The Curse of the Pharaoh

Butterfly hair clips make a good sling closure to keep one's icepack flush against one's injured leg. Also, beware of loose wooden bed slats that may try to randomly attack the back of your calves; the bruising that follows is quick, painful, and ugly. Warning: Under no circumstances should you do any of the above whilst on blood-thinners. That would be stupid and foolhardy. ...Aww, crap.

(Uploaded from my mobile phone last night to Facebook at 1:33 a.m. (Sorry, Facebookers, for the duplicate posting.)

My mom is visiting this weekend, and she and I were making her bed, which is a queen pushed into a corner of the spare room. This means that in order to put a fitted sheet on, you must squeeze into the corner between the bed and the wall near the head of the bed. While I was lifting the mattress to put the fitted sheet on, I had my foot resting (as I usually do), on one of the bed slats. Unfortunately, we lost, many years ago, the wooden pin that keeps the slats taut in place. And so, my foot slipped and the wooden slat it had been resting on came flipping up and smacked the backside of my left calf. I'm sure if nothing else has gotten the blood moving in that leg over the last two weeks*, that certainly did.

Over the last two weeks, when I have been supposed to be trying to avoid injuries, I have managed to pull a muscle in my left-hand thumb (or something; I just know it's been sore for over two weeks now), slice my right-hand pointer finger with the nastiest cardboard cut you ever did see, bash my knuckle under the right pinky finger, and strain my muscles so badly after a gym visit on Monday that by Wednesday morning, even laughing hurt (all better now, and yesterday's gym visit seems to have not left me with the same problem - guess that's what I get for not going to the gym for over a month**). So, really, attempting to karate-chop off my leg by whacking it with a board (aren't karate-chops supposed to work the other way around???***) is par for the course around here these days.

So I am staying away from sharp and/or heavy objects, perhaps indefinitely. Actually, paper and cardboard should probably be avoided, too. The first week I was on blood-thinners (i.e., last week), Randal was sure I was going to slip and fall outside and be knocked unconscious and then bleed to death (unable to tell people I was on blood-thinners so they wouldn't apply the extra pressure necessary to my bleeding body parts, y'know?), so he escorted me everywhere.

And now I am off to spend the day in my padded room.

* I had a blood clot in my left leg coming back from Egypt; did this blog know this? I'm on medication for it now, so it's getting better, thankfully.

** In my defence, I was in Egypt for 2.5 weeks, and unable to walk for another week, so am really only guilt-worthy of gym-nonattendance for one week's worth.

*** What's that? You karate-chop with your hands, not your legs??? ...Oh, now you tell me!