Lying in the grass curiously conscious of the warm sunshine I thought, whhoooo, that was a bad one, gonna be uncomfortable for quite a while. I looked around. I was alone. No neighbors in view. Twisting myself upright I found the right arm unresponsive to the will of its owner; limp, useless, dangling. Damn. This would be more than just uncomfortable. This would need outside attention.

After left handedly dragging the tools in the house lest they appeal to larcenous eyes, I called a cab & betook myself to the hospital where I arrived so pale and sweat drenched that they cut short the reception ceremony and shot me full of morphine pretty much straight away. Xrays revealed a fracture problematically close to the shoulder and I was trundled off to the Georges Dumont Hospital for specialist attention. (For the benefit of more distant readers this is the other, and largely Francophone, hospital in my area.)

This was interesting. Total immersion into a Francophone world, and not only Francophone but Acadian Francophone at that. Again, for distant readers it would take way too long to explain what that is all about, but for local folks, you'll get it. It was like opening a door into Kent County; a two day interlude of culture shock on my own doorstep, unexpected and not unpleasant, given the circumstances. Painful yes, but that's soon forgotten.

My brother Esau is an hairy man

What I will not soon forget is the nurse on 4-E who discharged me. Pretty and very French she looked somehow familiar. We chatted. She thought maybe she knew me, that perhaps we had met somewhere. I had the same impression. After comparing locales and such we concluded that no, we most likely had not met. Then came the memorable part. Slowly and ever so gently peeling the big dressing off my stapled incision to put on a new one, with each tug she said, "Oh I'm so sorry, oh I'm so sorry," This was hurting her. She'd have been too professional to cry or even come close to giving it expression in that way but damn that big kind heart was fully engaged. And when the adhesive seemed reluctant to detach from arm hair or two, "oh you are so furry, oh you are so furry." Nameless nure of 4-E, should you be reading this, I thank you.

One more hospital story. The operating surgeon was one of these communications minimalists who tells you exactly what he thinks you need to know, precisely, succinctly, and not one word more. "keep it in the sling," he said, and that was about it. I said what about this, what about that, just leave it there and be normal? Sleep on it? Dryly he said, "You won't be sleeping on it." and that was that. End of the story.

There I was back at home, just before the Christmas busy season, with the right arm useless: the end (for how long?) of jewelry making, the end of sculpture, the end of moving rocks around, the end of using tools, earning a living.

Dressing with vice-grips and an unexpected comparison with pantyhose

But it was also a curious beginning - of sometimes ludicrous adaptations to one-armed life. Sleeping entailed laboriously, judiciously, wedging the body into a valley between two carefully constructed berms of parallel pillows with the right row holding the arm up. Quite right, doc; indeed I would not be sleeping on it.

To pull a t-shirt over my head was excruciating, impossible. Maybe with modification? With scissors in left hand and shirts gripped by the teeth a bunch of right sleeves were laboriously snipped off. I called these my ampu-tee shirts. Through that gaping hole, with much moaning and gingerly pulling, the arm would eventually pass. Blue jeans were the next ordeal. Sit on bed, reach down with the left hand, fluff around to find leg hole, wiggle a toe through, tug over ankle. Other leg, same process. Now ravel them up over the knees each leg in turn left right left right an inch or two at a time. Now with one hand pinned to your side and the other gripping the trousers (don't want 'em to fall down, have to start all over again) stand up while at the same time maintaining your balance. (Don't want yourself to fall down either; might break an arm or something). Now complete the raising up over the hips, and finally, with only one hand, wrestle the button into its eyehole. You might want to try this sometime. The kindly coffee lady at the downtown Farmers Market to whom I told this story said be thankful it's not pantyhose. I dunno about that. I've never encountered pantyhose equipped with a central top button although it is true that my acquaintance of late has been limited.

A helpful friend tied my bootlaces in a permanent loose fashion. A pair of vice grips gave assistance in pulling them on. Crucible tongs gave extra reach to the washcloth. Canned milk was opened by perching a pointed butcher knife upright on the can with its handle nestled into a corner of the kitchen cabinet, then hitting the handle with a hammer left-handed.

The days of uselessness and one fingered left hand peck typing grew mighty tiring. I cleaned house left handedly, organized the jewelry bench, tried to manipulate a file and the saw. Ouch. That was laughable. Helpful friends brought by cooked food. After a few days I was able again to walk the riverbank, pausing en route to have a friend retie my shoes. But it was wearing.

And then one day, maybe two weeks after, sitting down at the bench, with the jeweler's saw in the right hand and rocking from the hip to give it motion, I did this. A single saw cut on the right of a bezel to take a carved rose quartz. A bit painful and only an inch long but there it was. A week before I couldn't have done it. It was a neat feeling: yes it's going to work again, yes it is. Mutely I intoned all the usual caveats, lord willing, salt over shoulder, don't count the chickens. While yet some way from making a living again - still - there was my saw cut. Yeah. There it was.