Gravity + Adolescent Male = Comedy & Pain

I don’t like to toot my own horn. Often, I even wonder if I have a horn to toot. I found my horn yesterday. Today I’m going to toot it. Just a little.

I really like the title of yesterday’s entry. I am really particularly proud of it. I love that it refers to the story. (Both my tears, and my behaving like an assclown.) I love the Smokey Robinson allusion. I love the term “assclown.” The title made me laugh several times yesterday.

I have little to nothing to write about today. I hope to get a rather lengthy entry up tomorrow. I was inspired by a comment left on the blog last week. I should get it up tomorrow.

I think my daughter and I are going to audition for Annie this weekend. One of the local community theater groups is producing the show this summer. The Girl really wants to try out. The minute she heard they were doing Annie, she began watching the movie over and over. She sings along with song after song. She told me that I had to audition, too. Who am I to argue?

My elbow is bothering me more than usual. A little background: Almost 17 years ago I fell and dislocated my elbow.

The night before Thanksgiving 1993 several friends and I gathered, as we often did when we were home on break, at our friend Kevin’s house. This activity dated back to our high school years. Most weekends we ended up in Kevin’s basement. Watching movies, playing pool, waxing poetic about life, throwing the “crotch frog.” Just general harmless frivolity.

College changed our habits by the mere fact that most of us moved away. When we were home on break, though, we picked back up with our old habits. That meant hour upon hour in Kevin’s basement.

On this particular night we all decided to leave Kevin’s and go…somewhere. I really can’t remember our plans, but I remember we all (5-10 of us) left at the same time.

We always exited from the back door. Then we climbed a set of stone steps up to the side yard. Just to the right (as you are going up) of the steps stood the back deck.

On this damp night, I decided to grab the deck and hang upside-down, monkey style. I jumped from the steps and grabbed the floorboards of the deck. The momentum generated by my leap made my objective of complete upside-downess much more realistic. My head went from upright to inverted. My legs continued forward and up until my feet rested on the bottom of the deck.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, it was a damp night. The floorboards of the deck were wet. As my momentum continued forward and up, my hands slipped from the wet lumber. Now I found myself upside-down and unattached.

Everyone stood frozen in time as I fell 8-10 feet to the ground.

As I fell, I somehow managed to get my body parallel to the ground. I landed flat on my back. With one exception. In an unconscious attempt to catch myself I reached back with my left arm. My hand was the first thing to hit the ground. Palm down. Elbow up.

The force of the fall knocked the wind from my lungs. Everyone stood still as I jumped from the ground and tried to act as macho as an unbreathing man can act.

The world was silent as I paced and tried to catch my breath. The sounds of the world slowly returned. I became aware of various phrasings of the same question, “Are you OK?” I nodded breathlessly.

Breathing grew easier.

Then a single voice broke through the murmur of voices. The voice was filled with terror.

“Look at his arm!!!” (I have to point out that this was the voice of a future doctor. He is a dermatologist today.)

His words seemed to awaken a part of my brain. Suddenly my left arm throbbed with pain. I looked at my arm. Just below my elbow the skin and flesh jutted out abnormally. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

My first thought was that I’d broken my arm. I reasoned that if I could bend the arm that meant it was not broken. I sat on a stone retaining wall.

My arm lay in my lap, palm up. Slowly I bent my arm at the elbow until my forearm met my bicep. I felt a small pop, and extended the arm a little faster than I’d bent it. The abnormal protrusion had disappeared. The pain only grew. The joint began to swell.

Misty (we were dating then) drove me to the ER. X-rays showed no broken bones. I’d dislocated my elbow, and then inadvertently popped it back into place when I bent my arm. The ER doctor gave me some pain medicine and an ice pack. He told me to come back the day after Thanksgiving for a follow up with an orthopedic doctor. And that was that.

A few days later the swelling was gone and my arm returned to normal. Mostly.

Several years ago I needed something from the top of my closet. I reached up with my left arm. As I reached I felt a slight pop and white-hot pain stabbed my elbow for a brief second. I grabbed my elbow and tried to bend my arm. It caught a little, then I bent it the rest of the way. I felt the same pop. Everything seemed normal.

This has continued to happen from time to time for the last since that day. Sometimes it’s when I reach for something. Sometimes I swing my arm wrong. Sometimes it seems to happen unprovoked.

Sunday night was one of those times. I moved ever so slightly and felt the familiar pop followed by piercing pain. The pain seemed worse than usual. I performed my arm bending ritual and all seemed normal.

Yesterday I sat in my chair at work and rested my elbow on the arm of my chair. Pain. This time it was the pain of bumping a bruise. I had not hit my elbow on anything or done anything else to cause a contusion. It was there nonetheless.

Last night the pain lessened. I did notice the joint was slightly swollen. It was also much warmer to the touch than my other elbow.

It feels better today. I guess I’ll watch it for a few days and eat Advil every 4-6 hours.

In the meantime, the moral of this story is: Gravity is unkind to the unwise.

If you want to avoid pain, keep your feet on the ground.

PS - As much as I loved yesterday's title, I hate today's equally.