sent me for X-rays, which proved inconclusive, so they followed up by performing an ultrasound on my arm.

The whole time, I was insisting that I had torn the bicep, explaining that I felt it unravel inside my arm, but they weren't having any of that.  They kept forcing their belief that I would be in a world of torturous pain if I had, indeed, torn the muscle from the bone.

I insisted that pain is only a figment of the imagination.  It's fear-based and most of those who experience pain, manifest it solely because of a fear of the unknown.  Like, "Holy shit! What did I do to my arm?" kind of bullshit.  This was not the case, here.  I firmly held my ground, insisting that this was the reality.  The young know-it-alls would not succumb to my claims.

The ultrasound proved as inconclusive as the X-rays were.  It was at this time that the surgeon popped in for a consult.  The interns, having fun at my expense, tried to get the doctor in on the teasing.  "He claims that pain is fear-based and because he 'knows' what he did, he's not feeling any pain." 

I recall the doctor pausing, leaning his head from left to right, then replied, "Yes.  That sounds reasonable."  Suddenly, the room got quiet, the physician leaning in between two of the three young docs, his eyes fixed on the video feedback on the monitor.

"It's difficult to see just how bad the damage is.  We'll have to open it up to get a good look."

Long story short (too late 😉), the surgeon pulled me aside the day after the surgery and reported to me with a huge smile smeared across his face.  "Yep!  You tore that sucker clean off the bone!"  He slapped my knee, continuing the tale with a chuckle in his voice, "It was beautiful.  You couldn't have torn it more perfectly."

He went on the explain that normally when someone tears the tendon, it looks like a bomb went off, but in my case, the tendon had torn right at the bottom most portion.  He told me all they had to do was trim some of the shredded portion off then they pulled the tendon down through the two bones of my forearm, then attached the tendon to the back of the Humerus bone of my upper arm.  Because so little of the tendon had to be removed, he speculated that I should reclaim full use of the arm.

I've seen people who suffered a much worse injury than mine, who were left with a semi-crooked arm.  They can never extend their arm fully, whereas myself, I can.

PART THREE: THE AFTERMATH

Immediately following my meeting with the surgeon, I was fitted for an odd looking apparatus that was designed to hold my arm in a certain position to better the healing process.  Hold it in a manner where full movement would not be an issue in the future.

The apparatus was odd.  It had a cuff that clipped to my upper arm, with a hard immoveable cable attached to the lower portion which kept my arm twisted so the inside of my arm would face upward.  It was quite cumbersome and it was difficult to wear a jacket.  This, of course, occurred in late-November, early-December, when it's necessary to wear a heavy coat.  With this contraption strapped to my arm, I couldn't hardly zip the jacket up, which made me appear to be quite the attraction.

Of course everyone is going to ask what happened to me.  You couldn't look at the pathetic nature of my appearance without wondering, "WTF?!"

The truth, which I shared with you at the top of this page, was boring and lackluster, so I embellished it some.  Embellish isn't really the correct term, but exaggeration is completely accurate. 😂

On one particular evening, I was with my best bud, my brotha-from-anotha-motha, at a local drinking establishment.  Actually, it was the one and only bar in the town of Delisle, where Dan had been living with his family.  Prior to this date, we'd partied in that bar a few times.  It was especially fun when they'd have karaoke.  I admit that I can't clearly recall any of those prior visits due to high alcohol consumption, but on this day, I don't believe I was drinking.  The last thing I'd wanna do is fall down and reinjure my arm.

The waitress came over to see if we'd like another beverage, when she noticed the contrivance strapped to my arm and immediately asked what had happened.  The truth being a snooze-fest, I changed the story to the one I had been repeating to everyone I had been encountering up to that point.

PART FOUR: THE STORY

I told her that I was walking downtown when I heard a woman scream, "Stop him! He has my purse!"  I looked ahead of me, where I noticed the woman screaming for help.  Between her and me, was this fellow running through the crowded sidewalk.  Being a fan of pro wrestling, I knew straight away that I could remedy this situation quick and as the man was about to run past me, I extended my left arm, throwing it into the man, forcing him to the ground.

The waitress was enthralled, leaning in, mouth open and hanging on my every word.

"Right away," I told the server, "I knew that I had torn something in my arm when I clotheslined that thief."  

The waitress leaned back, muttering "Holy shit!"

Enjoying the ridiculous reaction I was getting, I added the tagline, "They wrote a story about it in the Sunday Sun.  I believe they called it, "Local Samaritan Saves Christmas For Out-of-Town Shopper".

"I'm going to go home and check that out." she said, before returning to the bar with our order.

"Why'd you tell her that?" Dan asked me, "Why'd you tell her about the article.  People out here don't throw anything away.  She's going to go home and search through every damned paper looking for the story you just told and she's never going to find it."

PART FIVE: THE EPILOGUE

I couldn't call into the radio station to tell them this incredible, albeit, made up story, but perhaps the subject will come up again, one day, and I will be able to call in and share some of my silliness.

Poor AJ Styles, clothesline by John Cena.

Brain Freeze

 

I've never experienced, quote-unquote, brain freeze.  I understand from those who have that it can be quite intense and very painful.  On that same note, I've also never had an ear ache, nor been in love.  Although I have never experienced any of these things and, I'm sure, a plethora of other personal experiences, I do believe these things to exist.

