(Bob) Xavier Cat
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Pink polymer-resin is in this year!
The temporary cast placed upon Sam by the emergency room doctor started mid-thigh and proceeded awkwardly down her leg and ended only after passing the majority of her toes on its way to misery. Sam wailed through most of the night on Sunday morning* and suffered none-to-quietly through the indignities of having to make use of a small bathroom when you can’t bend at the knee. The permanent cast she received on Monday afternoon and apparently colored to match her toenails, is a much better fit in her busy lifestyle. Regardless of this improvement she stayed with Grandma the next day, resting while carving out Sam-shaped dent in Grampa’s La-Z-Boy. She wanted to go there again this morning, and was not too keen on the idea of going back to school be-crutched. Groaning from under her piled up comforter, she pulled her pillow over her head tightly. “I don’t wanna go…” ”You don’t have a choice, Sam,” I reached under the textiles and tussled her hair, “The doctor didn’t say you had to stay home, we don’t have a note, and you need to get back to class.” ”But my leg still hurts!” I yanked the comforter off the bed, and began tugging at the pillow. “Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up-” Her bed, suspended five feet in the air, was separated from me by a small flight of stairs and it was upon these that I leaned, crossing my arms, and considered. Remembering my eldest daughter’s basic nature, I came up with a sure-fire idea. “Tell you what, Sam” ”What?” ”I’ll take you in early and walk around the halls with you. If you can’t handle it you don’t have to stay.” I knew that as soon as she was crutching around the school, getting attention from everyone and hamming it up, she’d have no interest in spending another day watching the news with Grandma. And I was right. |
* We didn’t get home from the E.R. until after midnight on Sunday.
Tonight we went out with some old friends and their twin boys. The boys are, incidentally, three years to the day older than Samantha. I mention this because it is an interesting fact and to explain that they are twelve years old.
Horsing around outside the restaurant, Samantha was running pell-mell at me when one of the boys fell in front of her. Sam kicked the boy in the head, fell in such a way as to punch me full-on in the nuts, and everyone lay in a heap moaning. After everyone else recovered and staggered to their feet, Sam remained in great pain. Her leg looked straight to me, but she wouldn’t put any weight on it and she sobbed in pain pitifully. X-Rays showed, however, a clean fracture straight across the tibia. Second broken bone in less than a year for our little maniac, and here we are waiting for the temporary cast. Our friend’s boy? Absolutely fine and with nary a headache. It wasn’t the first time she’s kicked a boy when he’s down, and probably won’t be the last. But hopefully this will be the most painful and every boy she kicks from this point out will get the worst of the affair. |
Before being anesthetized they asked me if I was allergic to any medicines.”Flo-nase,” I answered, which is true. I’m one of the lucky few whose tongue grows sore and swollen and gets fatigued from the stuff. I half expect it to turn out to be an allergy to the perfume they add to it, but until they offer unscented flonase, I’ll just keep speculating. Later, as I regained some semblance of consciousness, I noticed I sported a rubber bracelet with the word “Flonase” scribbled across it. I wobbled my head around to face the nurse who was caring for me at that time. Seriously, I can’t imagine a world where someone notices a congested man lying unconscious and decides they should get a quick spritz up the wazzoo for good measure, but then again I couldn’t imagine a world in which Jersey Shore is a viable entertainment option and reality astounds in many ways… Pictured above is yours truly, donning a fashionable “immobilizer,” which seems to be a cross between a sling and a straight jacket. It’s intended to prevent me from tossing and turning at night and disturbing the flesh of the dead which is still quite weak and not so good at its job of holding my shoulder together. Curious about the zombie flesh? Some kind soul left their mortal remains to a tissue bank when he or she passed from this mortal coil* and Dr. Straud, orthopedic surgeon at large, cut me open on Wednesday and used some of these cadaver ligaments to replace the ones I destroyed in my bicycle accident. Over time my body should use this processed tissue as a kind of trellis or arbor upon which to grow actual SafeT meat. I’m still on the fence about sending in the anonymized thank-you card to the tissue bank for to be forwarded to the family of the departed. I’d hate to find out these ligaments were from a murderous psychopath and that I’ll soon find myself involuntarily shoulder-butting nuns and pretty young women** to death. Interesting fact! SafeTinspector gets very cranky on Percocet. I’m pretty bad company on the stuff. On the other hand, it effectively quashed my libido, so Heather ended up considering it a mixed bag and, on the whole, pronounced it a plus.*** Lastly, its a good thing I don’t have much hair, because I’m washing my head in the sink and taking baths to get clean. This is on account of these bandages are not to be removed by anyone except Herr Doktor Straud, and I won’t be seeing him until Thursday, a week and a day after the operation. TO add embarrassment to the list of unpleasantness I’ve suffered, I’ve had to have Heather help me clean and dry certain areas. Exactly how do one-armed people apply deoderant to their armpit if they’re single? And, lemme tell you, there are some things under that bandage that dearly beg to be scratched but are doomed to itch in excruciating silence until that blessed day. |
* I always assume we’re talking about some kind of uber-Slinky. It goes down stairs, alone or in pairs, it reaps the souls of the damned.
