Adding Insult to Injury

I went for my routine doctor’s check-up the other day. It’s official. I Ache All Over.


My doctor is a pleasant guy and a very good doctor. I thought that as long as I was dropping by the office to get my blood pressure and cholesterol checked (both of which are fine, thanks), I might ask him about some “issues” I’ve been having.

Like the fact that my hands hurt. Now, I may go for days or weeks without using other parts of my body, but I use my hands ALL the time. I type constantly. I work on the computer all day at work, and then come home and write or tool around on Facebook. I have also become focused on actually finishing the "Rise of Atlantis" computer game I am currently playing. I can’t tell you how elated I was when I finally got past Carthage the other night.

I was sure that the problems with my aching hands could probably be attributed to either arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome, but my doctor dismissed my diagnoses pretty definitively, telling me that actually my tendons in my hands were just thickened. Well, that didn’t sound any worse than my own diagnosis. He said it wasn’t really a problem unless the occasional stiffening in my hands at some point didn’t go away, resulting in permanently disabled fingers. Yeah, that WOULD be a problem, I think.

However, the one thing that I really wanted to address with my doctor was The Knot. See, I have had a painful “knot” in my left shoulder for many, many years now. I figured it was caused by stress and bad posture. “What that actually is – and you’re going to LOVE this,” my doctor explained, “is gristle that has grown up around your muscle, probably as a result of some injury along the way.

Maybe that’s what they mean when they refer to “adding insult to injury.” Not that it matters, but I just wondered what injury might have caused this.

Was it the time I was thrown from the horse, breaking my pelvis in two places, and hitting my head on a large rock?

Could it have happened when I was rushing to answer the phone at work, and slipped on the carpet-protecting plastic mat, and went headlong into my desk, badly injuring my left arm and sustaining a serious bone bruise on my elbow? I took that phone call, by the way.

Maybe it was the time I fell down the steps at the conference, and went headlong into the wall, injuring my right arm and sustaining a bone bruise of my right elbow. My right side was obviously after equal time.

It couldn’t possibly have dated all the way back to when I fell off my bike onto my mouth when I was 12, could it? Here, all these years, I have just been blaming all my dental problems on that, not giving a thought to what it might have done to my shoulder.

Then there was the time I fell flat on my face, for no apparent reason whatsoever, walking into Arby’s, bruising my nose (which apparently broke my fall) and scratching my eyeglasses badly enough that I had to replace them.

I could go on, but what’s the point? It seems all my years as a klutz have finally caught up with me. Thank goodness I never played any sports, since most of these incidents occurred when I was just trying to walk. Considering that I hit my head in each of the accidents I recounted, I know I should just be grateful that my only long term problem is a little painful gristle on my shoulder and not brain damage.

I guess all those accusations of my being hard-headed are true.