For some, seeing is believing.  I've never seen oxygen, but I know it fills my lungs every time I inhale.  I've never witnessed the electricity that runs through my walls, but I know that if I flip a light switch a light will illuminate a room or plug something into a wall, it will operate.  I have no clue how the internet works, but when I click the button in the top right-hand corner of this page, this blog will be posted to the internet for almost no one to read.

This belief, "seeing is believing" is what prompts me to the subject matter of this edition of my Brain Matter.  I was recently reminded of a conversation that I overheard during a lunch break, many many years ago.  It was so asinine that it has permanently burned itself into my inner brain, like a brand that will never fade.

I know not how they, the people at the next table over, arrived at this point of the conversation, but it was from this point on that I was intrigued by the logic involved and by logic, I mean, the lack there of.

Richard was an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair and a thick mustache. He was maybe in his late-fifties, early-sixties, at the time.  I'd just taken a slurp of my soup when I overheard Richard mutter the words, "They say dinosaurs were real, but I've never seen one, so I doubt they ever were."  I nearly did a spit take all over the fella sitting across from me at my table.

With a smart ass smirk smeared across my face and soup dripping down my chin, I turned around to confront that piece of wisdom, but before I could speak, Richard added to his diatribe, "But I believe unicorns were real."

I was in disbelief, not that his beliefs were foolish at best, but that he was being serious.  When I first overheard his contribution to the conversation, I thought he might be talking in jest, tongue-in-cheek, making a feeble attempt to be absurd, but he was dead serious.  I first asked him how he was supposed to see a dinosaur, being that they had been extinct for tens of millions of years prior to human existence.  Richard shrugged and said, "Show me proof."

I paused for a moment and mentioned that there were literally museums all over the world that housed complete skeletons of dinosaurs, ranging in tiny molluscs all the way up to gargantuan Brontosaurus', but Richard informed me that he doesn't like going to museums.  The response made no sense as to why he'd deny the existence of dinosaurs only because of a dislike for viewing history through the museums of the world.  So I broached the logic of the unicorn.

"There's absolutely no proof that unicorns ever existed." I said, "How is it you believe they were real?"

Richard looked at me with a blank stare and spoke these words through his thick mustache, "Because the Irish Rovers* had a song about unicorns."  I stared back at Richard, utterly speechless, experiencing a true WTF moment, completely in disbelief that this was the logic of a man, who for all consideration, was responsible for operating dangerous equipment on the manufacturing floor, where we worked at the time.

"So by that logic," I said, "Because the Irish Rovers also have a song about Grandma being runover by a reindeer, Santa Claus is real?"

Richard looked at me like I was speaking another language, replying, "No.  That's just stupid."

The exchange had concluded and I spun my chair back around and finished my lunch.  It's been nearly a decade since we had that exchange.  I'm sure Richard has long since passed away, but if he hasn't, then I'm almost certain he's wasting his golden years sitting in his living room, listening to old Irish Rover records and believing that same stupid shit.

I was telling my mother about that conversation about a week ago.  She cocked her head to the side, like a German Shepherd when you mention going for a walk.  "What the hell?" she said, total disbelief that there are people in this world who really are that foolish.

The conversation reminded me of another short conversation that I had with Ernie, who sat at the end of the lunch table where I sat.  Ernie was a devout Christian or one of those seriously religious groups.  In all honesty, I don't know the difference between any of them, but over the years, I've managed to keep my beliefs on the matter, to myself, and not confront anyone, unless they start pushing that nonsense on me.

The movie, NOAH, starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly had just come out.  Knowing that I went to a lot of movies, Ernie asked if I had seen it yet.  I told him 'no', that I had no interest in seeing it, then asked if he had.  Suddenly, Ernie's demeanour changed from the happy-go-lucky man that he usually portrayed himself as, switching to a more serious appearance.

Ernie leaned in close, as if to tell me a secret, then pointing a finger at me, shaking it like he was scolding me for finishing the last piece of cake, he sternly uttered the words, "NO! I refuse to see that movie because it's historically inaccurate."

Okay.  Now I was hooked.  Historically inaccurate?  "How do you mean, historically inaccurate?" I asked, "Based on what?"

Ernie sat back in his chair, almost befuddled by the question, confused that I didn't know what reference he was speaking of.  "Why, the bible, of course."

I shrugged my shoulders in defeat and left it at that.  I usually like to have all the facts if I'm going to argue anything with anyone, but I know very little about the bible.  I only have my own theories that are based on nothing, really, but it's my own gospel, so-to-speak, and no one, or very few, will ever agree with me on that.

Years ago, I attended some counselling for anger issues.  I went through a Christian Counselling Center, only because it was essentially free.  I only had to pay what I could afford, which was usually around $10 to $20.  In the sessions, the counsellor would give me homework assignments that would involve reading passages from the bible and I'll be honest.  They helped.  However, I never put much more credibility into the bible than just that.  Like Aesop's Fables, the stories are merely reflections of experiences, meant to guide its readers down a straight and moral path.  Nothing more.  I don't view Jesus as a spiritual leader, but as a figure head.  Just as I see Ronald McDonald as a figure for a company that slings shitty hamburgers, I see Jesus as the mascot for better living.

I've never experienced brain freeze.  I've never seen oxygen or been in love.  These are all things that I cannot see, but believe in and yes.  The irony of that is not lost on me.  Just because I can't see an invisible man who lives in the sky, doesn't mean he doesn't exist, but.... Come on!  I've never seen it, so it can't be true. 😄