Not the brightest lightbulb in the pack

This last sequence of arm damage has to be detailed to be believed. It’s even funnier if you consider the fact that I’m actually a dancer, who still regularly attends ballet class; as well as a runner who is rather fond of running the Nike campus. In theory, you would think this makes me a co-ordinated woman. You would envision me as someone who can be safely counted up on to accomplish her daily rounds without doing anything outlandishly physically damaging.


You’d be wrong.


Instead, we have a woman who ripped her right rotor cuff in college because of a modern dance performance where I had to pull myself along the stage by one arm (and couldn’t raise my elbow above the line of my body while doing this.) I refused to wear my sling and not do the performance, because after all, the show must go on. What’s a rotor cuff to the life of art? *g* I am a woman who has rather appallingly bad knees from years of gymnastics (to the point of repeated surgery on said knees as a teenager) and who still runs; more or less because I still can. I spend my quality cubicle time perched on a bright blue balance ball. Because spending time in chairs tends to make me perform contortions of strange shape and dimension heretofore gracefully ignored by civilized society. (As a rather small specimen of American, most chairs fit me like goldilocks sitting in the Papa Bear chair.) Only when you apply this kind of a background to my dance and exercise habits, could you perhaps explain the most recent spate of right arm damange. Then again… perhaps not.


I’ve been working quite hard to increase my pull up capacity; and somehow I over did it about a month ago. Subsequently, I have been having problems with the right shoulder, of the kind that would encourage normal people to visit a doctor. Being abnormal, I’m hoping if I just take it easy, the pain will go away. However, this has put a serious crimp in my work out plans. Apparently this bothered me enough to want to inflict a little ‘universal’ punishment on said arm. With my nice mangled shoulder, in the last two weeks I have managed to bounce of several (at least 5 that I can remember) door frames – while I have NOTHING in my hands. (For those that know me, this is even funnier – I always can be seen walking around with my nose in a book, mysteriously avoiding all the things in my way. Apparently only when I have nothing in my hands, can I become a unique specimen of blonde bumper car, subject to bouncing off all and sundry door frames.) To add to the list of complaints by my poor arm, I then proceeded to spend two days where it appeared that I was determined to bend every single finger on my right hand backwards, preferably at the last joint on the finger. Somewhere in all that practicing to be Gumby I managed to shred the top of every one of my fingers just below my nails. (For Halloween, I could probably have convinced people I’d been digging my way out of a grave or something!) This last weekend, I actually managed to shut a door on my right wrist. And then we get to Sunday, which is one of those memories that causes me to turn pink while laughing.


Sunday we discovered that the refrigerator was experiencing a small amount of water drippage. This would not be a huge deal other than the fact that the previous owners of the house apparently think that hard wood floors are a FABULOUS plan for a kitchen. So, a little bit of drippage gets a whole lot of attention.


Sunday night I could be found lying on the kitchen floor with my husband, peering into the deep darkness under the refrigerator. Contemplating three small drips of water, from three discrete locations. Now, as the smallest member of the house, it fell to me to find a way to push the improvised drip containers (previously known as cookie containers) under the hulking monolith that my fridge appears from the floor. Once my arm was under, all the way to the shoulder, then the fun can begin.


Have you ever noticed that in small spaces, it’s all about entire body orientation to squeeze through? The minute you change something un-related to the body part that is being squeezed, you change your entire relationship to the small space…. Well, that’s my experience, at least! : -) So, while under the fridge with my arm, I managed to move in a “wrong” way. The next thing I know, my arm is stuck under the refrigerator at the elbow. Not kinda stuck, not “maybe a little” stuck. Full on, “Oh my god, I’m never coming free; I need to start gnawing my arm off if I don’t want to spend the rest of my life under a refridgerator“ kind of stuck.
Eventually I managed to free my right arm from the hungry monster that pretends to store my food (while secretly aiming to consume my bones). As a memento of my tangle with the hungry beastie I have a beautiful bruise on my elbow topped with a nice fluffy foamy (kind of like a cool whip topper) set of scrapes. Not to mention, for some strange reason, my shoulder feels a tad bit pulled…


“Is that all?” you ask. No. Not a bit. In some small dark secret corner of my mind apparently I am compelled to explore the depths of pain. This morning, after waking up sore, bruised and wishing desperately for a long day trip to someone that makes pain go away (massage artist? Chiropractor? Miracle worker?), I decided to work out. And not just any wishy washy work out was going to do it for me. I needed action, adventure, fast paced… oh, and by the way, can I please screw up my right arm some more?


I needed Kenpo. This morning, me and my “I can’t lift my arm above my shoulder” right arm kicked, punched and whimpered my way into butt kicking Kenpo land. Oddly enough, I’m feeling quite sore at the moment.


What’cha think, do I need my head examined or what?