That's the Breaks

My Facebook friends already know that I broke my hand last week. Sporting a purple cast, I am learning to do lots of things with one hand - my left. Fortunately, that's the dominant one, but it still makes lots of daily activities rather challenging. I can drive, but have a devil of a time fastening my seat belt. I can shower, but only with an uncomfortable rubber contraption on my arm. Oh well, while it's not the first time I've had a broken bone, I hope it will be the last.

In my first year out of college, my friend Claudia and I decided to try ski lessons. (Actually, we were hoping to meet cute guys apres ski in the lodge.) We drove up into Michigan and were soon on the bunny slope. Within minutes, the skis went out from under me and I put out my right hand out to catch myself.  A heavy plaster cast made my life miserable for the next six weeks. Years later, I broke my right wrist when I slipped on the ice in our front yard. Had to go to an important job interview in a cast, but I got hired.

One episode stands out in memory. Years ago, I was working at Franklin Maternity Hospital in Philadelphia. One of my favorite assignments was to lead the new patient orientation. On the way to an evening session, I stopped to drop something off at the home of an architect who was helping us with the lobby renovation. I parked at the top of the hill behind their house and trotted down the stairs. Moving too quickly, I planted my left foot and my ankle turned over, snapping the ligament and bringing a piece of the bone with it. Ouch! 

I limped to the door in great pain and his wife Kathy, a nurse at the hospital brought me inside, put my leg up on a kitchen chair and iced it. She volunteered to do the orientation if I could wait until her husband got home, as the baby was asleep upstairs. Now we had never met, so he walks in the door and here's a stranger with an ankle the size of a melon in his kitchen. We had a good laugh and he found a pair of crutches and helped me get to my car. Andy was out of town, of course, so I had to drive myself and my throbbing extremity to the hospital, some distance away.  

I'll try not to be Calamity Jane in the future!