a wrist, a finger

My heart melted a little bit today when Pancho jokingly told me he's secretly planning the amputation of one of my fingers. He says if my wrist was an excuse for me to stay then surely a finger will do just as well. As the days left before Ireland dwindle, my heart strings are getting pulled in multiple directions. I want to, I need to, go to Ireland. But I also can't bear to go. Oh!

Edna

My right hand has sort of become the center of my life. Just enter our kitchen and you'll see my whole home-therapy station, complete with a pot of beans, scar cream, hand lotion, heat pad, cold compress, and exercise manual.

In the end it's just a classic case of "you never realize how much you use it until you don't have it". Thankfully I have little pain but I'm still always conscious about it and my eyes can't stop looking at the T shaped scar that's dotted with little stitch marks. It's like having a loose tooth in your mouth that your tongue can't stop playing with.

Every day I do therapy five times a day and at least ten people ask me how my hand is. That probably already adds up to at least a few hours of totally wrist-focused behavior per day. Then on top of that, twice a week I go see my therapist and we talk about my wrist for an hour straight. Tendons this, nerves that, etc, etc, etc. It completely fascinates me. Rawley says I was the happiest post-surgery patient he's ever seen and therefore thinks I should be a doctor. (We shall see about that).

But in all honesty, my injury has brought me almost as much good as bad. I look forward to going to therapy so I can see the progress I've made, the new exercises I'll have to do, the other patients that will be there and most of all to see my therapist. I'm starting to build a good relationship with her and we love talking with each other. Among other things we talk mostly about my work, the wonders of the Capay Valley, and all the discoveries her eight-month old is making. We talk about the pesticides that fill the central valley and how she's worried for her baby having to ingest them, but how at the same time all the organic food is so expensive. I can't wait to bring her a fresh basket of organic strawberries next week.

Menagerie

It makes me so sad that you can see a big portion of the Capay Valley's wild animals just by driving down Highway 16. On my way back from ultrasound therapy with my Edna Mode look-alike today I saw: a skunk, a fawn, numerous house cats, raccoons and even an otter.

To make matters worse, TD is going downhill again although this time it's her back legs that don't work.

On a happier note I got to spend the morning in Dru's garden weeding and making paths in the crazy weather. First it looked like rain but then the skies parted to show a peak of sun for a few minutes before showering hail down.

Crash course

My eyes must be getting bigger because everywhere I go now I find something interesting. Today I went to my first therapy lesson and walked in to talk to the fat and grumpy receptionist who coldly led me through the paperwork. Then my name was called by a petite asian lady with a clipboard who took me to the back room to start looking at my wrist. After a series of exercises, diagrams and explanations, she finally left me for a few minutes with a hot pad resting on my scar. As the warmth spread I began to finally look beyond the immediate problem of my unresponsive thumb and inwardly chuckled at the stalky man sitting at the table infront of me. Besides grumbling about being able to return to work at Safeway in the dairy department he didn't say much else and only sat hunched over typing away on his iphone (with his left hand) as the therapist worked on his fractured arm with an ultrasound. To my right an old Chilean lady and a therapist tried desperately to understand each other with hand gestures to no avail. After hesitating for a few minutes my frustration finally won over and I butted in to offer translation. The old woman had fallen and broken her middle finger which was now swollen to twice the normal size. After communicating through me that there was no longer any pain, she proudly held her hand up in a fist and smiled. The therapist nodded back, progress. No translation needed.