pain – Page 2 – hannah ananas

Theories

Why does all the bad and annoying have to happen one right after the other in life? Ugh.

So, I got sick. So, I can’t go exercise. Then I couldn’t sleep. Then all the crap feelings combined with my living alone, and I was lonely. Then I was miserable because I was sick and alone, and it was even worse. Then I couldn’t make food, which made everything worse, including my recovery time. Then, as I think I am recovering, my lower back seizes up while stretching it out, and I’m in varying degrees of pain there.

What will tomorrow bring for my body?? Please, God and Universe, let it be full wellness…

Oh, and did I mention that there were somehow fleas in my bed, biting me? I don’t even have a pet…

Post-a-day 2021

Tremble

O-o-o-oh, sometimes, it causes me to tremble…, tremble… tremble…

Perhaps one of the most powerful expressions of sadness and pain – an expression that communicates clearly to and elicits reaction from onlookers – is the unexpected tremble of the lips.

That powerful, easy, comfortable part of the body, somehow losing its ability just to hang out, hang around… it takes no effort for our lips just to exist. Perhaps that is what makes that tremble so powerful, so effecting… our pain is so great, that not even our effortless body parts can remain calm, they shake with the volume of such pain.

Post-a-day 2021

Breathing through the pain

I woke up this morning, unable to walk. It was terrible. In intense pain, I struggled down the stairs to use the bathroom, then back up to see if I could sleep some more. I did sleep more, though it wasn’t as restful as I might have hoped (but as restful as I had expected).

Apparently, I have had some viral infection the past couple weeks-ish. I knew something was up. Stretching was miserably difficult each night, I was exhausted every day and sleeping poorly, and nothing seemed to give me the energy for everyday life, let alone to get through the workouts without feeling ridiculously heavy and incapable… Sure, menstruation has that kind of effect on my body, but only ever for a few days and only ever to a small degree – this was a whole different level of exhaustion and struggle. The kind that just feels like something is wrong inside.

And so it was.

I can finally feel things improving, now, as of a couple days ago. Each day is a little better, and today was the first day I didn’t feel heavy. Of course, it happened also to be the day that my leg muscles determined to be somewhat spastic, and not let me walk without intense pain in my knee/s…, but I’m hoping that will continue to subside overnight tonight, and I will be able to walk comfortably and capably tomorrow.

I didn’t get to exercise today because of that, and I am feeling that tomorrow might be the same. However, I have already scheduled a run with the weighted vest for Thursday morning (he day I usually do not go to the gym, as it is intensely knee-heavy), and a make-up time for the pull-up cycle work I missed this morning.

Anyway, I must sleep now. Goodnight, all… may we all rest deeply and effectively tonight.

Post-a-day 2021

Oh, snap…

6:40am: Wake up groggily, in need of a bathroom. I have slept in by over two and a half hours, and my body is demanding that I get up to relieve it, at last. I do.

As I re-ascend, a flea lands on my ankle. I grab it immediately, destroy it, and flush it down the sink. This cycle repeats itself once more, but this time with the bug landing on my shin. I head downstairs a get plates and tea lights, set up the traps in a few spots, hoping to nab anything left while it is still somewhat dark outside, and pour the soapy water and light the candles.

As I am just about to head upstairs to my bed – for I had not felt as though I had slept eight hours, and felt a real need for more – , a pain strikes my lower belly. Oh, no… digestion problem, I think, rushing back to the bathroom. Everything had gone as usual in the bathroom initially, but my father’s (and my maternal grandfather’s) GI tract genes had been passed down to me, so it is somewhat always a toss-up as to whether by bowels will be normal or ridiculously sensitive.

Back in the bathroom, I find that nothing is interested in moving – it feels as though there is nothing to depart from my body, even. And yet, I am suddenly crying out in pain, it has become so intense. But nothing seems to be happening inside me. Just pain exists, increasing to a point I have never known. I have had success pains before, but they typically end within a minute, as things readjust inside me, and then I am fine.

But this is somehow different.

The cries of pain continue to escape my lips, shocking my more and more. What is happening?

There is a chance it could be the appendix. The position of the point of the most pain is appropriate. But I’d need a second opinion to be sure. Perhaps I would do best to call my mom and ask her, since I know that she knows. The cries and the pain continue and increase, as the phone calls.

