Unlikely Places to Sustain Injury

Yep. I have gotten hurt at all of these places.

• The gym
• The supermarket
• On 6th Avenue in Manhattan, twice
• Work
• Home
• On a glacier

I had the bullets of my injury-sustaining locales saved as a draft post for some time. And I sustained injury over the weekend. So perfect. Here goes.

You know you have a tendency for injuries when your orthopedist says ‘what now?’ as he walks into the examination room.

Here’s my criteria to see if you have a tendency for injuries:

1. You must have a go-to orthopedist (check)
2. The reception desk staff knows your first name when you call to make a same-day appointment using your last name (check)
3. You get that same-day appointment (check)

I may not be able to get a table at the hottest restaurant in Manhattan, but damn, I can get a same-day appointment with my orthopedist.

As a recovering hypochondriac (RH) it’s kind of a bummer to hear the doctor tell you everything is fine because as a RH I only go to the doctor now when I am 90% certain there is a problem. Today’s visit, I was 100% sure there was a problem because the range of motion in my right arm wouldn’t even allow me to get dressed and wash my hair using both of my upper extremities.

Number 4: you use phrases like ‘range of motion’ and ‘upper extremities’ as part of your regular vocabulary because you have been injured so much. This one I realized today when I told the doctor that I had limited range of motion as part of my injury description.

There was an issue once he took a look at the x-rays. It’s sort of my ‘I told you so’ when he found something wrong (a busted fluid sack in my shoulder).

At the end of the visit, my orthopedist sent me to my regular doctor. You may think I did this backwards, but my shoulder was in such agonizing pain that I just skipped the regular doctor step because I had gone to the orthopedist thinking that I would need emergency shoulder surgery in order to reattach it to my body – and who better to do it, than an orthopedic surgeon.

My regular doctor wound up sending me for another round of x-rays, of the chest this time. I went into this second round of x-rays thinking he would find something like a punctured or collapsed lung or internal bleeding — okay, maybe I am not a completely recovered hypochondriac, but I do have a very good imagination.

When I went for this next round of x-rays, I basically forced this tech to agree that if he found something seriously wrong that he wouldn’t let me leave the office. He wouldn’t commit to this fully (insurance and legal obligations I am sure) but he didn’t stop me from leaving so I felt pretty darn relieved walking out of medical facility number three today.

While the injury I needed to tend to today was more about bad luck, at least my injury on the glacier makes for a better story.