Stay On The Good Foot

It feels like I get hurt a lot. It also seems that I heal slowly. Maybe that's just my subjective perception, or maybe it's to do with my own behavior. When I hurt my thumb and had to get stitches, I was admonished by the doctor for being an uncooperative patient. I don't deny it. The trouble is that healing tends to really cramp my style. Having a hurt thumb made it harder to do a thousand things, but doing them at all may have slowed the process. It's just that I can't not do things.

Some time ago I rolled one of my ankles walking down some stairs. The smart thing would have been to stay off it until I was better, but I am hardly at liberty to stay on the shelf for as long as that takes, and I certainly don't have the inclination to walk on crutches or any such thing. I certainly try to go easy on it, and mainly manage it. I have been declining invitations to play basketball and do other non-essential things that I fear will be a problem, but I have to walk and do other things.

I try to take it easy even with those mandatory activities that threaten to impair the healing of an injury, but what becomes of that intention is the same fate which so commonly afflicts the best plans. I get excited or enter a state of urgency, and my own well-being starts falling on the list of priorities to well below 'getting the job done' and 'having a good time'. Thusly I'll sprint across the street so that I don't miss the walk signal or I'll walk three miles when I might have caught a bus or gotten a ride.

What suffers? My poor, powerless body, which can do nothing other than the will of my brain (which lays safely ensconced in a virtually impervious chamber far about the fray). That's the size of it. I've got a life to live and goals to achieve, and I don't mean to fall behind and wash out of the game because of little ailments that are nipping at me. Maybe I'll be in horrible shape and crippling pain, but I fully intend to be the coolest guy with the best stories in the entire nursing home.