Straight to voicemail. I call again, in case it is merely Do Not Disturb. Voicemail immediately. She’s still asleep. I could call the house, but only if absolutely necessary, as it would wake more than just her. Wait on that.

Thinking is growing fuzzy. As I begin to get up from the toilet, my ears lose full hearing, filling partly with a fuzzy, humming noise. My vision is shaking. I might be about to pass out.

I rush to wash my hands, and rinse some cool water on the back of my neck. It helps briefly and barely. I need water. But my bottle is upstairs. If something goes wrong, I need to be downstairs. There’s a cold bottle in the fridge, I recall.

I bolt in a slow stumble down the stairs to the kitchen, and open the fridge, shakily. I manage to pull out the water and drink some, then hold it against the back of my neck.

But I cannot hold it there. Before I really know how it has happened, I find myself on my hands and knees, my head laying inside the fridge, my breathing heavy and intense.

I just feel so hot.

And I hadn’t five minutes ago.

Something is definitely wrong.

I call my brother. He does not answer. I call the house for my mom twice, but it just keeps ringing both times. Some emergency contacts, I think, somewhere far back in my brain.

I might hurl, I realize. But I might just need a bowel release. Either way, I need to get back to the bathroom.

Because I always put things away, I put the water away in the fridge, though something inside tells me too weakly to bring it with me. Too hard to hold.

I crawl back up the stairs, so hot, out of breath, the pain only increasing in my lower belly, just above my pelvic floor, especially on the right side.

I make it to the bathroom. Nothing is moving in my bowels, nothing wants to exit. As I have been contemplating where to seek emergency medical care, should I need it – though, I had wanted a second opinion on that, this the phone calls – I am now faced fully with making the decision myself. But I know I cannot see well enough or function well enough to find the directions to the right place on my phone. Urgent Care, not ER, but I have never been there, so I’m not certain we’re it is; just that it is near.

First that, then see if I can drive… or even make it to the car.

I have been very near passing out this past several minutes, I know I need someone else to know of my situation, to help if I do pass out.

I call a friend on EDT, knowing she would be awake by 8:20am, even if it is a Saturday. She answers.

But I find that I cannot speak.

I manage a greeting of some sort, I believe, but then just continue breathing heavily, crying tears of pain and confusion and frustration. I know she will remain calm and evaluate properly, but I need to communicate what is happening.

My arms have gone completely tingly, shoulders to fingertips. When did that happen?

With much struggle and murkiness, I finally manage to say what is happening. I am only in underwear at this point. My shirt was wrenched off in the bathroom when the heat first began – I had thought that I only was overheating somewhat, but my skin was completely soaked with sweat once I’d slid off my shirt.

She first tells me that her husband (hems a doctor, but not the first reason I was calling her) is not with her right now, but then immediately tells me that I might be having a panic attack – BREATHE. At this point, I am lying face-down on the floor, my cheek just hanging over the first stair step. My left hand clenches a soaked paper towel… soaked with what? Tears, snot, sweat…, probably all of them, but I cannot quite remember how it even got to my hand. My right hand is pressed into my lower right belly, at the point of the most pain.

Staring at the phone – on speaker – on the floor next to me, I focus on calming my breathing, deepening each stroke. I am still terrified, but I already feel immensely better emotionally, now that someone is here with me. That helps my breathing ease better.

We laugh at her comment on how I should probably be talking to an actual doctor, not someone searching on WebMD. My face is soaked and my body hurts, my arms still tingling, but my hearing has been restored and I can see clearly, though my processing is still slow – it takes real effort to make the words come out. But I tell her that, if we determine I need to go to see a real doctor, I first need to make it upstairs to put on clothes. We laugh at the prospect of my showing up in my car in just a pair of underwear, and I wonder if I would end up with a ticket afterward for indecent exposure…. and yet an ambulance would have taken me in just my underwear, and that would have made their jobs even easier.

I marvel somewhere in the back at how I can even have such thoughts right now, but can barely manage to mutter a single simple sentence aloud.

I tell her that, even if it just turns out to be digestion issues, I am totally okay with that. I’m still glad I was able to get ahold of her. I’d actually rather not have it go that way if I ended up at Urgent Care, however. Not cool. She is giving me options of what might be wrong, assessing my specifics on the pain locations.

Nothing quite lines up as well as the facts that 1)I am near beginning menstruation, and 2)I have bad bowel genes. I ate brisket yesterday, which I do not usually do, but everything else was rather normal in my food.

