I knew it would come to this someday

Okay, so last Thursday I'm walking through the living room, paying no mind to the dogs, when wham! Our seventy-pound puppy slammed into the back of my legs. I dropped to my knees -- on concrete -- then hit my palms, then smacked my head. (Did I mention on concrete?) That naughty dog and two others then leap onto me, apparently figuring since I was on their level, I was there to play.

My knees immediately turn yucky shades of black and purple, with a golf-ball size knot on one. My palms hurt. My wrists hurt. My elbows hurt. My ribs hurt. My shoulders hurt. Oddly enough, my head doesn't hurt. Guess when Mom and Dad called me hard-headed, they weren't kidding.

I take some Motrin, ice the elbow that hurts worse, eat some chocolate, go to bed. Wake up the next morning . . . and I am in pain. My knees don't want to bend. My wrists don't want to straighten. My right arm is totally useless, hanging crooked at my side. It takes me twenty minutes to get dressed, ten minutes to brush my teeth, and I give up on my hair. I can't lift either arm high enough to get the brush through. I call my mom, and she comes to take me to the emergency room.

My right arm, hand and fingers are swollen, and the little admissions clerk looks at me and asks, "Can you fill out this form?" (Do you want to be able to read it?) I get through triage, then into a treatment room, where I'm asked to sign more forms. (After watching my painful progress on the first two, the guy says, "Initials are fine.") The nurse comes in and pokes, the doctor comes in and pokes, and then the torture begins.

Who knew torture was spelled "x-ray"? Cute little girl, hardly old enough to be out of school and way more concerned with how bad my dog must feel than with how I feel, settles me on a stool, positions my shoulder and says, "Hold your right arm straight out from your side with your palm up." Ha! If I could move my right arm, I wouldn't be there.

She chats, lifts and rotates my arm a bit, chats more, lifts and rotates a bit more, and so on until she finally has me where she wants me. I'm sweating bullets, getting sick at my stomach and thinking seriously about just passing out, but she gets the views she wants. I'm hugely relieved to still be conscious and thinking about the bed waiting back in my cubicle, and begging for pain meds, when she moves me to the table and says, "Now we'll do the elbow."

Holy shit!

Diagnosis: mild sprains of both wrists. Mild strain and bruising on left elbow. Severe strain of right shoulder. Broken right elbow. One sling and two pain pills later, I'm curled up at home in my bed, too exhaused to even whimper.

Best films of a broken elbow he's ever seen, Doc says admiringly. (Cute little x-ray tech almost kills me getting them, but hey, they're great.) Orthopedic surgeon, who doesn't look much older than cute little x-ray tech, says yesterday that if you've gotta break your elbow, that's the best break to get. Get rid of that sling, he advises, and start resuming as much normal activity as possible.

WTF? I'm in pain here. My arm is swollen and bruised. I'm taking regular doses of pain medication (half doses, granted, but still . . .) I can barely dress myself or feed myself, and when the seventy-pound puppy comes running, I cringe and turn to protect my arm. I don't want normal activity -- I want a normal elbow!

And a little extra pampering wouldn't hurt. You know, fluff the pillows, offer chocolate, murmur, "Poor baby."

It's a sad thing when a broken elbow is good for only four days of "Poor baby"-ing. Rachel10:57 AM