ELKINS, a Wednesday—“Up 0450. First awake 0400, T/T.”
So reads the only entry I made on today’s page in the Moleskine daily planner I use as my logbook. (“T/T” = tossed and turned.)
That solitary entry says something about the day, and how it has ended with my guts burning with what I have independently diagnosed as pent up words. I was so excited about this blog, the blog I am starting, have started by posting a solitary Walt Whitman quote—and am now so flooded and overwhelmed by the possibilities that I can’t seem to get started on any of them.
This is how it always happens. I have only to start to see the shape or possible shape of a new project, a new direction to try to direct my writing toward, before it begins to inflate and grow wildly, absurdly, possible topics and refinements of the project spilling over and filling the horizon, until what felt like a long but clear path toward a far-off solitary peak becomes a trackless wilderness approaching a wall of mountains.
Nothing for it but to knuckle through.
Speaking of knuckling through things, I’ve skipped my kettlebell exercises these last few days. While in Ohio at the end of last week, I started experiencing a pain in my left thumb. Hurt when I squeezed it, hurt when I bent it, and it sure as hell hurt when I tried to use it in my usual grip for both goblet squats and Turkish getups.
And wouldn’t you know Sunday is the one-day StrongFirst Kettlebell Course in Alexandria? Two hundred dollars, no refunds, and now this pesky thumb calls into question whether I’ll really be able to participate. The whole rationale for dropping this kind of money had been that, if I’m going to keep doing kettlebells for years and years, some periodic outlay to check form and refine technique wold be worth it to avoid some kind of injury. Now here is some kind of injury that threatens to keep me from going at all.
When the pain was still lingering at the beginning of this week, I did the first thing one does in these sorts of situations: I wasted money in hopes there would be an easy, effortless answer. More specifically, I went to CVS and wasted $12 on a shitty, generic wrist/thumb brace that wouldn’t turn out to do anything except irritate the sore spot on my thumb more. On the cover of the box it showed a woman’s hand clad in the brace, holding a smart phone, her braced thumb in scrolling position. I had the thought that if the brace would actually allow one to operate one’s phone it couldn’t be doing much bracing but bought it anyway.
Standing in the aisle, considering the choices, I found myself unsure whether I needed a medium or a large. I carried one of each over to the pharmacy prescription drop-off window, ten feet away.
“Can I open this and try it on?” I asked the woman standing there, resplendent in her white lab coat. I pointed out that the box wasn’t sealed with glue or tape, so it wouldn’t do any damage.
She hesitated, her mind clearly racing.
“I have a tape measure back here, you could measure your hand,” she offered, after a pause.
I stared at her. Did the woman really think I didn’t know the circumference of my own hand—did the phrase like the back of my hand have no currency here?
“See here,” I imagined saying, “what matters is not how big my hand is, what matters is how true to size the brace is made.”
Instead I said nothing and relied on my steely gaze to communicate that her suggestion did not work for me. A few seconds passed, then she relented. And thank God, because the large was by far the smallest I could have fit my hand into, and even then—I found out later, at home, when I went to put it on—I couldn’t work the thing’s eccentric hook-and-elastic latch that was supposed to hold it in place without using a fork to grab the elastic—well, it’s going to be pretty much impossible to comprehensibly describe this further without going all Nicholson Baker on you, so suffice to say I’m glad I tried it on in the store.
When, as I should have expected, the brace did nothing except aggravate the sore spot on my thumb, I decided to go to the doctor.There, a PA named Coty talked about ice and ibuprofen, and maybe if that didn’t help we could try a steroid.
I explained about the upcoming kettlebell class, promised I would ice and use the ibuprofen, but asked if we could maybe also try the steroid right away. He agreed, and I returned to the CVS, where I learned that I would have to wait “fifteen minutes or so” for them to place a blister pack of methylprednisolone tablets in a bag, staple instructions to the front, and hand it over.
While I waited, I browsed the aisles, perhaps exactly as CVS corporate hoped I would. Sure enough, by the time my wait was over, I’d decided to drop another $20 on a bottle of Alleve (to eliminate the need of keeping track of doses of the four-hour Advils that were all we otherwise had in the house) and a package of BeKool “non-medicated gel sheets,” which, according to the package, are “doctor recommended to provide cooling relief from the discomfort associated with…”—well, you know, discomforts. The picture on the front suggested that the sheets would be forehead sized, but I was thinking I could cut them down to bandaid size and wrap my thumb with them, as opposed to trying to figure out some other way to “ice” a thumb.
Once home, I took the first day’s six pills all at once, as instructed
“Any side effects or downsides to watch out for?” I’d asked Coty.
“You might feel a little nauseous, we tell parents kids might get hyper but you probably won’t feel much. Might gain a little weight.”
I downed the six pills, chased it with an Alleve, and modified a BeKool to wrap around my thumb. The weight gain prediction did not turn out to be accurate, but of course Coty might not have realized who he was dealing with. Later, scanning the information sheet that had come with the pills, I learned of the following possible side effects that Coty had not thought to mention:
- Kaposi’s sarcoma (“discontinuation… may result in clinical remission”)
- Rupture of the Achille’s tendon
- “Thin facial skin”
- Posterior sub-capsular cataracts
- Convulsions
- “Psychic derangements”
None of which came to pass. The rest of the day I worked hard making money for the man.
I am pleased to report I seem to be developing a good sardine habit at lunchtime.
Today in local media studies. (Color me dubious.)
