I've Got to Admit it's Gotten Better

So....what was it, something like 3 weeks ago when I reported that my shoulder popped out? In between then and now my problems seem so trivial. Japan suffered the effects of an earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent chaos arising out of the troubles at the Fukushima Nuclear plant. Oh, and we're bombing Libya. Somewhere in all this is also the threat of a Federal shutdown, something that would affect a great many hard-working folks who have to pay their bills and feed their families (unlike the members of Congress, who have no such concerns).

Well, here's my great tragedy: I had an MRI on the 16th of March and got the news from the doc yesterday......that it all looks pretty good BUT 'm under orders to avoid contact sports (like ice hockey) for another 4-6 weeks. Dammit.

You'd think I would be happy. The doc mentioned that if I were 20 years old I'd require surgery...at 60 years they'd rule it out completely...but at 40 years (well, almost) that I could flip a coin. According to him it's one of the few times that it's a good thing to be 40.

Then there's the hockey thing. It's playoff time, and to miss out on all the fun just sucks. Plus, when you play, you've gotta pay. So, there's the hit that your wallet takes...that sucks, too.

All told, however, I've got good range of motion and strength in the arm and am busily re-habbing it after my doctor's OK. I'd like to thank my Wife for running me to the hospital, my Mom for driving me to the doc's a few weeks back, and everyone who took a few minutes to wish me well.

It's not like I had time to lay around and heal. I had to skate with my kid's team in a skills competition 5 days after the injury. And we have had a youth sports EXTRAVAGANZA here, what with multiple hockey tournaments and tee ball and clinics and blah blah blah. It never ends.

Well, as Jesse Ventura said in "Predator," "I aint got time to bleed."

And my little blog has been withering on the vine, here. I've been a child-taxi, part-time worker, and general Mr-Fixit. There's little time to organize one rational thought let alone string multiple sentences together in a cogent manner.

As a great writer once said, repeatedly, so it goes

ouch

This hurts.

If you read my facebook posts you know I dislocated my shoulder playing hockey the other night. It was almost instantaneous, I ran into an opposing player and bounced off. My right arm, clutching my stick, twisted and popped. By the time I hit the ice I couldn't move my arm at all and knew I was screwed.

It was all my fault, I was trying to make a play and I'd blown it. I was also immediately upset. I'm supposed to help coach kid's hockey. My friends are relying on me to help at work. My family relies on me at home. My timing could not have been worse.

I was helped to my skates, it hurt to breathe and I wanted to vomit. I tried moving my arm around but it was agony. A few minutes later I went to the locker room to....very....slowly....change out of the hockey equipment. I also tried to lean into the wall and pop my shoulder back. Nuh-uh, no dice. By then, I knew I was gonna need to hit an ER so I called Carol (who freaked, this was not her first hockey-related ER trip). Changing was OK until I had to button up my jeans, that was interesting. As was wheeling my bag to the door.

By the time Carol arrived I was miserably slumped in the chilly lobby, hunched over like Quasimodo and generally feeling awful. Some of my teammates (Al and Ken, thanks guys) helped get my equipment in the truck, I think Ken offered to carry me and I should've let him just to see if he could do it but he's playing ice hockey with two bulging discs in his back. Brian grabbed the sticks I'd left behind on the bench. Again, thanks guys.

Off we went to the hospital. Old Gunpowder Road in Laurel has about 100,000 potholes. On on of 'em, my elbow smacked the arm rest and, well, ouch.

The ER folks at Howard County General were great. They tried to pull my arm into place without meds but that didn't work. The meds helped me to relax enough for x-rays, which were negative, so the docs came in to pull my shoulder back into place. He put his foot into my armpit and pulled, I felt and heard it pop.

But then it popped back out. Rinse and repeat. After a few tries they put me in a sling and told me not to shower until I could see an Orthopedic surgeon. ewwwww.

Well, that happens today. Yesterday was painfully uneventful, even when I took the oxycodone. I don't really love pain pills, they dull the pain a bit but leave me sleepy and fuzzy-brained. I took a couple to sleep, that was about it. I'm betting that the words "arthroscopic surgery" are in my future, but I'm not too worried- the folks 'round here tend to help pick me up when I'm down. I'll be back out there in no time.

Charlie and Me

Here's the man, himself, from the somewhat successful movie "Major League." I saw this movie on April 14, 1989, with the lady I'd eventually marry and have 4 children with. Yet, I digress.

You know how some people you meet will compare you to a Hollywood actor? They do, I don't know why. Some people seem to have a pathological need to place everyday faces with famous ones. Over my brief "dating" life I've been told that I looked like Tom Cruise, or the late Christopher Reeves of Superman fame. But, more than any other actor, I was likened to Charlie Sheen.

Well, let's clarify, when I was YOUNG I was told I looked like him. Clearly, his genetics held up (what with his "Tiger blood" keeping him young-looking and sober), whilst mine are succumbing to Conrad's "flabby devils". It's like I'm the State of Wisconsin and my cells have decided to go on strike. "No more hair, at least on his head! That'll teach him. And...SLOW HIS METABOLISM! STAT!"

Well, this was all the late 1980's, when Charlie was making good movies like "Platoon" and "Wall Street." He was a REAL actor back then, I think he'd done a few clunkers but got his big break with Oliver Stone, doing well-produced dramas. And then.... "Major League" represented his turn towards comedy and descent into....eventually....TV sitcom-land.

So it was that on April 14, 1989 I was set up on a blind date with a gal who I was told needed a prom date. We end up sitting in a crowded theater (where she worked, so we got in for free) watching an OK baseball-related comedy starring Charlie Sheen. She and I hit it off, the rest is boring history. I went on to live what's been a fairly steady, troll-like life in Loserville while Charlie's gone on to bigger and better things, right?

I'll admit, I've never watched his TV show. Or anything he's been in since "Major League." And so today I see him on TV with his "goddesses" and sounding like a deranged man hell-bent on being homeless, addled, and eventually alone. That is, I suppose, the only kind of ending his sad story can have at this point.

What's with those girls? They looked like they were BARELY 20, not all that great-looking, and he's leering at the cameras like a lecherous old vampire from the old Hammer Studios horror films. Yup, Chuck, I 'll bet they're there because you turn 'em on. Good luck with that. Why am I so sure they'll be on TV again real soon?

No one would compare me with him today. First off, I'm too fat and too bald. And my bank account is not flush with cash from any $2 million per episode TV gig...though I'm guessing his account is a little light right now, too (dealers enjoy getting paid). I don't get to live in a posh section of L.A. (OK I'm jealous of this, I admit) but then again I get to see my kids without having to worry over a court-ordered visitation schedule. Stories like his make me wonder what's so difficult about fame. What is it that makes so many of these famous people wander off the reservation? Perhaps it's only comprehensible if you live it.

He needs a smack in the face. Maybe two. Strung out actors are old news. So are dead ones.