As we sit on the phone, the pain slowly begins to ebb away, bit by bit. I ask her to stay with me, and she agrees with a firmness that she had already planned on that.

After an hour, I finally have been able to roll to my right side, and curl up in a ball for a bit, and then lie on my back, knees up. The pain has finally begun shifting around slightly, no longer covering such a great area within my body, but it has shifted partly, though gently, to the tender area just above the pelvic bone and in front of the uterus. It is relaxing its grip, nonetheless. I make it to my hands and knees. My arms are only barely tingling.

I need water. I had wanted some already, and had laughed as I’d told her that my brain felt like she could get it for me, because she was here with me now… that fogginess hadn’t been able to sort out the different between digital and physical presence, obviously. But so, I have finally made it to my hands and knees. After staying there a while longer, I finally make it shakily to my feet, and then head downstairs. Perhaps I should eat food, too.

I have some calm, dry food, after I gulp some more water, and she tells me she’ll check in again later.

It is almost 9:00 now. I use the bathroom once more – no BM or gas, of course – and head upstairs to rest briefly. For some reason, I have it in my head that I still need to go to the gym. I had already canceled the 9:00am cardio class, knowing that was neither an option nor a good idea. Not paying that no-show fee. But the 10:00 class is just calm weights, and part of that was something I had missed Monday and had been waiting to make up all week.

I couldn’t miss it… but that had been a thought I’d had before the morning’s insanity. However, my brain was still so murky that it was not able to notice that fully. It just knew that I had to go to 10:00. And that I had convinced someone to go with me, and had helped that person sign up for the class this morning… while I was lying on the floor in the hallway, shaking still…

(I know, right?)

And so, after a brief nap, I did go. Before we began, one of the guys asked about my morning so far – I think – and so I told him a brief summary.

‘And you’re still here?!’

My brain hadn’t even considered that yet. Life goes on, was all it could think, and so it had had me continue onward in my day.

It was still very difficult to talk, to make my body out forth the effort of creating and spitting out words, more than just a few at a time. But, once we got to work on our training, I didn’t really need words – not more than a few every so often – and so life felt somewhat normal. I was sleepy, exactly, but my brain felt something like sleepy, and my body was definitely tired. I had the wherewithal to take it all easy, but not to consider that I maybe should just go to bed or something.

I think I really wanted to be with people for a while. And whatever was wrong with me seemed utterly unlikely to be contagious. I’d even checked my temperature, and it was quite low. No elevation whatsoever. And I don’t feel that kind of sick, anyway. I just felt cloudy and a bit weak on endurance.

And I was. But I got through all that I’d determined to do for today’s workout, and I felt much improved by the end of it. Though, no longer having a specific, repetitive task in front of me, it was a struggle to walk to the car to get myself home. I stopped for bananas on the way, knowing I would want smoothies today and tomorrow, and feeling a call toward eating a banana, anyway.

I managed to make food and eat it, and drink some smoothie, and then shower and nap for a while before having to head to work. When I got in, I found that I couldn’t talk. Not quickly, anyway. If someone greeted me, I could only smile, and then wonder how speech worked, feeling mentally my throat and mouth. I set down my stuff, and acknowledged that maybe I couldn’t do this work today, despite my efforts to show up. My belly had begun aching again, but I wasn’t sure when. Every time I considered genuinely talking, my eyes started to burn.

I went a spoke to the supervisor. She reminded me what the store actually does, that they’ve been short workers before, and that it is significantly more important that I take care of my own health and well-being than suffer through helping there. They absolutely would make it without me, if I needed to go home. And the fact that I had shown up in the first place spoke volumes to my dedication. No, there were no negative repercussions for me, if I determined that I needed to go home right now. Think about it, she told me, and let her know. I had been crying from the moment I’d started telling her what had happened.

After a few minutes sitting there, chatting – well, sort of – with another coworker who had been in the room with us, I noticed that I was hunching forward. When I stood up, I could not stand up straight. The pain was too strong, and I was too weak.

I was going home.

Now, it is just after 6:30pm. I am lying uncomfortably in bed, that lower right spot gently twisting again. The aim is to sleep. The goal is to awaken healed tomorrow. We shall see what happens.

