Battling Concrete

This post also has some injury photos, though less severe than the last one. Still, in case someone glancing through my feed has issues with blood, I'll make sure the first few photos in here are of bike-related t-shirts I've seen at the thrift store. Really, this whole post is a bit mood whiplash-y so you should probably sit down and keep your hands and legs inside the vehicle--this summer roller coaster is on it's way.

Places you'd probably rather drive...

That seems like a pretty harsh exchange rate

OK. So we've already talked about how I spent the end of May. Well, let's fast forward to the end of June.

Last year I was really good about biking to and from the thrift store all summer, but this year I'd been a little lazy-- and then I'd cut my finger open (you wouldn't think that would cause a problem with biking but, oh, it does) --so I hadn't really pulled out my bike yet this year. But then my car had a problem with one of the wheels, so I decided to bike until I had a chance to get it fixed. This required replacing a flat on my bike and some other tune-ups, but finally my bike was in working order and I was ready to bike to work.

Except-- I wasn't in the habit of waking up early enough to bike, so I ended up running a bit late and booking it as fast as I could go.

Which meant that I didn't notice after one turn that, instead of straightening out my handlebars, I'd turned them around 180 degrees. Meaning that the next turn had the breaks tangled up around the wheel.

 I didn't know any of that; all I knew was that suddenly my bike stopped moving--but I didn't.

Take it from me, this is terrible advice

Yeah. I kind of hit the curb.
With my face.

For a minute, I just lay on the ground, stunned. My mouth hurt and I was terrified I'd knocked out a tooth. I was bleeding all over and shaking, and my brain couldn't seem to figure out how to get me off the ground.
Luckily I was in a bike lane-- so there wasn't a lot of danger of getting hit by a car. And as usual, I was wearing my helmet.
After I'd been lying there a minute, a car pulled over and a couple got out to see if they could help. They actually offered to call an ambulance but, after a moment to calm down, I didn't think that was necessary-- not when my parents were home and living less than five minutes away. I saw that my phone had landed nearby but I couldn't quite manage to make my hands pick it up, so I asked them to call home for me.
I overheard the man's side of the conversation.
"Hi, your daughter's been in an accident. We're at the corner of _______, can you come get her?" Then he hung up.
I did have the presence of mind to realize that this was not quite enough information.
It definitely wasn't-- my parents thought I'd gotten hit by a car. My Dad took off so fast he forgot to close the garage door behind him-- I think he must have been pretty relieved to reach the intersection and see me sitting up and waving sheepishly at him while the kind (if perhaps communication challenged) couple helped pour water over my hands to clean out some of the worst of the gravel.

Incidentally, my bike wasn't damaged in all this. Yay.

Between the couple and my Dad, they managed to pick me up off the ground and put my bike in the back of the car. I could walk fine, but I realized that something was wrong with my left hand-- other than the bleeding-- because it hurt too much to open the car door.

You should see the other guy...

Anyway, after taking me home and getting me an ice pack, my parents decided to take me to the ER. Again. For the second time in roughly a month. By this point, while I was hurting a lot I felt pretty foolish-- but we wanted to check I hadn't broken something in my hand. That worried me a lot, actually-- since I play so many string instruments, an injury to my left hand could be much more problematic than one to my right.

Anyway, at the ER we were able to properly survey all the damage. I had road rash on one knee, both of my arms, my knuckles, the palm of my left hand, and my face. I'd managed to bite the inside of one lip deep enough to leave a dent. I chipped one of my front teeth-- but just a small chip, and otherwise the teeth were fine. As for my wrist-- the x-rays couldn't find anything. In retrospect I might have had a hairline fracture in one of the bones of my hand, but for all intents and purposes my wrist was just sprained. I looked like a mess, but I actually got off pretty light, all things considered. 

Fixed it

The whole thing was probably weirder for the nurse who helped me disinfect and bandage all of my road rash, actually. Back when I was a kid, I started singing "ow" to the tune of Ode to Joy when something was hurting because it made me feel a little better. (And you all wonder why I ended up going into music therapy...) Well, I ended up taking a similar tactic, singing my way through the very painful process of getting all the dirt and gravel out of my cuts. My parents started giving me requests for what songs I should do, and at one point the nurse said, "This is the strangest reaction to getting bandaged I've ever seen."

