Injured, Down, and Adapting
It’s been 9 days since I broke my the 5th metacarpal in my right hand after a freak accident. I’ve struggled to write since then as it’s been 12 days since my last post. I took a typing test with one hand and averaged 40 words per minute. My posts are typically 500 words, which means I shouldn’t have that much difficulty with churning out new material. I keep them short for a reason. The Millennial generation has no attention span, but I’m not here to reflect on our generation’s flaws today.
I’ve had enough time to come to terms with my injury. I’ve marked the next orthopedic appointment on my calendar and am exuberant about removing this cast and having the final cast molded. That’s 12 days from today. The feeling of having an extremity with limited functioning must be the way that a cat sees the dreaded cone of shame after returning from the veterinarian. It’s miserable. This feeling has resonated with me before with my last July injury where I received 7 stitches in my foot and still experience some numbness in my big toe. It’s different, though. Upper extremities and lower extremities have entirely different functions. I’m thankful to have full mobility.
5th metacarpal boxer’s fracture. Can you spot the damage?
Your King has spent the last 8 years working with people with disabilities. Some of my old clients were victims of the Chicago Police Department’s trigger happy mentality. Others were shot by gangbangers. They may have been involved in criminal activity while others were going about their daily lives. Still, no one deserves to suffer a spinal cord injury no matter the heinous nature of their crimes. I’ve lost the use of one hand for six weeks while my former clients lost the use of their legs — or lower and upper extremities — for life.
Having a permanent or temporary disability is worth talking about regardless of the impediment it causes you. People experience and cope with disabilities in entirely different ways. What bothers one may not affect another. This post hasn’t taken long to write, but it took 9 days to break the mental barrier of writing again. I’m feeling empowered and ready to write again. There will be some challenges, but nothing I can’t handle through visibility and transparency. I had to use this brief piece as a test run. I wasn’t quite ready to complete the Devil-May-Care series. Good news. It’ll be out very soon.
