Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Left Behind



One of the remaining deficits from my stroke is messed up feeling on my left side. The nerves are fine but the feeling interpretation center in my brain isn't in top form. Medical stuff doesn't make me feel queasy and I just love telling gross stories to queasy people. So buckle up!

Years ago, around 2002 or 3 when I was living in Waltham, I was organizing my bedroom and folded up one of those laundry drying racks and leaned it against the wall. As I walked away, the rack came with me. So I looked down and saw my left thumb folded up and pinned in the rack. "Uh oh, that should hurt." Yup, pain is a feeling that gets delayed in my brain woohoo!

A couple years after, I had been cooking chicken breasts in an open pan for dinner. Aftewards, I was doing the dishes when I felt stabbing pain on my left ring finger right around the first knuckle. I looked and I had a huge burn blister. Apparently some grease had splashed on my finger and had burned me which I didn't feel until hot water and soap hit it. To this day, I still have a divet on my finger to remind me to pay attention more when I'm cooking.

Around 2005-ish, I had these black dress pants that zipped up on the left side. I was at work and had gone to the ladies room. For some reason, it was really hard to unzip my pants. Like the zipper was caught on something. Um, that something was MY OWN SKIN! Yup, that shoulda hurt...

This final injury tale happened a couple months ago. I was playing with Stella in the living room and half watching TV. I had to go to the bathroom and as I was finishing up, I noticed a blood stain on my shirt. Then a blood stain on every surface I had touched in the bathroom. A nice hunk of my hand got swiped open by Stella and I hadn't noticed. Walking back to the living room was like retracing a crime scene! It doesn't help that I take a daily aspirin so clotting is a bit slowed down.

So, what have I learned from all this? Well, waxing anything on my left side is a breeze. And my eyes are my greatest tool to make sure good old Lefty is intact. Plus, if I feel pain on my left side that is a huge red flag since it takes a lot to make me feel it.


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