Post-a-day 2021

Pluses and minuses

Okay, I exercised again today. I was very aware of my bottom throughout several parts of the workout, wondering if my rash was doing okay, or if it was worsening. So, I was a bit stressed about that, off and on. Plus, ditto regarding my arm/elbow muscle situation. Depending on how everything looks and feels tomorrow, that will determine my next steps with each. I am really, really hoping that they both clear up by tomorrow night.

Ugh… speaking of tomorrow night, I have to work at that part-time job. And it is for a very long time. And it is until very late. I go to bed by nine pm usually. My body wakes me up before five am each morning. It is already dreadful whenI have to work until eight pm once a week. Tomorrow, I have to work until eleven pm. I won’t be in bed until midnight, best case scenario, which means I won’t even get five hours of sleep. What’s extra annoying is that I am given a mandatory 30-minute “meal break”, because I am scheduled to work for so long tomorrow night. I don’t even eat after five pm, even on my latest of days eating. Usually, it is three pm.

Ugh. The lack of sleep is definitely not going to help my current physical state. Really, it just makes me so frustrated that I want to cry.

Post-a-day 2021

Not mine

I am growing increasingly fond of my own home. I say this cautiously, as I have a tendency to avoid the world outside, so to speak, when I reach that intense panic point of my OCD. However, that is not the same experience as what I am currently discovering and referencing. This current experience is one of noticing that I enjoy being in my own home, and that I prefer it to staying in other people’s homes (like my mother’s or my aunt’s house). I am not afraid of staying elsewhere or going elsewhere – there is no fear or overall stress involved in this experience. It is ease and delight that guide this experience for me, instead of agoraphobia or any other phobia. I just enjoy being in my own home.

I like tidying at home, or rearranging furniture, or just plain lying on my floor. I like having a space where I am surrounded by intentionally selected items, all of which, to some degree or other, bring me joy. And not, I have not yet completed the KonMari method. But, just from what I have done already, I can feel the space as one in which I like to spend my time. The only reasons I really even go to the common areas downstairs are because 1)that’s where the bathroom is, 2)that’s where the kitchen is, 3)my barbell just wouldn’t work on the third floor of an old house, and 4)the daytime lighting is spectacular down there. Otherwise, I’m not sure I ever would bother. And, on many days where I get to stay home, I don’t. I’ll spend almost the entire day up in my space. I supposed the only down side to this is that it is a lot harder to get myself outdoors when outdoors is neither very visible nor very accessible, three floors below. But I have been working on that lately.

Anyway, that’s just something I’ve been noticing tonight. I think there is an important balance between loving what I have around me and being attached to what I have around me. I have actively pursued appreciating the convenience of my own things while allowing other things to be what I use, and I feel that this has benefitted me greatly (as opposed to being upset at not having my own something or other, I make it work with what is available to me where I am, and acknowledge that, while my stuff would have been great, the current stuff will suffice for now).

At that, I’m off to bed in not my bed in not my house. I hope I sleep amazingly tonight and awaken rested and blessed with health, vitality, and energy for the day.

Post-a-day 2020

Aging & Aching

Perhaps I am officially old…-er.

I sat on my bed for all my tutoring this morning, which was four hours. Sure, I got up here and there, went downstairs to use the bathroom or grab some food a few times, and even gave myself a pillow backrest for the last hour plus, so I didn’t have to make my back increase any further its steadily building discomfort.

All of that I did, and yet, here I am, late at night, struggling to walk up and down any stairs, or even walk at all, because my knee is hurting. Yes, it is the one from the fall – both last year and last month – but it does not quite seem in the right spot of that knee to be related to those falls. I believe, as this is not the first time this has happened, it is due to the fact that I sat with my legs crossed for so long this morning (“sitting Indian style” is the phrase we were taught as kids). Now, my upper part of my knee is aching.

I can hardly imagine this ever happening to a young kid. So, I think this officially classified me as not a kid anymore, all numbers and looks and energy levels aside. I’m kind of old now, aging into the post-prime days and years and decades…

Whatever the case, of course, let us just hope that I awaken tomorrow having practically forgotten this pain, because my knee is fully recovered and healed. 😉

Fingers crossed!! 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Today’s checklist

… involved stretching my back and sitting down. And I checked off the bin of them. 😛

Today, I exhausted… Yes, as a verb… exhausted…, but not in the traditional sense. I spent the entire day being absolutely exhausted. At any given moment, I was on the brink of taking a nap wherever I sat or stood. And my lower back was really tight and sore today, quite similarly to a day or two after doing heavy lifting workouts in the gym, but worse. Menstruation has really bucked my butt this time. I’ve been so suddenly inactive in my physical fitness since my ridiculous fall last week that my body has begun to struggle in ways it hasn’t in a very long time while menstruating… I had kind of forgotten how utterly exhausting it can be.

