foam may be hazardous to your health...
I guess that it’s about time that I update this. As always, a lot has happened since the last time I posted. Where to start? I spent a week with Adam and his family at a beach house in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The trip was awesome! I’d never been in a beach house before…the water was probably no more than 50 paces away. I’ve been to a lot of beaches before (in at least 10 different countries), but this was the first time I felt like I had the entire beach to myself. There were quite a few other houses on the beach but we obviously picked a really good time to go because not many of them were inhabited at the time (or maybe the guests weren’t beach-lovers…nah, that’s not possible).
The weather was really cooperative. The heat was bearable (though I still managed to get about 5 shades darker, even with 50 SPF sunblock) and it only rained twice: the last evening there and then a bit on the way home. Oh, and the ~8 hr drive to and fro wasn’t bad…particularly since Adam did all the driving! ;)
Lots of firsts on this trip: first surfing attempt (unsuccessful), boogie boarding (successful), “high-speed tubing,” swimming with sting rays, collecting sand dollars... Lots of really memorable events: we saw dolphins “jumping” (can you jump if you don’t have legs?) out of the water about 100 feet away from us. I cooked a big South American-inspired dinner for us one evening and got lots of wonderful compliments: “this rivals any Mexican restaurant I’ve been to,” and “I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but this is the best home-cooked meal I’ve had in a long time!” (names withheld to protect the guilty). I’ll upload some beach pics soon.
The most memorable event is a tie between discovering a baby ground shark (carcharhiniformes?) swimming right around my waist and…wait for it…wait for it…a Nerf football fracturing my pinky. (!!) Yep, you read that right. Basically, Adam and I were throwing passes back and forth, and during one of the passes the ball “attacked” my pinky. There are ligaments on the sides of your fingers called collateral ligaments that are responsible for side-to-side motion. These ligaments are very tight, like rubber bands. From what I can tell, my pinky bent sideways, the ligament got stretched too tightly, and a chunk of the bone where the ligament attaches (the epiphysis) literally got yanked out. I’ll post some websites that explain the injury in greater detail. Anyway, I just assumed it was a jammed finger, splinted it (thank goodness for my first-aid kit!), and continued on with the vacation. A WEEK later, I went to Student Health, only to discover that my finger was indeed fractured. But that’s not the worst of it. After seeing the orthopedist, it was determined that I would need a pin fixation, i.e. surgery! So I now have two pins basically skewering my bone fragment back into place, and a larger-than-life cast. At least the cast is burgundy. :-/
Oh, did I mention this is my dominant hand???
I’m actually doing quite well. I can cook - my left-handed pancakes are close to perfect circles, compared to my ovoid right-handed pancakes, and tonight Adam and I are having a left-handed Peruvian feast. I can’t wear anything with buttons or zippers, so I’m thankful that I have a lot of dresses and skirts. I can drive, but it’s rather awkward and definitely unsafe. Bathing is a chore, as I have to put a plastic bag over my cast and duct tape it to my arm. School…that’s a story for an entirely different blog!! Anyway, the pins will come out in about a month. As it took about an hour to type this, I suspect that this will be my last post for a while.
Pictures are here: http://vanderbilt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075531&l=17cb9&id=4714672. Beware…some are slightly disturbing!!
p.s. fiberglass casts are very useful when it comes to removing hot dishes from the microwave…who knew?!
The weather was really cooperative. The heat was bearable (though I still managed to get about 5 shades darker, even with 50 SPF sunblock) and it only rained twice: the last evening there and then a bit on the way home. Oh, and the ~8 hr drive to and fro wasn’t bad…particularly since Adam did all the driving! ;)
Lots of firsts on this trip: first surfing attempt (unsuccessful), boogie boarding (successful), “high-speed tubing,” swimming with sting rays, collecting sand dollars... Lots of really memorable events: we saw dolphins “jumping” (can you jump if you don’t have legs?) out of the water about 100 feet away from us. I cooked a big South American-inspired dinner for us one evening and got lots of wonderful compliments: “this rivals any Mexican restaurant I’ve been to,” and “I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but this is the best home-cooked meal I’ve had in a long time!” (names withheld to protect the guilty). I’ll upload some beach pics soon.
The most memorable event is a tie between discovering a baby ground shark (carcharhiniformes?) swimming right around my waist and…wait for it…wait for it…a Nerf football fracturing my pinky. (!!) Yep, you read that right. Basically, Adam and I were throwing passes back and forth, and during one of the passes the ball “attacked” my pinky. There are ligaments on the sides of your fingers called collateral ligaments that are responsible for side-to-side motion. These ligaments are very tight, like rubber bands. From what I can tell, my pinky bent sideways, the ligament got stretched too tightly, and a chunk of the bone where the ligament attaches (the epiphysis) literally got yanked out. I’ll post some websites that explain the injury in greater detail. Anyway, I just assumed it was a jammed finger, splinted it (thank goodness for my first-aid kit!), and continued on with the vacation. A WEEK later, I went to Student Health, only to discover that my finger was indeed fractured. But that’s not the worst of it. After seeing the orthopedist, it was determined that I would need a pin fixation, i.e. surgery! So I now have two pins basically skewering my bone fragment back into place, and a larger-than-life cast. At least the cast is burgundy. :-/
Oh, did I mention this is my dominant hand???
I’m actually doing quite well. I can cook - my left-handed pancakes are close to perfect circles, compared to my ovoid right-handed pancakes, and tonight Adam and I are having a left-handed Peruvian feast. I can’t wear anything with buttons or zippers, so I’m thankful that I have a lot of dresses and skirts. I can drive, but it’s rather awkward and definitely unsafe. Bathing is a chore, as I have to put a plastic bag over my cast and duct tape it to my arm. School…that’s a story for an entirely different blog!! Anyway, the pins will come out in about a month. As it took about an hour to type this, I suspect that this will be my last post for a while.
Pictures are here: http://vanderbilt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075531&l=17cb9&id=4714672. Beware…some are slightly disturbing!!
p.s. fiberglass casts are very useful when it comes to removing hot dishes from the microwave…who knew?!