So. Anyway. I stayed home from the thrift store for a while because there is only so much you can do to move clothes around when you can't do anything with your left wrist and you're covered in enough bandages to consider dressing up like a mummy. The reactions when I went to church the next day were, ah, dramatic.

 And, well-- that was my second ER trip of the summer. I've healed pretty well; I'm still building the strength back up in my wrist but it's doing much better. I've got some lingering scars on my hands, elbow, chin, and upper lip that turn funny colors when I get cold, but otherwise I'm back to normal.


These two injury-- adventures, both at the ends of the month, made me a little wary for the end of July. I didn't get injured, though in a kind of bitter irony my grandfather passed away at the end of July.
That was... hard, but not as much as it could have been? He was 97, and his health had been declining for a while; it was definitely his time. And I've been very at peace about it; I know the plan of salvation, I know that he's with his wife and his family now and that I'll see him again. And I did get to say goodbye-- about a week before he died, when it was clear he didn't have long, those of us who could came to talk to him one last time. I didn't really know what to say, but the words of an old jazz standard came to mind so I sang it to him.

I'll be loving you, always

With a love that's true, always

When the things you've planned

Need a helping hand

I will understand, always

Always

Days may not be fair, always

That's when I'll be there, always

Not for just an hour,

Not for just a day,

Not for just a year, but

Always

 I told him I loved him and kissed him on the forehead, and he told me he loved me. And that was the last time I saw him alive. And it was hard, but I'm so grateful I had that chance to say goodbye. My grandfather was a wonderful man, and I'm glad that there's a few times towards the end when I was able to use my music to bring him some joy and some peace.

And, well, now it's the end of August. And I had a coworker at the thrift store pass away unexpectedly last week-- it's getting to where I have a bit of a complex about getting to the end of a month. Guys, this summer has been doing it's level best to eat me alive.

There's good news heading into fall, though. I've found some more clients for my business, and the orchestra teaching program is having me do twice as many classes this year-- which, after some math, led to an amazing realization.

I can quit my job at the thrift store.

Don't get me wrong, that job has been good to me-- I've made friends there, and they were incredibly willing to work with me when I had weird scheduling because of my business. But-- I've been so desperate to get out of there and do the work that I, you know, went to college to learn how to do, to be doing more than a minimum wage job I could have done in high school, to do the work that I love and that I've tried so hard to make possible.

And starting in October, it will be. I'll be able to make enough income to get by just by doing music classes and music therapy; just doing the things that I love. It still doesn't feel real. 

Of course, I still have September at the thrift store, and it'll take me a while to get through all the photos of weird items and funny t-shirts, so you'll see plenty of that. There's one more thing about working at a thrift store in September, though--Halloween starts early.

My sister keeps reminding me that I said I'd never do the costume challenge again. But, uh, look, I might have an addiction to costumes now. Seriously, I'm actually kind of sad about leaving the thrift store before October.

It definitely will be less costumes than last year; I only have the month of September to dress up (plus a couple of off-season costumes I'll share next time), and several of those days need to be simple costumes that won't be a problem for going to do music therapy stuff afterward. So it'll be something like 24 costumes total? 23? 

My only rule this year is no repeats. I'm going to be ignoring most of the suggested theme days this year (which are actually kind of lackluster this year; the management completely forgot to do them until I asked about it) so this'll just be whatever I think sounds like fun and that I have the stuff for (or can beg, borrow, or steal).

So, on this last day of August-- here's hoping for a good Autumn. Wish me luck. 

Tears, Sweat, and Blood--South Jordan Summerfest, Round Two

Warning: this post has injury photos. I don't think it's too gruesome, but read at your discretion. In the meantime, have a photo of a fish tank since the first photo in any given post ends up in my Facebook feed: 

Yay Loveland Living Planet Aquarium!

Alright, we're down to people who won't faint at the sight of blood? (Or kind people who will read out loud to people who don't want to look at blood?) Stellar. 

Long time readers may remember that the Summerfest is a local event with carnival rides, vintage cars, other activities--and reasonably priced vendor tables. Last year I set up a children's instrument craft as a way to get to talk to people about my business. Which was insane, crazy busy last year--and kind of disappointing when none of the people I spoke to who seemed interested ever followed through. That being said, Summerfest last year did lead indirectly to a couple of the clients I've had, so I decided it was worth another try.