And add to it the fact that my body has been working hard to heal these past ten days, including during the menstruating ones, and then that I was out and about the whole day and evening yesterday, getting important but energy-consuming things done. It is no wonder that I have been so absolutely wiped today.

I just hope I can and do sleep hard tonight and wake up rested in the morning, especially since I have a rather full day, followed by a rather full week ahead of me this week…

Post-a-day 2020

Physical healing

Well, further healing happened last night and today, but I am ridiculously exhausted tonight. By about eight o’clock I was already ready to go to sleep for the night, though I wasn’t even halfway to the house where I am house-sitting for a week. Now, hours later – because I had to be shown certain things by the owners before I could start getting ready for bed – I can barely think, my eyes burn, and I can’t even seem to keep myself from folding forward in a hunch while sitting. I am wiped, yet again. And I didn’t even get that nap in again today… bummer, right?

There only seems to be another couple or few days of recovery needed for my injuries from Friday evening. Though, I could see my knee needing a bit longer. My hands are doing really well, and only seem to need another day or two to be able to work almost entirely normally again.

For now, though, I rest and I sleep and I let everything heal. Then, after healing, I can jump right back into the exercise and the running on which I am getting very behind(!!!). (I never imagined having such a setback on this 100-mile goal… oops.)

Post-a-day 2020

The Fall

So, here’s the short but sweet – well, you get the idea – version of what happened yesterday evening around 5:30. I had a pretty bad fall at approximately .68 miles into my run. I was supposed to do a little 5k to be in a sort of solidarity with a student I tutor, because we had to miss tutoring yesterday due to her mandatory participation in a 5k with her school. (She is neither fan of outdoorsy things nor of running.) I had already run just over that on Thursday, and I didn’t necessarily feel like getting out to run and do a whole workout (core upon return to the house, of course), but I’d told her I would do it on Friday, and I knew I always felt great after such a workout anyway. So, I headed out. It was an amazing start to the run, and the weather was great.

However, when my eye was caught by a mother doing a sort of super-protective stance between the road and her small child, possibly as a means of preventing his sprinting suddenly to the street when a truck was passing, that great feeling changed quickly. Since I was caught off guard by her stance, and, of course, I had to process what I was seeing before moving on in life, I was mentally focused on the mother, even though I turned my head back to the road ahead of me. And, though, I was looking at the road again, it was not quite enough time to process that one of the manhole covers a step and a half ahead of me, while it was supposed to be flush with the road around its rim, and concave for the actual cover, the indefinite-looking roadwork of the street turned that flush edge into a lip.

And yes, I did trip on that lip.

Put simply, I flew forward. I got another step and a half-ish under me as I began to fall, but I was already turning Superman, and I knew I was not going to recover my feet. I had a brief thought of not wanting to fall simply so as not to freak out the poor onlookers – it has to suck to witness someone fall hard or be part of some accident… I regularly think of how terribly frightening it must have been for that angel driving behind me when I went down on my scooter on the road that night last year. Nonetheless, I saw before the thought even finished that, oh, well, they were just going to have to witness it, and I was just going not to worry about it, and to do what I needed to do for my own health and well-being.

And so, I went down, and I went down not just hard, but with a hard forward slide. Man, it was like I were Speedy Gonzales or something, because there was no way I could have been running very slowly to slide that hard and that far, and so quickly. And I always thought my longer running was slow. Good thing I’ve been working on improving that for myself… it really paid off yesterday evening. Not.

(Note: I’m not at all bashing improving one’s skills or athletic abilities – not at all. I am merely having a fun thought and play at how, in this particular instance, being better at the sport actually made for a worse situation. Think, I might not even have fallen, if I hadn’t been going so fast. However, that changes nothing in my plans to continue to improve in my running.)

Anyway, so I went down, and I knew people saw, and I had slight concern for them, but also didn’t care and didn’t have the mental space for almost any thoughts aside from dealing with my own body’s safety and survival at present.

