Cast System

Last week, I broke my wrist. This has had no impact on me at work because... that's right... I use NaturallySpeaking. It has however had an interesting effect on my daily life as I make my way through the world.

I broke my left wrist. My left side is my partially paralyzed "affected" side. Now that I'm sporting a cast on that arm, I've nearly been able to rejoin the ranks of the normal. No longer am I a lurching freak with a spastic Dr. Strangelove arm. I'm merely somebody, possibly athletic, who might have taken a bad spill. Somebody who has banged up their arm and maybe their hip or their knee. Perhaps I landed badly off the last mogul or endoed over the handlebars of my mountain bike. Anyway, now people just smile and say "ouch" or "That happened to me last year" or some other jovial comment. I can just smile and nod. I don't have to decide, as I have over the last 12 years, how much to tell them about what exactly is wrong with me.

Telling people about what went wrong has always been a dilemma. Immediately after my brain hemorrhage, I told everybody, everything, at length, whether or not they were really interested in hearing it. I was the star of my little movie about "what happened to me." Irritatingly, because my brain decided to blow up in the middle of the night, I slept through my big life and death scene. Not exactly movie of the week material.

After having to listen to myself repeat this anti-climatic story time and time again, I became increasingly bored with the truth and decided to move on to lying. Soon I was telling strangers exciting tales of horrific traffic accidents or gunshot wounds to the head. While it was certainly more fun to cast myself as victim or hero, I decided I needed to stop because:

a) People seemed generally concerned and I started to feel bad
b) Karma... I didn't want to really be shot in the head.

But now, like the alien Superman putting on glasses and transforming himself into that regular guy - Clark Kent... I too can pass...

I have a CAST!

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