Tipping the balance back
There are moments when you sense the balance is tipping. Waking up in the Emergency Room, or going back after a surgery failed, or waving off the nurse who explains how a morphine pump works, because you know all about morphine pumps. The funny thing is that although modern medicine has saved my life many times, without it, I’d only have died once. In horrible, agonizing pain, but just once.
Each of those situations needed recovery, physical therapy, exercises. Each was a road back, but they were all obvious from the outside. Sometimes they overlap. The one from last summer is ongoing.
Some of them are just little signs, though; a jar you can’t open, or like today, a friendly handshake that brings tears to your eyes. I’m doing fist-bumps from now on. But I can’t use the excuse of being afraid of germs; nobody would look at my desk and believe that.
It’s getting more interesting, tipping the balance back every time. Sort of a game.
Tell them it’s arthritis.
Fist bumps are too hip-hop. Try bowing.
@Cujo359 – I do, if they ask for an explanation. Hasn’t come up yet.
@WeeDram – Fist-bumps have gone mainstream. But whether it’s the bump or the bow, there’s always the possibility of looking like some kind of cross-cultural wannabe. Not much I can do about that, I guess.