Improvements

I write a lot about change, and mostly addressing perceptions we decide what change is all about; specifically what threat of danger is hidden in those unexpected changes?  One of my professors, from the foggy recollection of my college bound education, once delivered to my class an idea.  They said,

  “you will talk about those things you are uncertain about until you either gather more information from others on the topic to decide if it’s worth believing, or, that you disqualify every objection to believe it to be true.”

   In effect, we talk about mostly stuff we already know.  Then why the HELL am I spending a fortune on this education?  To feel GOOD about what I already know?

  In that light, let me address some of the things you can’t do with your arm in a wrist cast up to your elbow:

   You can’t continue to put car keys in short pockets on the side of the injured limb without looking as if you have a wild creature attacking your privates when trying to fish them out with the opposite appendage.  Oh and forget any Florence Nightingale coming to your rescue to get them for you.  Get the door for you? Sure, carry your groceries to your car? Yepa, Hold a plastic water bottle to your lips while you try to gulp water rushing into your face? Even that; but stick her hand into your pants? C’mon, how liberated can any society be to think that is a swell thing to try to do with a stranger? Not!

   Can’t turn on the car ignition either (if it’s the right wrist; which it is for me) and reaching over the steering wheel doesn’t work so well because the key has to move ninety degrees to start.  For your left to accomplish that you’ll end up doing almost a complete headstand in the passenger seat…trust me, I’ve tried it. Enough times so now my wife enslaves herself to be my chauffer out of fear that someone will see me try this maneuver and realize that she is married to that nut.

   I think I might be able to overcome some limitations like, say, typing this post. It takes more time one handed, and I use spell check a lot, lot more, and that encourages my sense of independence and self-sufficiency but I’m not convinced yet if I can become nimble enough to put deodorant on under the non-afflicted arm.  

It’s an awkward bend to try, and I keep dropping the applicator on the cat down by my feet.  Frankly I am unsure if the active ingredients that keep me smelling sweet while I sweat won’t ultimately kill my cat when he grooms himself? 

Here is where change can be ambivalent.  Is the quality of my life improved by my becoming aware of all those little things I take for granted?  Or am I just over reacting with the aspect of using my non-dominate hand in the toilet?