** Some of which could conceivably be nuns as well
*** I find my wife incredibly attractive and desire her constantly. My wife finds me…. less captivating, and I can’t blame her.
| I fell off my Big Wheeltm on the way to the ice cream truck and cried. Many years later, while rushing to verify Samantha’s arrival at a friend’s house, I inadvertently began storing, in my left nipple, a large number of… no, not this time. As opposed to storing ANYTHING in my left nipple, this time I lost control of my bicycle and landed in a pitiful heap in the grass along 21 Mile Road. It was beautiful day; it was fortunate that my sunglasses were still on my head, filtering out the UV as I stared straight up at the sky and regretted my recent errors. I got up and tottered along, rolling my bike alongside me. Samantha, who had seen the whole thing, ran up to me. Concerned, she asked, “Daddy are you ok?” ”Uh…,” I considered the question a moment, limped another step, and looked down at her through the sunglasses I now realize were crooked by at least 35 degrees, “I’m not… sure.” ”Can I spend the night?!?” |
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It was about then that I noticed a bone sticking up, tenting the skin of my shoulder pretty fierce.A couple hours and some tedious rushing about and ER shenanigans and I learned that I’d separated my clavicle. The ligaments that normally hold the acl joint together had been torn asunder by the Earth. I popped it back mostly in place myself while waiting for the x-ray to be interpreted at the ER, and the picture you see here was the appearance of my shoulder the day after the accident. The discoloration running down my arm eventually turned into a beautiful blotchy, purple mess. (not pictured) I visited my orthopedic doctor the very next day. |
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![]() My leg ain’t so pretty either. |
He fitted me with my very own sling, gave me a lolly, and put the kibosh on all exercise until I next see him, which will be next Monday. At which time he’ll test the “stability” of the clavicle to determine long term treatment plans–perhaps even surgery, though I doubt it’ll come to that. I’m kinda worried about the stability test. My shoulder aches just sitting there atop my torso. I don’t look forward to him doing this: ACL Stability Test, University of Oregon Ugh. The next night I dropped my cell phone and instinctively grabbed at it with both hands to try to catch it. This proved quite painful. I took a Vicodin and that night spent an hour tweeting non-sense. I’ll post those next time, when you’ll learn about fighter jets for breakfast anus. |
More on separated shoulder from the LIVESTRONG peoples:
![]() SafeT at 17.5 years of age. Note overgrown flat-top. Hell, note the HAIR! |
SafeT:So that was what a twenty year reunion is like*. Everyone else looked so old; I hope my boyish good looks** didn’t cause any jealousy. |
| Antoine McCallum: Dude, as athletic and fit as you are, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. James Kirkpatrick:Impressions from the night, besides the fact that you’ve kept your young skin by sleeping in formaldehyde nightly? SafeT: Antoine, I’d have had to take off some clothes for anyone to notice the fitness, and no amount of fitness can mask my craggy mug. James, other than Tim Vokes, whom I’d seen as recently as a few years ago, I hadn’t seen any of these people since high school graduation. For the most part, I was startled at how old everyone looks, and I can only assume I looked startlingly old to them as well; though I just think of myself as looking like ‘me’. There were lots of lumpier faces, balding heads and beer guts on the men. Most women were wider in the hips and had some crows feet on their faces. Several of the ladies (and I’ll not name names) looked more attractive now than in high school but, AFAIK, none of the men fared as well. I think that’s more a testament to the God-awful clothes and hairstyles women wore in the late eighties than anything else. The group was small, but that fits the size of our class, really. (~80 graduates) And when we adjourned to the “rock” room @ ~22:00, Derek Jenza queued up an earsplitting assortment of period tunes the likes of which I’d grown tired of when still a virgin. This would be more tolerable had it not been mind-numbingly loud. I tired of trying to read lips and Heather and I beat a hasty retreat shortly thereafter. I left regretting not the reunion, as it was inevitable and missing it would have left a nagging doubt in my mind forevermore, but I’m certainly reassured that my dogged resistance to looking back has been the correct path all along. |
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* In case you need context, SafeT attended his 20 Year High School Reunion at the Emerald Theater in downtown Mount Clemens, Michigan on Saturday, June 26th, 2010.
** I’m not delusional and I’m not encumbered by sincere and spontaneous braggadocio. This was a weak attempt at sarcasm.
| Father’s Day breakfast:Heather set forth blueberries, sliced organic banana, raisins, spiral-cut Michigan gala apples, organic California seedless red grapes and sweet Valencia orange alongside a bowl of yogurt laid out like a four star restaurant; all accompanied by a mug of coffee brewed from freshly ground Sumatran fair-trade, organic coffee beans cut with Michigan organic skim milk. As I ate and shared all this with my daughters I could think of no better breakfast in my life.
Soon after that was a bike ride with my girls (and a tag-along friend of Sam’s) followed by a lunch-time trip to an arcade where an audience of strangers who didn’t know any better applauded my ITG play. Sam then shared a game of DDR with me and played many ticket games. She ultimately chose to bank her tickets in the form of a hand-written IOU rather than cash them in for the junk under the counter. She says the tickets were more valuable than the prizes because she can remember the fun better that way. Huh! She’s growing up faster than the grass in my back yard. Lastly, we ate a dinner of steak with my step-dad and now I’m home for the evening Hope it was a great one for everyone else out there, and g’night. |
| Vicky, as prone to car-sickness as any other Starcevic descendant, assumed Gerald’s privileged front seat position and left her husband to sort through the crumbs and Archie comic books littering the rear seat of my Mazda. He made appreciative noises for the latter half of the twenty minute car ride which leads me to believe he may have consumed the crumbs without condiment. |
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