It really sucked. I immediately rolled to my back. I was just lying in the street then, tears pouring from down my temples and upper cheeks, as I quickly examined my hands. They were a total mess. Gashed terribly, tissue fluid and blood already everywhere, and grainy gravel bits of all sizes and dark colors everywhere on them, mixed in with the blood and peeling skin and tissue fluid. My knee was stinging slightly, and I had a feeling it was much worse than it was letting on, hidden beneath my spectacular running pants – I could look at that more later, perhaps when I got home… it only would get worse once I let my attention turn to it. The pants had held up, so I knew they would hold in most of the bleeding that likely was underneath. Not that I spent more than a moment of thought on my knee… I just glanced and moved on mentally.

My hands… oh, my hands needed help.

While I was dong this self-evaluation and feeling growing intense pain, crying somewhat calmly yet entirely uncontrollably, the mother was talking to me from her spot back on the sidewalk.

Was I okay? Did I want them to call an ambulance? Did I want them to call somebody else for me? I answer with obvious shaking of my head to all of them. I was grateful to hear, when the husband was trying to move along, the wife (mother of the little kid) said pointedly, “No, she’s not okay. She’s really hurt.” Though, I only slightly processed it, what with the pain and my own mental focus at the time. When she asked if they could get me anything, I managed, after another several seconds of gasping-like breathing, to ask, “Do you have any water?” After which I resumed the intense breathing. The crying, of course, never paused.

I was still lying on my back in the road, and it had been at least a minute at this point. Granted, I was to the side of the road, but I was definitely entirely in the road, at least a yard or two from the curb. So, I ask again about the water, figuring out how to get water, if these folks don’t have any, and she answers to me that they do. A few moments later, I hear someone begin to approach, and a hard plastic cup being set on the driveway next to me. I say next to me, because it was perpendicular to the road, st the specific spot where I lay. It was not, however, actually very near to me. It was at least three yards away from me.

“Honey, just bring it to her, ” I hear the wife say, followed by the husband’s hushed, “No.” Her response was borderline furious, and something within me felt like there would be a rage in their house tonight.

Alas, there was water, and I needed it for my hands. There was no possibility of my getting up from my spot in the road, so, I stuck my hands above my head, Superman-y again, and rolled two-ish turns toward the driveway. I then forced myself to sit up – though I’m really not sure how, seeing as my hands were no real use at that point. But I grabbed the little blue sippy-type cup, and started carefully tipping the limited, precious water onto one hand at a time. And it hurt. And I knew it wouldn’t be enough – there was far too much blood and dirt that wasn’t going to come off by just dripping a single cup-full of water onto it with no real rubbing.

Not that I wanted to rub my hands…, but I needed to do it.

A truck driving past as I fell, – the one from which the mother had possibly been”protecting” her child – backed all the way up the block, and stopped even with me in the road (in which I am still sitting, of course, but I’m by the edge now). It was, for lack of better descriptors, what I would call a Mexican work truck. Likely, the guy had been working on building a house somewhere down the road – one of the new builds I had passed on my way there, perhaps. The driver exited the truck and was doing something with the truck bed for a minute. I was almost certain what would come next – it’s just a part of the culture, you know?

After a few moments, I finally comprehend that the guy is standing near me, setting down a bottle of water. He then hands me a white piece of cloth and says, “Clean. I’s clean.” (That’s “it’s” without the t, by the way.). I could barely form any words in any language, though I knew he spoke Spanish and possibly almost no English. I believe I thanked him then. I set down the sippy cup back on the driveway, and picked up the icy cold bottle of water. This will hurt, I think, but I know I need to do it.

I struggle for a few moments in my efforts to open the bottle, but I cannot manage it – this simple task is impossible for me in this moment – and so I set the bottle back down on the ground. Within seconds, the guy was back at my side, picking up and opening the bottle for me. He then holds it out in a way that I know he is offering to hold it and pour for me, and so I extend my hands and allow him to pour. I cough out some tears at the pain of it, but we can both see that it is helping clear away the mess. When I’ve wiped away as much as I can tolerate, I nod and thank him a couple or few times, as I press the white cloth into my hands, absorbing what excess still remains, and shooting pains into my hands at every press. I was barely able to see his upside down face through my tears. But I saw him and thanked his face, even if I couldn’t see his eyes.

