Some superheroes can fly; others: peripheral vision.

A car accident, bungee-jump gone wrong, bicycling and rollerblading mishaps have been a few of the speculative guesses I got from strangers as I struggled through the last three weeks of trying to maneuver first with a full-arm cast on my right arm and an elbow cast on my left, and then later, now, reduced to a splint on my left and a sling and bandages for support on my right. The splint/sling combo isn’t so bad and I’ve learned to adapt—fortunately—given that I’ve got at least another 2 weeks, but maybe 3 or 4 depending on whether I’ve been overexerted doing daily tasks.

Unfortunately, the truth is much, much less thrilling and dramatic—I was leaving my building on my way to work, walking at my normal, casual speed, and my shoe caught up on a broken or missing piece of interlocking stone, causing me to propel forward, head down, vaulting to land at the bottom of a small hill with my wrists and right elbow underneath me. It happened so fast.

As soon as I tried to prop myself up on my right arm to get up (my mom was in town visiting for the weekend and waiting in the parking lot), I knew, positively, that my right elbow was fucked. I saw more stars than on the clearest of nights in the country, my vision an agonizing rush of white and black shadows. I was sweating and freezing, simultaneously. My glasses were a mess of wires.

Not prone to histrionics—the very opposite, in fact—my mom said, let’s wait a bit. Take a few minutes. And then you can go to work. Riiiiiiiight. After much convincing, I told her I needed to go to the clinic but called Melissa, who saved me much wasted time, by ordering me to visit the emerg. By that point, both wrists were swelling up and I couldn’t close or roll either one. But, given the pain of my right arm was more intense than the left, the triage nurse only ordered X-rays for my right arm.

Lots of kibitzing and consultation with 2 different doctors, followed by rounds and rounds of sadistic manhandling (and my immediate response of crying out), X-rays and some more agonizing placement of the limb, return to my room, more manhandling, I was finally wrapped in a quickly-applied full arm-cast (that dripped wet plaster all over my favourite pair of dress pants!), and left, several pounds heavier, to spend a day in agony.

Yes, indeed, the doctor forgot—or just refused, I don’t know, he left in a hurry—to prescribe any sort of painkillers. Let me tell you, 1,200 mg of ibuprofen does not do the trick. Didn’t take the edge off at all, and I am normally someone who handles pain well.

At least I was vindicated and my mom felt appropriately bad.

Friday evening and into the next day, my left wrist and hand doubled in size, swelling to the size of a very ugly, very purple softball. Not only was the pain unbearable (I woke David up many times during the night), but it wasn’t pretty. Nor were the blue-black bruises running up and down my shins but at least they healed last week.

Saturday morning, we returned with the morning rush-hour traffic of the August long weekend—not a long weekend for me, (yet!) because I work in Quebec—and I was fast-tracked to X-rays, where the technician pronounced me with proof of a matching fracture for my left wrist.

I joked with my attending doc that it was probably good I came in, huh? And she said, well this fracture is worse than the one on your right arm, and it controls the blood supply to your whole hand. Had you not come in, you could have lost your hand.

Well. That’s not pretty either, I said.

But she fixed me up nice in a half-cast and ace bandages where I remained until my first visit with the Ortho. My mom stayed an extra week and managed most of the cleaning, laundry, dishes and cooking for three people, while David was my primary caregiver and responsible for so, so many things … getting me dressed in the morning before he left for work, feeding me meals mouthful by mouthful and giving me drinks from a straw, washing me in the bath while both my arms were wrapped snugly in garbage bags, putting me to bed and tucking me in with appropriate pillow supports, keeping tears off my cheeks and making sure I had Kleenex when he couldn’t. He read to me, sang to me, made love to me so gently I completely lost track of the throbbing pain in my arms. He opened car doors, cans and bucked me into seatbelts. He also kept me sane and made me keep my chin from kneading a hole into my collarbone.

David has absolutely been my saving grace and there is no way I will ever, ever be able to repay him sufficiently. Nonetheless, in many small and big ways, I hope I have the wherewithal to show him how his support has been the backbone of my recovery. No doubt, this event has cemented our relationship for the present and future to come.

Speaking of, my lumberjack-roofer-cum-translator and his brother are celebrating their birthdays this weekend by jumping out of a plane 10,000 ft in the sky. I’m not sure how I feel, besides feeling anxious, given my recent bad luck but I hope the ride is smooth and without complication. I need it to be.

So, with two weeks to go until my follow-up with Ortho, another two weeks until I go back to work at least part-time, I’m on strict orders not to lift anything heavy, pots and pans, dictionaries, laundry baskets, grocery bags… makes life a bit tricky when you live alone, that’s for damn sure! The pain in my elbow is improving and usually surfaces when I’m doing my physio exercises to straighten my arm. I still can’t straighten it completely and I’m worried that it will remain locked, though with some diligent exercising, I’m hoping I will have more flexibility by my Ortho appt. Both wrists ache, with the left still tender and painful. But you manage, there isn’t much choice.

Until then, I’m enjoying the last fleeting days of summer 2006 and I cannot wait for the cool hues of fall, crisp mornings, and sweater weather to take over!