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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I'm cautiously optimistic. Why? Because I can now lift both arms in a circular motion, like I'm making a snow angel. For weeks, my right arm couldn't manage that, at least not without considerable pain.
It started more than a month ago. Before the big snowstorm. I was teaching Shiloh that "side" means "go to the side of the road." Pulled on the leash to reinforce the lesson. Not too hard. But once when I did this, the dog pulled the other way.
I'd like to think I was doing something important and sacrificial, like whisking him away from a whooshing-by car, but I don't remember the exact moment. Maybe I was just pulling him back from chasing a leaf. I have a vague memory of the street: Neptune or Starling, planet or bird. Anyway, he pulled when I pulled, and his resistance wrenched the muscles and tendons and whatnot of my upper arm and shoulder.
The strain remained. Past the snowstorm, past when my other snow-scooping aches faded. I couldn't feel it all the time, but it hurt when I lay down sometimes, when I tried to reach up high or diagonally to my left side. That's why I didn't want to do a spin in my dance at the end of the Pirates of Penzance play. My spin was: I thought someone else was spinning. They're better at it. But that didn't hurt too much.
It was the doctor who proved a problem, through no fault of her own. She's moving or retiring in July. I called her office too late: no appointments left. Then, the website that's supposed to help me find a clinic turned up nothing, partly because it thinks I still have a "family" doctor.
So I'm glad the arm injury seems to be finally healing. You never know what will and what won't. And it was anxiety-producing, not knowing if or how I could help it heal. Rest or resist? That is, immobilize the area or deliberately push at the limits of my motions, like the physio exercises for Dad's "frozen shoulder"?
A clinic receptionist on the phone: hmm, you might not need physio at all. You might just need a cortisone shot. It shouldn't be too hard to get. Did you get an X-ray? Not yet? Did you try calling 811?
(I did, and they directed me to your clinic, good sir, where I can't get an appointment except through a website that's not letting me book. But you were sympathetic and shared my frustration at the lacunae of Quebec's health care system.)
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