Meanwhile, the couple stood with their child on the sidewalk, watching, mumbling. As the Mexican guy stepped back into his truck, a white Mercedes that had been briefly waiting, with the guy and me in full view on the side of the road, and his truck parked in the middle of it – keep in mind, this is a neighborhood road, not some throughway or anything – decides to squeeze between me and the truck, now that the guy isn’t standing next to me anymore. When the mother on the sidewalk commented with fury at the fact that the woman had seen us and easily could have just gone around the block – and these are tiny blocks, by the way, in a traditional square arrangement – I genuinely agreed with her. Though, I also felt sad at the driver of the Mercedes. How miserable must one be to be such an a** during an obvious “situation” of someone sprawled in the road?

Anyway… I really liked the wife/mother. Not so much the paranoia of the husband, though. Which, by the way, he picked up that cup after I set it back down to give it back to them… Just saying.

Okay, so everyone moves on. I have my keys and my phone again, and I roll myself the rest of the way fully onto the driveway. I lay there a handful of minutes, still crying. I hear a dog collar approaching on the sidewalk behind me, and am unconcerned. Minus the tiny hope that the owner won’t be too distraught at the sight.

It turned out to be an older guy, out walking his dog. He asked if I was okay, and I carefully told him that I wasn’t but that I would be – I could talk now. Kind of. He offered to bring me bandages, saying that he lived just right nearby, and I said that that actually would be really great. His walk turned into a cautious jog of concern, as he raced around the corner, heading to his unseen home. I hardly even knew how he looked. I still couldn’t process such details.

And so, when her returned a couple minutes later, I sat myself up again, and got to work. I poured the hydrogen peroxide on my knew first, then my left hand, and both were okay. It hurt a bit, but it really just foamed and mostly was okay. The guy was surprised at this. He’d even said he would look away while I poured the peroxide, clearly indicating that he didn’t want me to be embarrassed at my likely reaction of intense pain. An old man had approached at this point, and was asking questions. I had already worked hard enough to answer them for the first guy – what happened; yeah, I’m definitely hurt; I’ll be okay, just not yet; I live about .62 miles that way – so I let him answer them for me. He didn’t seem to mind, once he saw that I clearly wasn’t up to it. Then, while they chatted, I poured the peroxide on my right hand. And that, my friends, was the exact memory I had had of hydrogen peroxide from my childhood, and the reason I was terrified of it as an adult. I had used it a couple times recently, and couldn’t understand why I’d been afraid of it. My mom had given it to me last year (?), saying that alcohol burns, not hydrogen peroxide. And it had been true so far in my adult life. Until this moment, in a stranger’s driveway with two older guys chatting about me and my present situation.

My body took over control as I convulsed and wailed, and even more tears poured from my eyes, the rate increased significantly from the original fall’s. I felt bad for this pour girl on the side of the road. I couldn’t imagine how the onlookers felt. (There was a secret onlooker across the street in the apartments, who had clearly been considering off and on whether to come help. She, too, looked hispanic, and I fear her concern was one not only of COVID-19, but mostly of a fear of not being able to communicate. I don’t exactly exude Spanish (or any language other than English, really), so I get it.

Anyway, so that really sucked, and I had to pour the painful cold water on it to make the pain go down at least somewhat – I couldn’t take it anymore. Funny how that cold water was suddenly not so big a deal anymore, right? Eventually, I blew my nose a bunch more with the rest of the paper towels the guy had brought, and I put a compress on my knee. I had raised the pant leg while still in the street, and, aside from the clear layer of skin that was plastered to the fabric, my knee didn’t look like it needed too much immediate attention. So, after the quick rinse of water and the peroxide, it was good to go, in terms of germ-prevention and safety until I made it home.

Now, all this time, I had been evaluating how I would be getting home. No family lives anywhere near me, so that was out as an option, if I couldn’t walk it. I considered a high school acquaintance who lived nearby. I was rather sure he would come get me and drive me home, if I really needed, but I didn’t want to turn to that except as a last resort. So, my options were really either to walk or to run home. If I ended up being able to run, I knew I would end up finishing the 5k. It was a slim chance, but it wouldn’t’ have surprised me. However, walking was the most likely of the three options. And, at this point in time, I noticed that I still had not felt that moment of, Okay, let’s get up, that we always get at some point after a fall. And, so far as I could tell, it was nowhere nearby either. I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. I mean, I hadn’t even fully stopped crying at this point, and it had been ten minutes already.

