Surviving Shoulder Surgery: Empathy and a Better Story
It all started at a rugby tournament on a windy Saturday in Tulsa.
This was my first experience with rugby and here is the gist of it: The wind was howling and I was sitting in my camp chair, my gigantic shoulder sling tucked between me and the chair arm, covered in a heavy blanket to protect myself from the wind despite the fact that I couldn't physically put on a coat. A large, leafless tree loomed overhead, some of the branches swaying in the gusts. A hollow barrel sat at the base of the tree filled with heavy white pipe and flags. In the blink of an eye the barrel lunges forward loudly spilling its contents within a foot of the man sitting a car length away to my right. He didn't move an inch. I, on the other hand, just about had a stroke. I proceeded to move my chair more to the left as the nice man that could have lost a leg took a pipe and began to remove branches from the tree that he was worried would blow off and hit the already injured lady.
As if this wasn't enough excitement in a very long day, a short round man with very little hair on top of his head and an abundance of white stringy hair all over his shoulders kept eyeing my sling. I must admit, it's hard to miss. I guess people that have had to wear it are more apt to notice though. He approached me with the question, "When was your surgery?"
I told him and he said his had been last year, in February. And it still bothers him some times. He inquired about how it had happened. I ducked my head and mumbled that a dog jumped on it. Little did I know that his story was way better than mine......in both the humor factor and the weird animal story factor. Here goes:
He was about to leave for a week and some high school students were going to feed and water his animals. There was one animal, though, that could be a tad bit difficult to take care of. To help the students out he decided to fill the water trough of the male peacock, whom he added could be "pretty aggressive." He positioned the hose and looked peripherally, passively watching the bird for any movement toward him. All was well until some of the water splashed from the trough into the mud at his feet. That was enough to provoke the beast who charged him from the side causing him to slip in the mud and fall on his arm. Long story short....he had surgery too.
There's nothing inherently humorous about this story. But I have to admit, it's much more entertaining to say a peacock caused your injury than a dog. Hmmmm....maybe I should rethink this.
I was on a lion hunt in Africa. All the sudden a two-ton rhinoceros came bellowing through the brush knocking me 7 feet and breathless. When I woke my right arm was purple...
Oh well, the details would be too much to contend with. It was a DOG, okay?
This was my first experience with rugby and here is the gist of it: The wind was howling and I was sitting in my camp chair, my gigantic shoulder sling tucked between me and the chair arm, covered in a heavy blanket to protect myself from the wind despite the fact that I couldn't physically put on a coat. A large, leafless tree loomed overhead, some of the branches swaying in the gusts. A hollow barrel sat at the base of the tree filled with heavy white pipe and flags. In the blink of an eye the barrel lunges forward loudly spilling its contents within a foot of the man sitting a car length away to my right. He didn't move an inch. I, on the other hand, just about had a stroke. I proceeded to move my chair more to the left as the nice man that could have lost a leg took a pipe and began to remove branches from the tree that he was worried would blow off and hit the already injured lady.
As if this wasn't enough excitement in a very long day, a short round man with very little hair on top of his head and an abundance of white stringy hair all over his shoulders kept eyeing my sling. I must admit, it's hard to miss. I guess people that have had to wear it are more apt to notice though. He approached me with the question, "When was your surgery?"
I told him and he said his had been last year, in February. And it still bothers him some times. He inquired about how it had happened. I ducked my head and mumbled that a dog jumped on it. Little did I know that his story was way better than mine......in both the humor factor and the weird animal story factor. Here goes:
He was about to leave for a week and some high school students were going to feed and water his animals. There was one animal, though, that could be a tad bit difficult to take care of. To help the students out he decided to fill the water trough of the male peacock, whom he added could be "pretty aggressive." He positioned the hose and looked peripherally, passively watching the bird for any movement toward him. All was well until some of the water splashed from the trough into the mud at his feet. That was enough to provoke the beast who charged him from the side causing him to slip in the mud and fall on his arm. Long story short....he had surgery too.
There's nothing inherently humorous about this story. But I have to admit, it's much more entertaining to say a peacock caused your injury than a dog. Hmmmm....maybe I should rethink this.
I was on a lion hunt in Africa. All the sudden a two-ton rhinoceros came bellowing through the brush knocking me 7 feet and breathless. When I woke my right arm was purple...
Oh well, the details would be too much to contend with. It was a DOG, okay?
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| photography.nationalgeographic.com |
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