Illustration by Jan A. Igoe
It was Sunday, which is not a day of rest if you're self-employed. But it was a good day. I was on track to meet every deadline, only taking an occasional break to release the hounds, as they say. That's when it happened.
One of my beloved mutts broke loose and was nowhere to be found. I scoured the neighborhood, shouting her name. "Molly, come. Molly, Come. Molly, COME." Finally, the ungrateful mutt hurtled through a hedge to tackle me the way Lawrence Taylor sacked Joe Theismann in 1985, except Lawrence didn't lick his face.
I never heard her coming until my nose hit the pavement. Splat. Game over.
When the stars and rings of Saturn finally faded, I lifted my loopy head to take inventory. Arms? Still attached. Nose? Bloody and smooshed. Glasses? Totally mangled. Teeth, present and protruding through lower lip. So far, so good. Considering.
When I tried to get up, the drama unfolded. Between skiing, taming feisty dogs and an uncanny ability to find holes awaiting someone to trip, I've shown my knees little mercy. But, until today, they both could bend. Now, not so much.
The emergency room crew was delightful, especially the doctor who shot me so full of numbing juice that a broken kneecap sounded like a problem any Band-Aid could fix. But, I hadn't met Lucy-the-Crutch-Nurse yet.
Nurse Lucy was wearing a surgical mask and having a coughing fit. Green germs were flying out the sides of her mask, where she schmeared her gloved hand every few seconds before wiping it on my crutch. Lucy had the demeanor of a vulture at a car wreck. The woman wanted to kill something.
"On a scale of one to 10, what's your pain level?" she hacked. I'd answered this question a half-dozen times, but every hospital person is supposed to repeat stuff so they don't amputate your foot when you come in with an earache.
"Two, if I stay still," I said. "Twelve, if I move."
She picked up my limp leg and dropped it in an ankle-to-thigh splint, battened down the Velcro and asked how I felt. She and her germs were about 3 inches from my face, so I felt like I could hop to Ohio if it meant getting away from her.
"Um, crooked," I ventured meekly, noting that my kneecap was poking out at a 45-degree angle.
"Well, you obviously moved," she coughed, rearranging my disobedient leg and strapping the brace tighter. "Have you used crutches before?"
She then proceeded to tell me how. In theory, you place the crutches at hip width. Lift your bad leg in front. Balance on your good leg. Move the crutches 12 inches forward. Shift your weight to your arms. Don't lean on your armpits. Look where you're going. Stop looking down. Do a cartwheel. Dance a jig. Fly to the moon … Easy, right?
Nurse Lucy barked displeasure at my progress, while I contemplated beating her with my crutch for extra points. She was called away to infect some other patient in the nick of time.
This whole adventure has made me even madder at healthy people who park in handicap spaces. Like the champion singles player I met while walking my dogs, for instance. He parks his Benz in those spots during his private tennis lesson. What he really needs is a lesson in empathy. I could teach him with two words:
"Molly. Come."
EDITOR'S NOTE: South Carolina Living is reprinting some of Jan A. Igoe's previous columns. This "Humor Me" originally appeared in the January 2018 issue. Visit SCLiving.coop/news/in-memory-of-jan-igoe.