Monday

The poet was in a car accident last week and is now (temporarily) without the use of his right arm. I am completely freaked out because based on the pictures I've seen, he's lucky to be alive. Lucky to even HAVE an arm. dumptruck! kablam! dead! is how it could've been and it's so easy to forget how quickly everything can change, and then when you're forcibly reminded of the fact, it's HARD to forget how quickly everything can change. We're all just a missed stairstep or a missed redlight or a nasty bacterium away from dead, disabled, or brain damaged, or if we're really lucky, merely - merely! - in excruciating pain from a crushed & burnt & bruised arm & shoulder.

Never forget we are all only temporarily able-bodied. Sooner or later something is gonna quit working.

Point: I'd make a terrible nurse. When someone is in pain and I can't fix it I grow faint & nauseous or I get wound up & start pacing & twittering, and then if I get snapped at, I snap back, also I need more than 2 hours of sleep in a row to be a nice person, so I can, you know, go do what needs doing, but I'm not so good at the warm & friendly bedside manner part of the job. Not that I ever considered being a nurse, but still, it's confirmation that medicine was definitely not a career path for me.

Point: the medical industry is not patient-friendly. The ER sent him home with grit in his tore-up arm. Nobody referred him to a burn specialist til almost a week after the accident. I had to make a seriously pain-in-the-ass nuisance of myself at the bone doctor to get the doctor into the room a mere FORTY-FIVE MINUTES after the time of the appointment. The bone doctor's nurse handed a man with a completely non-functioning right arm a giant stack of papers to fill out. He's right handed, naturally. And the papers asked the same questions over, and over, and over.

Point: somebody needs to get on with it and develop beam-me-up technology because it's a long way to Pensacola from here.