Dumb mistake

[drjuice]

Hi, folks -

Time to confess....

Tuesday, I was coming back to Los Angeles from San Diego on the I-5 when I came to a rest area (surrounded by the Camp Pendleton Marine Base) that looked as though it had been rebuilt by the DoT folks (we call them CalTrans here in sunny California). So, besides taking care of the usual business, I scouted around for interesting pictures and found a picture to capture.

But, I had a small problem. Because it was late afternoon, the sun was glinting off the ocean so I scooted my feet around to accommodate the reflections. Then, I figured out if I was a couple feet off the ground, I'd get rid of them. So I got up on a bench and got my shot as in Image 1 below. Then, as I was lining up a second shot, my left foot went off the left end of the bench, followed by my left (replaced) hip, and my left elbow which hit the top of the bench on the way down. The foot and the camera are okay, the skin covering hip has a lovely violet bruise, but the elbow didn't fare so well. The net result is was a temp splint, followed by a "permanent" split that gets removed in two weeks. The injury is a fractured radial head (the top end of the radius bone of my L arm). Any medical technoid can inspect the xray in the Image 2 at the end of of this post and see what I really need is a small shim! ;~(

virginia

Image 1. Ceramic tiles incorporated Image 2. Elbow still incorporated in my arm!
into the wall

[kdoc856]

For all art, we must suffer. Thank goodness the hip is ok, and I confess the thought of your camera's well-being flashed into mind before you put it to rest. glad you are intact.

[terrib]

Oh, that just makes me cringe thinking about it. Sorry about the elbow but glad it wasn't worse. Heal soon!

[Donald]

Virginia! Oh, Virginia!

Oh well, at least you got a good image out of it.

[rpcrowe]

I would expect that we have all done things which, in retrospect seem not very smart but, which seemed sensible (if we had even thought about them) as we were doing them. Hope that you are feeling beter.

BTW: that specific rest stop has a history of some pretty unsavory characters hanging around it. That is mostly at night though!

[pnodrog]

I used to lecture my children saying accidents don't just happen. Unfortunately now that they are grown up they are merciless in reminding me of it if any such misfortune befalls me so I have learned to suffer in silence.

Very brave of you giving us this golden opportunity condemn your actions but I now know the consequences that can come from doing so, but you can have my sympathy.

Get well soon.

[tbob]

Hopefully this won't be one of those injuries that haunt you for the rest of your life. Luckily you seem to have avoided pinching the radial nerve (the source of that lovely funny bone feeling). But joints are no fun to injure. But here is hoping my fears are ill founded and all will be well.

[drjuice]

Hi, folks -

Thank you for the thoughts and warnings. Thank you also, Donald, for your comment on the left picture. ;~)

And, RP, since they got most of the druggies out of the rest stops and enforce the overnight stay rules, it seems to be better. The day I fell, the Marines were doing 24-hour live fire exercises on the beach nearby. Not only does that seem to flush out the baddies. It had a similiar effect for patients in the San Clemente Saddleback ER (a couple of miles north) where, by the time I was done, the only patient left was a surfer dude who was howling that his shoulder was broken (wrong! from the way he was walking it was his collarbone). I've not ever heard somebody say what I'm about to type as acronyms and more polite language at a rate of once per second for 2.5 hours: "OMG, my shoulder's broken, dude!" It's not nice to refer to the much larger and quite fit looking security guard as "dude", even in Orange county! ;~)

Since I got my permanent splint, I haven't had any pain whatsoever from the break so I'm still convinced a shim would probably have done some good! ;~)

virginia