I have a problem. I like to think that most of the time I have the mindset of someone in their mid to late 20′s. You know what I’m talking about….I’m an invincible jackass, I can do anything sort of thing. Trouble is, when you are in your mid 30′s your body has unique ways of sharing with you the fact that you are most defiantly not younger than you really are. I had one of those days today.
Start with the fact that I got about 4 hours of sleep last night for no apparent reason, about 7:30 this morning, while putting up a new price sign at work, I managed to put all my weight back down on one foot and my body said FUCK YOU and fell out from under me! One big problem that I have at work is that I am on my feet all day long (10-12 hours at a time) and on hard concrete floors. Over the past week or so I’ve been having some mild discomfort in my lower legs which is something that is not terribly unusual for me considering what I do and that I tend to work about 50 hours a week. Well, today my leg just decided to give up on me and I pulled the hell out of my lower calf muscle. The timing could not have been worse.
Right about that time and after limping around the store trying to get my job done whilst being the laughing stock of my peers for being gimpy, it was announced that the head office was on the way to the store and we were going to get a surprise inventory audit. My day just got a LOT longer. Because I’m the manager, I have to be there, but because of my leg, I’m in a LOT of pain. Well, be a man dumbass….so I was (like a dumbass) and stuck it out for the next 4 hours waiting for my turn to be audited. Luckily I passed and the bonus I get from this audit will pay for the bullshit that happened next in my day.
As soon as my audit was over, I left work. I was given multiple recommendations for what to do about my leg (heat it, ice it, use Epsom salts…), I decided that a doctor might be better equipped to diagnose the problem and recommend appropriate treatment. So, it was off to Urgent Care. After waiting only 45 minutes (must have been a record for an Urgent Care facility), I was able to see a doctor. She was friendly, took my history, felt me up (my leg that is) and recommended that I go get an ultra-sound to make sure it was not a blood clot. Because this injury did not happen all at once in one fell swoop but sort of crept up and then exploded, she was worried that perhaps there was a bigger issue at play here. So off I went then over to the hospital to see the Radiologists. I’m not a big fan of radiologists, not because they are not nice people but because my experience with them in the past has resulted in having to drink nasty fluids. Not so much for an ultra-sound. I was in and out in 20 minutes and (because of my obvious limp and pain) I got to ride around the hospital in wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk. Well, no blood clots. My veins are just fine. I just have a really badly pulled muscle. So after that it was back to Urgent Care and the doctor went over some exercises that I could do. She offered me drugs, I declined and informed her that I could get by on Ibuprofen (also acceptable in her book). I’ve got this thing about taking pain drugs. Certainly there are times when they are needed but there are many undesirable things that can come out of taking them, one of them being dependence and I really don’t want to even go there. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and the less medication I have to take the better. So all this consumed about 4 hours of my afternoon.
I was going to write a bit about the Prop 8 trial but at this point I’m tired, still in a bit of pain, and really just looking forward to going to bed and sleeping. I don’t have to do anything tomorrow and I really don’t think I’m going to.
SO, those of you reading this who like to think you are younger than you actually are, DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOUR HEAD TELLS YOU. Your body is quite a bit meaner than your head and will have no problems seeking revenge on your ass.
