And Now We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Life

 And now we interrupt your regularly scheduled life.

I find I am an hourly alarm clock at night, up and down more often than a volatile stock market. Moving my left arm gingerly with my right, hoping to find a neutral, quiet position, kind of like trying to live in Switzerland but instead finding oneself in Florida (metaphorically).

I met with a doctor two days past, who interpreted the findings in the MRI of "full thickness" in the rotator cuff as what I can best describe as a full partial tear (you see my knowledge of the human body is no greater than my advanced math skills).

And now on to a pair of appointments with surgeons next week to determine how Humpty Dumpty can best be put back together. There is evidently much in this particular shoulder that is not as God originally constructed it.

The waiting is almost as much a pain as the barking that keeps me up. In my mind I am speeding up the process from injury, to whatever the doctor does, rehab and recovery in the time it takes to watch an episode of Wheel of Fortune from stem to stern without once getting up to pee (very stressful but soon just a bad memory).

The reality is, for the moment, I am the tortoise stuck at the starting line while the hare is about to order a  delicious lunch after crossing the finish.

Yet in truth, I am very lucky. For most of the day I feel almost no discomfort. Meanwhile, the world outside is spinning out of control. Far too many have lives that are not merely inconvenienced but turned upside down and inside out. I have the great luxury of complaint with an asterisk. I am safe, almost sound and able to focus my pity on myself because I have the time to do so without having to manage missed meetings, or sick children, or schools opening and closing more often than Broadway shows these days. My existence not filled with illness and worry, complications or pot holes that sometimes can seem ready to swallow others whole. The beleaguered require fortitude. I merely need a few good punch lines.

Step by step and inch by inch, I will eventually get where I am going. Until then, you and I will just have to meander down the road together.

That is, as long as you can manage to humor me by reading these posts.

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