My wife got her “cast” yesterday. That’s what the doctor calls it, but it’s nothing like the white plaster creation that the whole class signed when Kenny Potts broke his arm in first grade,* or like I wore on my leg all through my freshman year of high school after pulling a Theismann at soccer practice. These new casts are high-tech splinty things with all kinds of elastic and Velcro and little strategically placed padded-but-firm bumps that allow her to move her fingers in the ways she’s allowed to move them but not in the ways she isn’t.
She also had her first therapy session, during which the doctor gave her padded-but-firm instructions about what she can and mustn’t do with her arm over the next three-to-six weeks. (Those instructions were basically a more articulate version of the same thing her arm has been screaming at her for the past month.) And she’s got a set of gentle exercises she’s supposed to do to strengthen the other muscles in that arm around the torn tendons.
All of which is to say, again, thank you to everyone who generously shared with us, making it possible for the Slackivixen to stay home and focus on getting better. That means a great deal to all of us.
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* Kenny broke his arm jumping off a swing. This initially made him a cautionary tale for all parents of first-graders in our town. “Don’t jump off the swing or you’ll break your arm like Kenny Potts.”
But then things escalated.
Our classmate Kathy jumped off a swing to show a friend what happened to Kenny, and Kathy wound up breaking her arm too. Then some second-grader broke his arm when he tried to show his friends what Kenny and Kathy did. It spread like a contagion with cuts and bruises and concussions all over John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary, and somehow the way the grown-ups talked about it made it sound like it was all poor Kenny’s fault — like he’d started this all deliberately. There was talk of banning swings. There was talk of banning Kenny.
What those grown-ups didn’t know — or maybe they did — was that for every kid who got hurt attempting the Kenny Potts maneuver, there were a dozen others who who were inspired to fly like Kenny and did so without injury. Pump the swing as high as you dared and then launch yourself into the air. It was exhilarating. So, on the odd chance that you’re out there Kenny and somehow stumble across this post, thank you for that. I hope you’re doing well and that the notoriety of being a first-grade daredevil didn’t drag you down.
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