They Can't Take That Away from Me

Even if I sometimes with they could! An old friend once said that I was the only person she knew who could hurt herself on virtually anything. This comment was in response to my having an allergic reaction to a bug bite I got while sunbathing in my back yard. My mother used to joke that she should have named me Grace; she especially liked to say this while recounting some story about one of my injuries or allergic reactions. I never thought it was particularly funny then. I still don't think it's funny, but I've learned to find some humor in my "accident-proneness". Of course, the "that" I refer to in the title is my clumsiness, of which I had a literally painful reminder today. But it wasn't my fault! Here's what happened.

I went (yet again) to my cardiologist's office. Today's fun was a venous study, aka ultrasound of my legs. The technician (or whatever his title would be) took me to a room where he told me I would need to undress from the waist down (other than my undies) so he could check out my legs. Then he blushed and clarified, "the veins in your legs." I said, "Yeah, Paul, don't you be checking out my legs!" He thought that was funny and left me to the business of getting undressed. He was a pleasant fellow and cute as a button -- and the same age as my oldest son. We chatted away. I told him I could be quiet if I really had to, but it's not in my nature. Besides, it makes the time pass faster. I asked if he could tell me anything or if I'd had to wait until my doctor's appointment next week. He told me that my left leg was significantly worse than my right, but he would say anything about what that meant. Hello! I'm trying to plan some travel here.

He led me out to the lobby; I was free to leave. Keys in hand, I headed for the sliding door, but there were people coming in, including a man in a wheelchair. So of course I waited, but I was kind of between the doors. It took a long time, but I was being patient. Some day I might be in a wheelchair and I wouldn't want people to make me feel even worse about it by rushing me along. Those folks got through and there was a man behind him who gestured me through. I guess I'd been standing on the sensor long enough for the door to have forgotten I was there; when I start to go through the outer door, it closed on me -- so hard it jumped the track. It gave me a good smack on the arm. I knew it wasn't broken, but it started swelling and bruising almost immediately. I had to go back inside and have the nurse look at it -- not my idea, but the office had to file an incident report -- and she also pronounced it not broken. Keys in hand again, I declined the nurse's offer of an icepack and went home.

You know, when I was young, I thought that at some point in my life I would outgrow my klutziness. It's never happened. I suppose it's just part of my charm. And, yes, I'm kidding about that, but it does amuse those around me, and sometimes it even amuses me.