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Sunday, 30 October 2011

The one armed bandit

So,
Turns out my right shoulder needs to be returned for a refund. It decided on Thursday evening, that being good and staying where it should be was over rated, and decided to dislocate itself. Now I could say it was like a scene out of the Lethal Weapon series, but that would be a lie...

So that's exactly what happened... OK, ok.. it wasn't.. It was more along the lines of.. I jumped, and when I landed I had a dislocated shoulder. No dramatic impacts, flying through the air due to an explosion, or fighting with a relentless bad guy. I was stretching my legs and did a big jump, straight up, and when I landed, my shoulder hurt like someone had rammed a red hot poker into it. It really was a very burning type of pain. After walking around for a couple of minutes whilst trying to hold back a torrent of expletives my shoulder decided to play ball again and pop back into place. So a long story short, my arm is in a sling, immobilised as much as possible while it heals. Now being left handed, I can still write quite happily, but there are several other things that I just cant do, or are harder to do.
* Despite being left handed, I normally use my right hand for the mouse, so I have the awkwardness of using the mouse with my left hand, it just doesn't feel right to me.
* Try holding one hand behind you back and typing out a paragraph or two.. Very annoying isn't it?!
* Now, while still holding your hand behind your back, go to the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich.. Not so easy is it?
* There are many other tasks which become a lot harder with just one hand, but the one thing that has been the MOST painful (not physically painful, but mentally) has been not being able to pick up, or hold my 5 1/2 month old son. This is a two-fold pain. First of, I miss the time with my son. Yes I can still hang out with him, and play games and such when he is lying on the floor, or in his bumbo, or bouncer, or jumper. But it's just not the same as holding him. The other part of it is the feeling useless.. I can't do anywhere near as much to help out my wife.And that sucks because it puts so much more stress on her. Luckily we have pretty awesome family and friends who are helping out where they can.
Being like this however, with one arm in a sling, it does make you realise what it is like for people who have to live like this (or similar) permanently. We always take for granted our full able-bodiedness, and never stop to think what it would be like if we lost the use of a limb, or something. Now in no way am I saying we should take pity on people who have, as they are no less of a person than anyone else. More we should appreciate their ability as we would anyone else. They live with what society sees as a dis-ability, but I think in a way they are more able than "fully able-bodied" people because they do tasks that we do, despite any dis-advantages. So I say kudos to those people.
So I go back to see the Doc on Wednesday, and I'm hoping he'll say I can ditch the sling so I can hold my son again and help my wife out!

On a separate note, I am looking at doing a review of RAGE soon, after a few more hours of play, perhaps a post on some techie or game news, so stay tuned people!!

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