PT and Ice

(RECAP:  I have made it to the classroom, hooked up every thing and am reminded of the heft of my new laptop that I bought exclusively for educational purposes.  I don’t like carrying it in my over the shoulder bag because it hurts my weakened left rotator cuff.)

propermanAt present my left rotator cuff is worse than my right rotator cuff.  That doesn’t make sense because I am right handed and my right rotator cuff has had much more wear and tear.  But it hurts too though not as bad as the left.  The left was waking me up at night.  I would have to roll over onto the left shoulder to make the pain go away.  That doesn’t make sense either.  But I didn’t care.  If it disturbs my sleep, I tend to it.  That’s all there is to it.  I fancy my sleep and will brook no loss of it. 

The doctor, after I got the x-ray, said I had a calcium deposit and probably something more, but of course x-rays don’t show soft tissue.  He recommended PT and ice.  That was cool with me.  So far I have never spent a day in a hospital and I have never had any part of my body “under the knife” (excepting that cancer in my lip that had to come out).  It’s not that I don’t trust doctors; I just don’t believe they know what they are doing. 

I prefer to treat the problem; at least I know what I am doing to myself.  For example, I decided to skip PT and went on line and found the exercises I should do, and I iced and the pain has subsided significantly.  Such injuries—the general result of wear and tear and skeletal instability that comes with old age and creaking joints—I have found can be very easily re-aggravated. 

In light of the tonnage of my new laptop, I decided therefore that I had to abandon my trusty over the shoulder book bag.  I use a book bag for about 6 or 7 years and then I have to throw it away because I have spilled too much coffee into it or some candy melted and everything got all sticky or the cap came off the sunscreen.  This bag has at least a year more in it, but I go to Staples and I buy one of those bags on little wheels that people pull around behind them usually at airports.  But where I work many of my female colleagues use these to lug stuff to and from classes, especially laptops and the like.  So I got a pretty sturdy one for 99 dollars with a space in it for a laptop and all sorts of pockets for this and that.

The only problem with the bag is that, up to the present moment, while I have seen many women pulling these things behind them, I have yet to see a single male with one.  I knew this when I bought the damn thing.  But thought I was secure enough in my masculinity to non-conform in that particular way.  I should have known I would have a problem when I told the clerk or assistant (or whatever they call the person who takes your money these days) that I was buying it for my wife.

I feel like a wimp pulling that little cart behind me.  I should be a proper man and lug my stuff up off the ground.  So when I see somebody I know, I grab my shoulder and groan as they walk by so they will know I am physically injured and am using this cart device only as a temporary measure while I regain my appropriate masculine strength.  And sometimes for good measure, I throw a limp into it so they will think I am nearly physically incapacitated.  That’s easy to do since my left knee always has a slight ache going.

How long I can keep up this pretext, I don’t know.  In my heart of hearts I fear this little cart thing is permanent and I will never regain my proper masculine strength.

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