I did decide to change up the crafts a little, though, for variety's sake. I found instructions for drums made of a tin can, a balloon, and some rubber bands-- cheap and relatively easy to make, perfect for the purpose. So for the last few weeks of May I started collecting all the tin cans I could get my hands on. I may or may not have cooked my family an unusually high number of soups and bean-based dishes in order to get as many cans as I could.

The trouble started when I was washing one of these cans out one evening-- and my finger caught a jagged edge on the inside of the can left behind by the can openers. And the point just bit right in.

I immediately went to the sink to rinse out the little cut, then went in search of a band-aid. But the thing is that my finger just kept bleeding. I was leaving a trail of blood all over the house (we had finished off the box of band-aids in one cabinet and it took me a minute to find some in a different one), and quickly bleeding through the kleenexes I held over the injury. Finally I got a band-aid on and was able to wrap my finger tightly enough to get the bleeding under control. And then I cleaned up all the blood.

My Mom got home somewhere around this time. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself; my finger kept throbbing and getting sharp, stabbing feelings, like there was still a little knife caught in the wound. Mom recommended I put on some neosporin then go to the Instacare in the morning. So I took the band-aid off, and immediately began to bleed everywhere again. Now Mom was a bit more concerned. So I wrapped my finger up again and we went to the ER.

At the ER, they kindly gave me some pads to bleed onto while I was waiting for someone to look at the injury. It was a small cut, really-- but very deep. After poking around (and having to give me two shots of the numbing agent), the doctor told me that I'd managed to damage the nerve in my fingertip-- and that I'd probably have a cold spot in my finger for a while. That could last a few months-- or for the rest of my life. (I don't have a cold spot, though, just a patch that's very tender and sensitive even now that I'm writing this over two months later). Anyway, I ended up spending midnight in the ER getting four stitches on my right middle finger. 

If you've never gotten stitches before, it's a pretty strange experience. They numb you up so it doesn't hurt too much (except when they hit that damaged nerve and realize you need a whole second needle of numbing stuff-- not a great day to be afraid of needles), but you feel like a marionette having someone run strings through you like that. I couldn't handle watching the stitches, but I did think the end result looked pretty impressively Frankenstein's monster-esque.

They bandaged my finger up and gave me an aluminum "fingertip" to protect the stitches while they healed. Now, I had mentioned by now that I was a music therapist, and that this would be print a bit of a cramp on my guitar playing--but not nearly as bad as it would be if I'd cut a finger on my left hand, thank heavens. So when I got the aluminum fingertip, the ER doctor became the first of many, many people to jokingly suggest I use the fingertip as a guitar pick.

Let me be clear--it is completely the wrong shape and material for a guitar pick.

Here, instead, is a list of legitimate uses for aluminum fingertips:

-protecting your finger

-drum mallet

-making every hand gesture look like a rude one

-jabbing out the eye of a would be attacker

-excuse to get out of anything-- "Oh, I'd love to help you shave your cats, Ethel, but as you can see I'm still recovering from a severe injury, so..."

-an awkward but effective back scratcher

-sewing thimble
-collecting surprising quantities of finger sweat


Anyway. After my injury, I couldn't do much with my right hand for a few days, and had to take plenty of pain medicine--funny how such a little injury can hurt so much! I ended up missing almost a week of work at the thrift store. And, since this was the week of the Summerfest, I got to drag my Dad and brother around to do all the heavy lifting, and spent the day shaking hands with people and then explain my injury to them.
On the other hand, it did make set up a little easier that I didn't go in to the thrift store that morning. But-- it is a bit of a challenge to stand in the hot sunlight and act cheerful when your finger feels like it's still being stabbed and is covered in enough bandages to make a small tourniquet.


Summerfest did end up being fun, though. I took a break to visit the petting zoo--which had. a. baby. zebra. Which I failed to get a photo of-- what can I say, I've been off my blogging game-- and the tin can drums ended up being a huge hit. We were a lot less busy then last year--they had us in a more out of the way location, which hurt our numbers, and this year we had less families and more unsupervised kids coming by. Even do, you I was able to talk to some people who seemed interested--nothing's come of it yet except some newsletter subscriptions, but at least it's *something*.

It's not even close to an even return--because let me tell you, the ER visit cost me about five times as much as everything I spent on Summerfest combined. Still, you can't say I'm not putting everything I've got into this business. Sweat, tears, and now blood--let's hope the list of bodily fluids ends there.

Also, I'm asking for one of those really nice can openers that don't leave sharp edges behind for Christmas.