Opposable Thumbs Really Do Come In Handy

Yet another reminder of why Kathy and sports do not mix.

Well, perhaps I should qualify and use the word athleticism, since it wasn't really sports related.

I've mentioned that I started running again. This has, for the most part, been a humiliating exercise in out-of-shaped-ness, hence I've been keeping said humiliation to myself. Yet, except on the days it rains, I've been keeping with it and have been making small strides in getting my tolerance for pain back up where it belongs.

So, today, instead of running around the neighborhood, like usual, I decided to go over to the track a few blocks away. I thought this might be better for my knees rather than pounding the pavement. This track belongs to a local high school, and I thought since I was allowed onto the track (no one stopped me) the gate I entered in through would remain unlocked.

Nope.

Sometime during my huffing and puffing my exit was padlocked. To get out of the track, I had to scale a ten foot high fence. This wasn't so bad, but it was the getting down part that turned out to be tricky. When I was coming down, I slipped slightly, and in the process of stabilizing myself the bone that leads down from my thumb to my wrist got banged, rather hard, against a metal pole. Hence, right now it's all swollen up and it hurts. I've been imbibing the Advil---would someone in Europe or the Middle East please, please, please send me some of the 800mg stuff you have over the counter there so I don't have to swallow four at a time?----and icing it. This happened roughly two hours ago. I've just gotten to the point where I can type. I'm pretty sure I just bruised the bone. I can make a "4" with it, but damn, it's not pleasant. It's not bleeding. Nor was I able to feel any little bone chips floating around where there shouldn't be any.

Interesting, no? Yeah, I know. Boring stuff that you really don't need or want to know about but the next part I find fascinating. Because it's curious. Because of this, I've just realized I never really lost the ambidextrousness (?) I gained when I was twelve and I broke my right wrist. (If you want the timeline on this, well, know that I remember watching Jeanne Kirkpatrick ream the North Korean Soviet UN ambassador over the downing of that Korean Airlines jet that flew into their airspace by accident while I was waiting for my mom to get home to take me to the hospital.) Until I got my cast a few days after the break, I was completely dependent upon my left hand. I learned how to write with it (ugly though my handwriting may be), open bottles, operate a fork and a spoon, etc. The key to this ambidextrousness is to simply slow down and think it through. It's frustrating at first, but it'll get easier. This is so weird because I just assumed you'd have to learn that skill all over again. Apparently not.

Learn something new everyday, eh?

Posted by Kathy at May 31, 2005 03:55 PM