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Don’t Look Up

Under the Redwoods, originally uploaded by Sabine Dukes.

Haven’t posted in a few days because I have been busy whining about my recovery.

Things were going fine. A little too slow for my liking, but I was mostly coping.

Then I went and picked blackberries.

Picking blackberries in my yard is just about my favorite thing to do. Its calming and its fulfilling and I get to eat sweet blackberries grown without any water or attention or effort on my part.

And the blackberry part was all cool, but after I was done I went in my little garden shed (which since I dont garden I should just call a shed) . The garden shed features a doorway thats about 5′5″ tall. I am 5′7″ tall and sure as shit, I smacked the hell out of my forehead on the way out.

I could hear my doctor’s words ringing in my ears….”just don’t hurt your head again while you heal”.

And of course, I am back to being as dizzy as I was several weeks ago.

Just to make certain I didn’t do anything dangerous to myself, I went to see a neurologist. He gave me lots of tests. It was sort of like a combination of a DUI and a high school equivalency test.

I had to touch my nose, walk in a straight line. I almost launched into that 5-4-3-2-2-3-4-5 thing on the fingers out of habit (you guys who know that know who you are….).

But then the doc asked me to spell “world” backwards.

d……………

umm……d……..

…….

then I wrote the word with my finger in the air in front of me.

d..l…r…ow !

I have no idea if I got demerits for spelling it in the air, but I was pretty pleased with myself.

Next, the doctor asked me what 17 times 3 was. I totally thought he was kidding…who knows what that is just in their heads? I sure don’t, even without a concussion. Give me a ten-key dammit. Or an excel spreadsheet.

But he was quite serious and he started to look really concerned and worried so I scrambled for an answer. 17……..

17……..

17 is a stupid number. 20 is better.

Aha! 20 times 3 equals 60. And 60 minus 9 is
51!

I said this calculation out loud, so I probably got more demerits.

I was worried that I was going to have to do trigonometry or that isoceles triangle theorem thing or something next, but he seemed satisfied.

The final test involved the little mallet and a tuning fork. For real, a tuning fork. He pulled it right out of his little black bag. I had no idea doctors still used tuning forks or little black bags. He bopped me with the mallet and dinged me with the fork. Stuffed it all back into the little black bag, And said my brain seemed fine and that I would just have to be patient and wait for the concussion to heal.

Which could take several months.

Waaaahhhh..months? But what if I get stuck like this? waaaaahh.

Fortunately, I am part of an awesome team of cyclists (who bang their heads a lot it seems!) and I asked them to share their concussion stories…and something about hearing similar stories, just made me feel so much better.

Well, that and Tracie’s yummy peanut butter cupcakes.

Posted in: Landscapes, Passion