I had started “chatting” with the younger of the two older guys, during the times that I could use my words, and, after I had finished all my dressings, he offered yet again to drive me home – “We can put the windows down, be safe…” – I said, at last, “I think that would be a very good idea,” nodding and speaking with obvious effort, pinches of tears falling. He hopped into action, and took his first aid kit and hydrogen peroxide and, even, the trash back to his home. A couple minutes later, a Jeep came roaring around the corner, windows down.

I struggled to find the least painful way, and managed myself to my feet without too much disruption. But, oh, did it hurt to use my right leg/knee… The guy opened the passenger door for me, and I struggled my way into the seat. I fumbled for a while, throwing in involuntary cries of pain, getting the seatbelt on myself and shutting the door… I just couldn’t use my hands almost at all: no pressure on them from the outside, and no muscle flexing within them.

We chatted on the brief drive back that almost-three-quarters-of-a-mile path, exchanged names, and wished one another well as we arrived and I struggled my way out of the Jeep. I thanked him over and over again, both during the ride and at the end of it. And also before it, too. And then I slowly and painfully stumbled up the walkways and stairs, managed to unlock and open the door, and get myself inside.

I had sent my mom a couple photos after the first group had left, before I lay back down on the driveway, and then had called her when the guy had gone to get his Jeep. I had known that she was driving before then, so I waited to call when I knew she would be able to see the photos. At my first, “Hey,” she knew something had happened. “What happened?” she asked, concerned, but not freaking out. She probably had figured I’d had some terrible interaction with someone mean – that’s usually the answer to What happened?. I told her to look at the photo I’d sent her. She looked, and understood immediately. I told her the present situation and that I thought I would be okay. Now that I was home, I called her again, just to let her know that I was there, and also to see what she recommended I do to help myself at this point.

She prescribed me some time with an ice pack of sorts and an elevated leg, a shower, and then just before bed, rubbing gently hydrogen peroxide into my wounds with a Q-tip (cotton, you see), since I couldn’t get all the dirt off my hands.

The shower was long and hot and extremely painful at first, but it helped significantly by the end of it. The hydrogen peroxide left me, yet again, wailing involuntarily in pain, pouring tears, and practically shouting half-comprehensible phrases and annoyances. By the way, blowing your nose with a tissue and non-usable thumbs sucks. That’s to say the least.

When I woke up in the middle of the night with a need to pee, I not only had to detach my palms from the sheets (painfully, of course), due to sticking tissue fluid, but hobble down the stairs, squat down to the toilet seat, and then attempt to wipe myself with a clumsy and burning left hand (the right was a solid no-go). This repeated itself when my alarms went off at five forty-something to get me up for test proctoring today.

Today, my knee hurts. More like my upper shin than my kneecap, but it still hurts. It’s kind of like a super bruise feeling, but the skin doesn’t really hurt. My hands, however, have been bad. I still have no opposable thumbs for the time being… if I try to use them, I involuntarily wail from the instant pain in my lower palm. The right is the worst. The left, starting this evening, has actually started to come around a bit. They were both still producing tissue fluid 20 hours after the incident, but have since mostly ceased. But any sharp movements or pressure, and they resume it. They felt like fire last night period. Tonight, they only get that feeling when they are either bumped or wet. Or, of course, I attempt to use my thumb for any kind of grip, or clench my fingers in an attempt to grip anything. (I almost couldn’t get out of my room this morning, because the doorknob is very thin and takes a lot of pressure to get open…) In fact, it is extremely difficult even to type this right now.

All in all, that totally sucked, and it still sucks now, but I am mending safely, it seems. And I am grateful for that.

On that note, I shall sleep. But first, the photos:

This was yesterday, after rinsing off and rolling into the driveway.

This was the darned manhole cover with the “lip”.

This was after my shower last night.

I had to set the phone timer for this one.

And these were this evening, about 25 hours after the fall. I had to set the timer on these, too, because I couldn’t both hold the phone and click the shutter button… no thumbs, remember. (I tell you, it is one thing just not to have opposable thumbs. It is something else entirely not to have them in a world designed for opposable thumbs. I am having to learn drastic new ways of completing the formerly simplest of tasks[!!!].)

Post-a-day 2020