Today was the first clear day we have had in quite some time. The first day of warmer temperatures expected through the weekend. It was also the first day of visits by my wife to see doctors about her arm. What’s wrong with her arm? Well, at daybreak she stepped onto some black ice while walking the dog, slipped and fell onto her left hand, twisting her left wrist into a rather unnatural position and causing a lot of pain. So, as soon as the teens were off to school we dropped in on our friendly neighborhood medical team at Saint Mary’s Hospital to see what was wrong.
The short of it is that she shattered her radius bone at the wrist and will need surgery to correct the issue. The long of it was a variety of nurses (Joy lived up to her name), a very pleasant ER Doc by the name of Nast, a parade of x-ray technicians, medical students and interns, and last of all, a very pleasant Orthopaedist by the name of Capelle (Like Dave Chapelle, but without the H) who snipped off the splint applied by the aforementioned crew and put an entirely new one on (the first failed to immobilize the elbow which could cause the wrist bones to get out of alignment). He gave me the third degree when he first came in (Yep, I am the husband), asked my wife what happened (he may have thought I was the cause of the injury), and once he was satisfied with all the answers, proceeded to do his thing. Part of the forming of the cast he made was placing her wrist on his knee and pushing on the part of the cast that covered her hand in order to put a slight bend in it..
“Is it hurting a lot?” he inquired in a friendly way as he tortured her.
“Not as much as childbirth.” she replied.
Now my wife, you must understand is not a complainer. She is the stuff of which America was built, and had we been a pioneer family, she would have had a baby on one hip, a frying pan in the other, fixing dinner and every so often setting the baby down to reload one of my rifles for me while I was shooting out the window at the hoard of hostile natives objecting to us invading their land. But, since I don’t have any guns, and am open to negotiations with any hostiles I encounter, she mostly works, cooks, cleans and cares for her family of 7 children, the 2 spouses of said, and the 5 grandchildren of those who have spouses. She doesn’t ever swear, even under duress, and never threatens people with violence. You can, of course, see why I’ve kept her these 38 years, 6 months and 15 days, and why I’d like to have her around for many more.
We returned home about 4:00 pm, just in time for me to fix us some dinner and then dash to Rebecca’s school to pick her up, drop into my studio to grab my camera bag and head to Forest Park. The traffic was infuriating and insufferable, but once I was there in the park, the tensions of the day started to drain away and the joy of the photo hunt returned.
The Vandeventer Place Gates is all that remains of the Fin de siècle private neighborhood.