Fallen

There are different types of falls and in my view the worst is the slip and fall. It comes out of nowhere and body slams you to the ground. That's the kind of fall I had two-and-a-half weeks ago and I broke my right shoulder doing it. I was on a stone terrace in the rain and my left crutch hit a patch of slime and that was it. A stupid, momentary dropping of my guard. The fall seemed accelerated somehow, as though I fell faster and harder than I would have if I'd jumped from a height as tall as I am. 

If I hadn't fallen I could be crutching down this path right now.

A new socket, rods, arm in a sling for who knows how long and pain, lots of pain. As my right leg was amputated in February in an attempt to halt the spread of bone cancer, I have to use a wheelchair to get around, which I do by dragging myself with my left leg. If you live in an oldish structure (mine's sixty-five) you realize that entry ways are small when you're on crutches and tiny when you're in a wheelchair.
Almost the worst thing about this is that the cancer scan I had two weeks before the fall blew negative. That meant I had nothing to do but eat, drink and be merry until the next one, in three months, began to loom. That would have been nice. Now? Nothing but pain and rehab.
And you wonder why this blog is called what it is.

Adult play

The Complete and Total Loser's home city newspaper has an article today about a woman the Loser met several years ago but hadn't heard about since. 

She is thirty-five years old and having a successful career in the arts. The article also talked about a fund-raising lacrosse tournament held in her name. The funds go to people who, like her, are disabled. 
What the article didn't describe was the accident that damaged her spine fifteen years ago when she was twenty and a college athlete. 
She was sledding in a park.
The Loser remembers that sort of thing from his own college years. Taking food trays from the dining hall and belly flopping on a nearby slope. He and other students got a rush from rediscovering a childhood thrill doing something they hadn't done for a decade. 
It turns out, though, that maybe sledding is best left to children, with their light bodies and rubbery spines. This woman took a bump too hard and landed wrong and now ... she'll be in a wheelchair forever.
Was the sledding that much fun? Probably not.