...of no bad things happening to me, that is? Even though everything ELSE seems to be going fine and dandy, I suspect this does. Oh well, I guess I was due for some kinda shit to happen ASAP, right?

On Thursday night, I was rushing to catch the bus and tripped and fell down.

Owwww.

As per usual when I fall down, I have a lovely bruise on my left knee. But the other injuries are worse.

I think I managed to sprain my thumb somehow, for one thing. It's been kind of stiff and swollen up. Ditto my pinky finger, which I lost feeling in for an hour or so after falling down and is still obviously swollen. But if one sprains their thumb, what are you going to do about it? You can't just like, NOT use your thumb. Especially if it's on the dominant hand. So I keep using it, but picking shit up (say, my purse), or putting on clothes, or using the trackball at work, are not fun and happy experiences. And yet oddly enough, I can still knit painlessly. Go figure.

But what might be the real problem is... I think I managed to crack a rib. Of all things.

I keep checking myself for a massively ugly bruise on my side, but there still isn't any. I can still breathe and whatnot and it doesn't hurt too much to laugh/sneeze/etc. But my side has NOT stopped hurting when I have to bend over, or pick up a bag (which was real fun since I went home this weekend for a few events), or moving a fair amount of the time. If it was just a fall, I think the thumb and the side issues would have gone away by now.

I debated if it was worth it to sit in the ER for twelve hours this weekend to get the thumb and side checked out, and eventually decided that no, what were they going to be able to do for me anyway? Especially since rib fractures may not even show up on an X-ray. Apparently all they'd do is tell me to take OTC pain meds. (And so far, Advil no workey, so I doubt I'd go that route.)

But still...it's irritating. I've hardly been to the gym for like 2 months (or so it feels like, anyway), and now I'm wondering if I'm just going to have to SIT AND DO NOTHING for 6-8 weeks. I don't like that option. Especially since the next few weeks are when I'd have more time to actually GO.

I THINK I could still use the machines. Not a lot of rib action needed to do that. Dancing, on the other hand...maybe not so much. I have dance class tonight and I already think attending it is going to be iffy at best. I think if I take it easy on the stretching I'd probably be all right, but doing fast dance moves...may not work so well. Or at all. And this week is the last week of hip-hop and dance fusion classes and the next-to-last-week of my regular dance class being held on weeknights, too. This is really frustrating. I suspect I may have to drop out of dance classes. For 6-8 FUCKING WEEKS.

Grrrr.

But something happy did go on last week: they are starting up another caretakers' support group at work! They hired a new chick who specializes in eldercare issues (and has to take care of her parents), and I had my screening meeting with her today.

It was great. She may be even better than my previous beloved shrink.

She talks very fast. It's kind of funny that I thought that, considering that most people complain that I talk too fast, but I think she outstripped me. I think it's because she's from back East (guessing the infamous NYC?).

Anyway, she's in a caretaker situation herself, so I think that helps a lot. She said she also had to be the caretaker for her mother-in-law, but that was out of sheer obligation and she was relieved when the MIL died. So she understands ENTIRELY what it's like to be caretaking when your relationship with the person has well, died off long before they did. Plus, she dropped the F-bomb at one point. That was great.

She loved that I was blunt (then again, so's she.) Shrinks seem to really like this! Maybe because it doesn't take a year to get me to spit out stuff like, "Hello, my name is Mr. Lewis, I am very angry with my father." Instead, they can figure it out within five minutes.

She pretty much pegged me: pissed off, feeling cheated out of my 20's because I got to spend much of them acting like a 45-year-old woman who gets to treat her parents as her kids, mad that the nightmare hasn't ended YET, etc., etc. And she said that what my goal should be is to get to a calm and accepting point, because only then am I going to stop being pissed off and start feeling compassionate.

That's a good point there.

She suggested that I try to stay calm and remote when visiting Dad, instead of sitting there beating myself up for behaving badly. Unfortunately that didn't work so well- or at ALL- upon trying it this weekend. I hate being forced to go up close and stare at him right in the eyes, as he's um...not so much focusing or looking back, just staring at the ceiling and doing tongue undulations.

Argh.

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