The One Armed Man

When I was four I was bouncing on my parents bed and I decided it'd be a good idea if instead of landing on the bed again with my feet it would be a better idea if I landed on the floor arm first.

Probably not my best decision ever.

No less, breaking your arm sucks. Especially when the doctor sets your broken bone incorrectly, leading you to a life with a "freaky elbow" as I so lovingly refer to it (or a permanently dislocated elbow as it really is). Really, besides the fact that it may have affected my ability to be a professional baseball player (that was the only roadblock really - seriously, you may have been reading about me throwing a no-hitter right now if it weren't for that doctor) it rarely ever bothered me. In fact, it always provided a bit of a fun conversation starter, and through the years I developed a series of entertaining examples to show what exactly was wrong with it.

In short, life gave me lemons, and I made some very delicious lemonade with them.

Granted at this point I do not throw a lot of things (I toss things, such as baseballs or footballs, from time to time, but rarely really throw them), so this never really seemed like it would be a problem for me ever again. Of course, occasionally life throws you curve balls. Or in my case, a curved distance driver.

I've developed a rather intense love for the sport of frisbee golf and over the years I've become fairly decent at it, able to throw hammer (overhead), backhand, and forehand very well and able to get good scores most any time. The only problem is I developed such an affinity for it that I feel the need to play most any chance I get, and yesterday I played 27 holes including 18 at Kincaid Park which is an extremely long course. I had to really bomb my throws and throw hammer style which I try not to do because it hurts my arm an extra large amount. My arm was quite mad at me, but it was cool because I shot a negative 2 from the pro tees and I survived.

No harm, no foul.

Today after work I was on my way home from getting comics and I thought "hmmm...going straight takes me to Westchester (frisbee golf course) and right takes me home...left it is!" I played nine holes, with my arm getting progressively worse each hole. Due to my horrible nature of being a completionist, I couldn't just quit, and afterwards my arm was hurting so bad I felt like getting sick and, even worse, I couldn't feel my fingers. Both rather new conditions, and rather concerning ones at that.

So that's that. Sometimes it takes something dire to make you realize things need to change (such as when my heart hurt from running in college, so I decided perhaps it was time to lose a few pounds) and this tells me that I need to cool it on my arm. I don't think I'll see a doctor because frankly I figure he'll recommend surgery and I can't have that, but I do know I need to tone it down on the frisbee golf for a while. When my arm hurts bad enough that I feel the need to take two of my hydrocodone from when I had my wisdom teeth removed, that's how you know it's in bad shape.

But I was in a wondrously goofy mood for two straight hours that led to me proposing roughly 27 fantasy baseball trades ranging from ludicrous to insane, so there is that. Hooray for silver linings!