25 September 1999: Ouch!

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I had seriously debated whether to confess this here because it's so embarrassing and stupid, but what the hell.

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I lay awake awhile before giving in, though feeling put out, to my urge to check the clock. 1:32 a.m. I huffed. That certainly isn't very fair. I lay there, trying not to rake into my leg with what nails I have. At 1:47, I woke up, drank down my water, filled the glass, took two acetaminophen, and here I am at the Mac, writing to DEDBG HEBD and TJZ.

The summer before third grade, I jumped backward into a pool and struck my jaw on the pool deck. I needed three stitches, and as the underside of my chin healed, I began to have a nightmare that would recur for years, of a monster turning me upside down and seasoning liberally before digging into my throat with a spoon. I read a lot of Roald Dahl, though he never was as bad as that.

Toward the end of 10th grade, I broke my arm, and I remember the unbearable itching as the bone knit. This now, I tell myself, is my abraded and abused self trying to cohere into supple skin again, but I'll tell you I'm sick of being aware of my thigh in such a non-sexual way.

Linus Van Pelt used to drive his sister mad by telling her, "I'm aware...aware of my tongue!" and Lucy would shriek as she, too, became suddenly aware of the floppy, mouth-crowding appendage. For ten days now I have been aware of my thigh.

In a couple of weeks I'll have to admit my summer legs have faded into their winter color and need to wear stockings for the season. Victoria's Secret stock will rise as I buy thigh-highs. As I've never mastered a garter belt for day wear, thigh-highs are my salvation from panty hose. Except that I buy them from Vicky's, they're cheaper than hose since I can ruin one leg but still wear the other.

What occurred to me this evening is that I can wear long cotton skirts for a while yet but after that I'll have to wear hose for a while. The deepest gouge cuts right across where the elastic of a thigh-high rests. Then I thought that after I am as thoroughly healed as I ever am, perhaps I'll scar in a nice trench that will give the thigh-high elastic a groove to nestle in.

I swear that the winter I was thin, working on four years ago, thigh-highs didn't wear out as fast because of course my thighs were thinner, putting less strain on the elastic which would thus last longer. Now, particularly after nearly two weeks without any exercise and even days of minimal movement, I need to tackle the getting-fit thing even harder.

Sheer laziness is my only reason not to do crunches in the morning. I have no abdominal muscles at all, a fact that became evident again when I would go up on all fours so Rich could wrap my leg and my stomach, which still lies mostly flat when I'm on my back, would just drop like that of a pregnant elephant because I have no muscle with which to contain the excess flesh.

I had planned to reach my 1989 weight for its ten-year anniversary, a plan that hinged firmly on my going off the pill, which helped in 1989 as well but did not happen this year. Last year I came up with the brilliant idea to be a [expurged--no one's stealing this idea for next year]--this Halloween. This plan relied on my losing weight, because no one would want to lay their hands (or feet) on me if I were fat. Well. That costume has fallen by the wayside and instead I am going to be the engineer from Conjunction Junction, where my plumpness will be an asset.

When I got up 20 minutes ago, I peed and checked my leg in the mirror. I don't see how I could possibly avoid scarring, but it'll be nothing as bad as what I thought at first. I have no aesthetic problem with scarring and actually look forward to the probable nickel-sized depression on my right calf, but a long horizontal dent on back of my thigh concerns me because it'll make the cottage cheese of my cellulite look worse.

I, in my ignorance of how to brake (or slow down, or turn at speed) on Rollerblades, took an extremely bad spill on the 25th of September.

The forecast predicted bad weather and I planned to stay in reading (but not writing) and then walking dogs with HAO at the pound. Instead the day dawned brilliant and warm and though I slept late and had to switch my wheels, before 11 I was out. Firmly in my head was that I should call RRP at her shower chez JHDM. And that I shouldn't be gone long because of my obligation to HAO. But it was so beautiful.

I switched to Tevas from my fanny pack to through the underpass. The trail and Cherry Creek share a route under I-225, steeply down from a golf course, under the highway whose bridge is sandbagged with swallows' nests, and then diverging, the creek piercing the dam but the trail sloping up and over the dam. I knew damn well that hill was beyond my capabilities to brake. Frankly, I can't brake from full speed on flat terrain; I don't go the full speed my muscles and bravado crave even on flat stretches because I know I can't slow down, and I can't manage any kind of hill at all.

Safe on the other side, I pushed on, not up the dam into the park but southwest on the new leg of trail to the Tech Center. If I ever get a job down there, this is the way I would bike in--not on the road, as I tried twice while at Hateful, Inc. It was on the way back that I realized I would be way late for RRP's shower because of those little things called time zones. I swapped blades for Tevas at the first hint of hill on the underpass but put on blades again right under the bridge--I can go up hills, just not down. Despite knowing I can't go down, at the top I did not put Tevas on to go down the much less steep hill on the home side of the golf course.

