CULTURE
My Broken Wrist
I was sitting on the couch in my living room, watching a movie on HBO,
when my mobile phone rang. It sounded like it was in the kitchen, at the other
end of the condo.
I was expecting a call so I jumped from the couch and headed down the long hallway. As I reached full gallop and passed my office, the phone rang again. And I realized it wasn’t in the kitchen after all, but in the office: I had to stop and reverse. I took one more step to plant my feet but instead of stopping, my feet slid. Off balance, I fell backwards, automatically flailing my arms to break the fall. My left wrist must have taken the brunt of my weight—it must have twisted funny or been bent too far or slammed too hard—because it hurt in a way that I instantly knew meant something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
The blue cast went almost to my elbow. The physician’s assistant who put it on carved a bigger hole around my thumb for better mobility. He asked me how it happened and I told him the truth—and he chuckled, and said, “Sure, I know what happened” and made the universal jerking off motion with his right hand. I politely laughed at his joke, and while I am certainly no prude, I found this to be completely inappropriate and rude. And impossible—I mean, how do you break your wrist jerking off?
Turns out he wasn’t the only person who didn’t think my story was good enough. Anyone who has worn a cast knows the question everyone asks when they spy it: “What happened?”
So, I recounted my story over and over again, just as it had happened, always ending it with a shrug and a self-deprecating “Grandpa needed new slippers.” Everyone—and I mean everyone—thought the story was pathetic and that I should invent a better tale.
“Say you were in a bar fight” was one suggestion. Another was to say, “I tripped over my dog,” which, honestly, seemed more pathetic than reality. Inebriation registered prominently in a few of the suggestions. But I stuck to the self-effacing truth: “Grandpa needed new slippers.”
Here’s how that story—the real story—goes . . .
I have inherited, it seems, this Depression-era habit of keeping my home temperature in winter just warm enough so that I don’t shiver but not warm enough to keep my feet from getting cold. Unless, of course, I am wearing slippers.
I had had a pair of slippers—a Christmas gift, once, from my mother—that looked like moccasins. They had a faux fur lining and the uppers were sewn to the lowers with not-altogether-real rawhide. I loved those slippers but, alas, so did my dog Lola, which is why I use the past tense when referring to them. She chewed them up.
Without slippers in the winter, my feet got cold. So, I went shopping for a new pair. Target had a thousand different styles for women, but only two for men. And both were horrible. I decided to tough it out.
After another week of icicle toes, I couldn’t take it anymore. Slippers padded to the top of my To-Do list and on a gray February Saturday afternoon, I ventured to a Super K-Mart to make my purchase. A purchase not made very easily.
K-Mart, unlike Target, had six styles of men’s slippers and, honestly, it was a tough decision. I narrowed it down to three and tried on these finalists so many times—using the fluorescent-lit linoleum aisle as a runway—that I actually said aloud, “Choose already.”
And finally, I did. I chose a brown corduroy pair with soft terrycloth-like lining and black, decidedly human-made soles. I headed for home. I took off my chukka boots and slid my feet into my new slippers, taking a few test steps. They were good.
I cooked a simple dinner as I finalized plans to go out later with my friend, Libi. My warmly-slippered feet carried me, as I carried my dinner, into the living room. And Lola padded along behind me. I turned on the TV and came upon a movie on HBO that I had vaguely (and somewhat perversely) wanted to see: Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
I was hooked within minutes and couldn’t stop watching. I’d eye the clock (I needed to shower and dress before picked up) then return to irresistible scenes of Josh Duhamel smiling, moping and (yes, it’s true!) chopping wood with his shirt off. I was feeling guilty that I wouldn’t be ready but I had to see if the movie would end in its totally predictable way.
Then, the phone rang. It was Libi, I imagined, telling me she was on her way!
I jumped up, ran toward the kitchen. When I realized the phone was in my office, which I had just passed, I planted my feet to stop on the hardwood floor, smooth with polyurethane. But I didn’t stop. My new slippers—so good at warming my little piggies—were amazingly lousy at stopping on a dime. They continued to slide briskly forward, as the rest of my body fell precipitously backwards and on to my left wrist.
Life is odd with one hand. Well, with one and a half. I could do a few things with my bluely-cast left hand, like carry a newspaper, maybe, or turn the page of a book. But there was a lot more I couldn’t do, like hand-over-hand turning when I drove my car; making a turn was now vaguely dangerous.
Simple things immediately became tricky. It was hard getting a coat on. I mean, I could bend my elbow and all of my fingers were exposed to the knuckle, but there was something about not being able to bend my wrist that made it difficult to get my arm in the sleeve and then, get the coat up on my back.
I couldn’t open hermetically-sealed bags anymore—bags that hold potato chips, or cereal, or crackers. I just couldn’t get my left hand to grip as tightly as it needed to be on one side of the bag, so my right could pull the bag open. And I couldn’t open bottles of wine or champagne—again, it was the grip. Twisting off a beer bottle cap? Virtually impossible. Even though I could twist the cap with my good hand, I couldn’t grip the bottle with my bad one. Putting the bottle between my legs didn’t work. Not at all.
My showering habits changed entirely. First of all, I had to wrap the cast in a plastic garbage bag, sealed tight with rubber bands to prevent any water seeping in. I held it above my head in the shower, to be sure no water would hit the bag. (I was weirdly terrified of soaking the cast and having to get a new one.) Before the fracture, I never used a washcloth, but after, with only one hand to wash myself, a washcloth made the job easier. And let me tell you—without being too specific—that there are places on your body that are very hard to wash when you only have one hand to get up in their mess. Crouching helped, but still wasn’t as good as two hands.
Washing my hair necessitated a new routine. I’d have to squirt the shampoo onto the white plastic bag protecting the cast, and then use my right hand as a scoop to slide the goo onto my fingers. I’d then wash my hair with one hand. It’s odd, I’m telling you, when you’re not used to feeling your right hand on the left side of your head. It was like someone else’s hand was over there.
It was strange, though, how quickly I adapted, figuring out the easiest way to get my coat on, the best method to wash myself, and finding the perfect instrument (a table knife) to slide under the cast to scratch my itchy arm.
All because Grandpa needed new slippers.
My dog, Lola, warmed to those slippers. Within days of my fall, she had chewed them into chunks of corduroy and foam rubber. I let her beastly urges run rampant because, frankly, I had decided that I was never going to wear those smooth-soled suckers again anyway. I was afraid to.