West of Mars

Sounds like something I’d put in my fiction, doesn’t it? Maybe a name for a new band? Laundry Basket Attacks.

It’s not. It’s real life.

It began a week ago. I’d gotten out of the shower, thrown on some older clothes I can wear to the animal shelter and get dirty while I play with the kitties, and then I went and did it.

I walked into my laundry room.

It’s not a huge room. Because of that, once I take the clothes out of the dryer, I slide the now-full basket along the floor, so it’s between me and the door.

Don’t do this. Don’t let an Attack Basket block your only means of escape.

When I’d partially dislocated my elbow almost a year ago, I got into the habit of kicking that evil thing down the hall. But that was almost a year ago, and kicking laundry baskets, even empty ones, is hard on the busted-up cartilage in my foot, not to mention the toll it takes on my bad hip.

So I bent over to pick up the basket. Didja catch that reference to my hip? That means I know how to bend and lift properly.

Didn’t matter last week. As soon as I wrapped my fingers around the Attack Basket’s handles, I was sunk. I actually screamed, me who’s had kidney stones, two natural childbirths, and who spent three months walking around with a rib out of joint.

And yet despite pain that had me screaming, I stretched out in bed with Only, Lonely Cat and thought that once the spasm subsided, I’d go play with the kitties at the shelter after all.

Yeah. Here we are, eight days later, and I’m still waiting for that initial spasm to subside. Oh, I went to my masseur on Friday and had him agree with my diagnosis: I’d managed to dislocate the left side of my pelvis, an area called the Sacroiliac Crest. He put it back in and warned me that the spams would get stuck in my shoulder and neck as they relaxed.

They’re still doing that, too.

Getting my medicine (muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory) was a drama of epic proportions. First the message to deliver it had been lost, somewhere between when I watched my doctor write it on the prescription form and when the medicine wound up in the Will Pick Up pile. Then came the mistake made with the credit card on file.

I just got the medicine last night. It should have been here Monday. And throwing a monkey wrench into life is the fact that tomorrow, I’m headed out to our first Boy Scout campout. (Yes, I’m bringing the Boy Band and no, he’s not going to take care of me. He’s doing his thing and I get to sit and chill and just be outside, which you all know is one of my favorite things to do. If he and I don’t talk all weekend, it’ll be a good one.)

Would you believe this is only part of the saga? That I went to the Hoity Toity Health Club on Sunday and got some relief from biking five and a half miles? (A light ride for me these days) And that I then ruined it by spending an hour sitting in the bleachers at The Boy Band’s soccer game, and then — this is where I really did myself in — THREE hours at Panera, talking about a writer’s conference I’m helping organize. That the doctor told me my diagnosis was right, that my choices of medicine were right, and even my instinct to exercise was right. I know what to do, how to handle this stuff. But circumstances didn’t let me, as always seems to be the case.

That’s the story. Pass it along. And get ready to make this place hop while I’m off in the wilds of this particular Boy Scout camp we’re headed to. I’ll open the Weekend Hangout like usual — so if you haven’t left a comment yet, you’ll want to do that now.

Beware of laundry baskets, gang.