As I rounded a curve to the right, I faced three cyclists pedaling up the hill toward me. I could not make the curve as wide as I needed, and my right leg, overdominant as usual (which is my usual problem skiing), wouldn't get out of the left's way, not that the latter really knew what it was doing anyway. Down I went, using my fatted thigh as a brake.

The cyclists stopped. Residents of the apartments on the north side of the trail came out on their balconies. Golfers, screened from view but not from hearing by a stand of trees, shouted. Was I okay? Could anyone call someone for me? Could I move? Had I broken anything? Mrs. Whatsit took oil of cloves for a sprained dignity; my dignity was not sprained but in tatters. As was the skin of my right leg.

My legs shook, right at first. They calmed down. The cyclists moved on. The golfers were reassured. I poured water on my various wounds. The third-floor apartment guy called RDC on the cell phone. No answer. I was five miles from home. I ate a banana, experimented with my life enough to find the apartments' dumpster on the other side of the parking lot to ditch the peel. Based on the success of that, I figured I could make it home.

I bladed the five miles home. I took off the skates twice to scamper over road instead of to risk the sloping underpasses. Several people exclaimed as they passed me; others just passed by. The best response came as I passed a soccer field and got a chorus of 13-year-old girls exclaiming "Ow!" as they each, hearing their teammates, turned to see what the yelling was about. Two people actually did not pass but slowed to accompany me for a stretch, reassuring themselves (and me) that this gorey person was fit to be on her feet. I am most grateful for one particular man and his dog. I saw a young dog running up to the trail from the creek and stopped for it; I needed that dog. I do always ask permission now to meet any dog, not just the usual suspects, and this time I nearly sobbed as I called to the man, "Could I pet your dog?" It was a four-month-old black Labrador puppy: a dog: a puppy: a Lab: a black Lab puppy. He, deserving his dog, said yes of course, and at that point, as I bent at the waist instead of the knees to lower my head and hands to the dog's level, I went over the edge. "It's just that I just fell really badly and I'm almost in tears and I really miss my dog...." When the man saw my leg, he was horrified. Saying they lived nearby, he offered that if I went home with him, his wife could clean me up (phrasing carefully to include the wife and not to sound threatening). I thanked him from my heart but I was close enough to home that I just wanted to get there. If I stopped, I'd never start up again. I had what I needed, anyway, the enthusiastic rambunctious greeting of a black Lab named Bob. (I did not think to ask if the dog was named for the black Lab named Bob whom Hazel unleashes on his own warren, to save it, in Watership Down.)

Once I got home, RDC helped me undress, allayed my fears about the depth of the cut, and comforted me when I had my delayed hysterics. Adrenaline had got me back safe, but now I was hurting bad, beginning to stiffen up, and in my own house was safe and free to feel all the fear and pain that I couldn't indulge in far from home. I cleaned up in the shower, realizing partway through that I was at the end of my strength and sinking to my knees to finish the stinging job. Then RDC set me up on a towel on the couch with bear, book, and water, and I took a Percocet left over from my wisdom tooth and called my mommy while he went to buy supplies. I didn't see a doctor until 55 hours later; she gave me a tetanus shot, IV antibiotics, and a ten-day course of oral antibiotics. I took Monday and Tuesday off because I couldn't sit and was in pain; I went in Wednesday but I was so exhausted that I took Thursday off as well (I do appreciate my job and the health insurance I have through it as well).

Now (6 October 1999) I look at it in the mirror and think I might not scar so very badly. Yesterday (in the regular morning) was the first day RDC didn't anoint the gash with antibiotic ointment and then wrap it. I felt very exposed all day. Yesterday evening--six hours ago--I poked holes in Vitamin E capsules and anointed myself with oil instead, touching the now-scabbing wounds for the first time. That was pretty gross. RDC didn't help; as much as he dressed the wound every day for nine days, he's never touched it (applying ointment with gauze not fingertips), he doesn't want to touch it, ewww yuck. I wonder if that one treatment with Vitamin E could have done this much good. I won't let myself scratch, but I did touch lightly, and I swear it feels much better in a quarter of a day. Less crunchy, maybe just because of the oil, but even looking at in the mirror, I think that topical treatment has wrought a noticeable change. I might not scar so badly after all. It's healing, and damn is it itching as it heals. But it is healing. I used vitamin E after a bad sunburn on my face in high school that I, being me, picked at. I have only the slightest mark on my left cheek from that now.

I've been downing lots of E along with the antibiotics and my regular vitamins and minerals this past week. I do think I'm healing pretty fast. But I'll still milk the "Sorry, can't wear hose yet" aspect for as long as I can.

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Last modified 23 October 1999

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