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Show ijiijlj Time I fkmsv Mm A Tmndf By FOKF.NC'K HI 11 Nl K j ifolTcrcil a choice to tnv;ik or m,t lol,;lk' s;,y 110 ,tumk you- , k.'M.IN upright ami in con-J'ol'all con-J'ol'all appc.Klagcs at iill tin.es. Koi lake-olt and landing, pio-n,'. pio-n,'. vide P;u;whutcs. crash gear. I'eath-1 I'eath-1 P,lU s, helmets, a.r bags or any J Snihiiwtion of the above. p ' 4 EVFN WITH all or any eon-U eon-U Hnilionofthc safety gear in place -nviin upricht and in control ol all jpnJ-ipes at all times. The concern was precipitated by tthrec point landing on a slick floor 'iiich resulted in an assortment of cr.ickeJ and broken bones in 50 pea "lit of my t . ping equipment. I FVF.N AFTKR you'e lived I enough years to think you have a I fanlv basic undci standing of most ot" life's misfortunes, vou discover J the re are still things you didn't 4 know about yourself and your relationship re-lationship to the world. ' First, when you're really hurt, 'Qf you don't give a darn about dignity " or appearances. A fall when you ' pick yourself up and rearrange hair and clothes, reassure everyone 'v vou really are alright and march off clutching the tatters of your self esteem is only for when you really are alright. WHEN YOU'RE hurt, that's what matters and vou don't care one tiny teeny speck what you look like or who's watching. Broken parts tend to take precedence. Right away you learn new re-t; re-t; spect for broken parts. All those :?, people you've seen all these years Sywith casts and splints really de--;. serve more sympathy than they've IT" had. Breaks reallv hurt. A lot. I ( FROM THERE you begin to find - out interesting things you never suspected. Those two arms and all ten fingers are designed for a purpose pur-pose and to work as a team. Independent Inde-pendent they don't amount to a lot. ; It is possible, after practice and 'exercise of inordinate amount of patience to do accessible buttons one-lumd. Use elastic whenever possible instead of any fastener be- cause any clothes fastener requires two hands. PKOPI.K COME with unexpected unex-pected knobs, lumps and snags which catch clothes. Dressing unassisted un-assisted one armed is fraught with hang-ups. Things get stuck on rear corners, ears and shoulders. 1 never nev-er knew 1 was so knobby until I tried to pull on clothes using only the off-side hand. Everything in the world is on the other side, the bedside stand, books, silverware, door knobs, gear shift, typing paper. Whatever it is you need, it's where you can't get at it without rearranging cast, sling, pillows and doing an athletic half-ganor, full nelson and shish boom bah. Usually you decide it isn't w orth the effort. When part of you is broken, you do a lot of getting get-ting along with what you have in hand. HARKEN TO this if no other bit of advice. The week before you decide de-cide to break an arm, have a haircut and permanent. Or plan for the touseled look to be in style. Also, either have a cook available, avail-able, or lay in a supply of sourp. stews, and other one handed fare which needs no knife and fork. But take it from one who knows, a solid week of soup won't make you fat. RIGHT AWAY you find out things aren't as dirty as you thought they were. When faced with the choice of having to clean it one-handed or leave it grimy, grime wins every time, hands down. 1 never knew reading is a two-handed two-handed endeavor. 1 can't survive w ithout my daily quota of w ritten words, so 1 resorted to sitting at the kitchen table, book weighted open w ith the sugar bowl and salt shaker. shak-er. That lasted only until my back decided watching television from the bed is less strenuous; also less enjoyable. DAYTIME television is not as bad as rumored. It's worse. Much, ' much worse. Given a choice between be-tween a sentence to hard labor or watching daytime television, I'd take labor. At least then I'd sleep nights. I'd like to urge the medical profession pro-fession on in their search for a medication which will reduce pain and leave the brain functioning. The choie between hurting and thinking is unfair. The necessity of earning a living requires a brain, so you have to hurt till day's end. Even when you can turn off the brain, who wants to? A fuzzy brain does make daytime television more bearable, however. YOU DON'T get coddled any more. Used to be a broken part required an extensive application of plaster of paris and TLC. No more. Today it's minimum amount of either and get it moving right away. While the bone ends are still grating, they have you doing bench press. We don't want a crooked arm, do we? Seems to me an arm is apt to be crooked if used too soon, but not so, according to the people who specialize in putting people back together. Get it moving, use it and it'll get weller sooner. I'VE MANAGED to get this far in life with only one other broken bone. 1 stepped in a hole one dark night a few years ago and broke a bone in my loot. 1 expected at least a splinting, but all I got was, "Yep, you sure did break a bone." When 1 asked what they were going to do about it, they said, nothing. It'll heal. That seemed a very cavalier attitude when I was hurting, but it was only a tiny bone. Let me tell you, the attitude toward to-ward a major bone isn't a heck of a lot better. SO, GIVEN A choice to break or not to break, say no thank you. You'll get little sympathy and have to listen to a lot of bad jokes about how that's the breaks and how does the other guy look. Believe me. It just isn't worth it. |