I really miss my right arm.
Ironing left-handed is akin to learning to ride a unicycle, but I’m pretty sure this hobble-shouldered old dog can learn new tricks. Cursing and taking double the time to actually get clothes wrinkle-free – but 20 minutes later, the shirt’s relatively smooth. TAH-DAAAAH!!!! Until the iron falls, spilling water everywhere, and I reach for it with my dominant arm. What are the synonyms for pain? Imagine them all now… all of them… Each one emanating from my supremely fucked right shoulder socket….
I want to take the iron, and throw it through our living room
window. Except I can’t, because I can’t throw with my good arm, and if I attempt with my left arm, I’ll probably hit myself in the head by accident. I want to light the now re-wrinkled shirt on fire and throw it through that broken window. I want to dance in the flames of the burning shirt and howl into the night sky. I don’t, but I really, really want to. My shoulder and right bicep scream with me.
“Breathe Heather. Just breathe.” I pour myself a Scotch – my best Scotch, the 12 year old Scotch – over ice. I tumble
the ice in the glass take deep breaths.
I will not desolve into tears. I will not desolve into tears. I will not desolve into tears…” I pledge, as tears now roll down my cheeks.
David glances up from his computer. He hasn’t heard anything because he works with headphones on. “What happened?”
“Iron,” I mumble around the rim of my old-fashioned glass. Right elbow, tucked into my side, right hand pushing the glass up to my lips as my left arm holds the shoulder down, in case it decides to do anything else stupid.
“Pardon?”
I point to the offending small appliance with my chin. “Iron. Falling. Catching. Apparently right-handedness is instinctive.”
“Oh baby… Can I get you something?” He smooths the tears from my cheeks.
“Yeah. Can you please place me in a coma for the next 18 months?”
“?!?”
“A coma. Just put me in a coma until the shoulder unfreezes.”
‘Cause that’s what’ll happen. A shoulder can decide to freeze, all on its own, and it can decide to unfreeze – all on its own. Regardless of treatment, drugs, physio. One morning a year and a half from now, I might just wake up and be fine. Until then – bumping that arm, attempting to use it to pick shit up off the floor, absent-mindedly putting weight on it, can send the closest thing to labour pain that I’ve experienced since giving birth. I’m not exaggerating. I bumped that fucker while performing onstage and almost passed out. For last half hour of the play, I counted the seconds to get to drugs. My shoulder, as it freezes, is actually worse since I started physio. That’s counter-intuitive.
Apparently, my body provides the perfect storm for weird-ass shit like this. Frozen shoulder affects only 2-3% of the population. Between peri-menopause and Hashimodo’s Disease, I am rocking those percentages. I am a statistical GLADIATOR! I should totally be buying those Princess Margaret lottery tickets! I have a 98% chance of winning!
