In my defense

In my defense, I drew the last cartoon when Angie and I both thought that her fall on Saturday was nothing more than a bruise. Had I known that she had ripped her tendon off of her broken shoulder, I probably still would have laughed, but I might have toned down the finger pointing and the belly clutching. And I definitely would have waited, like a day, maybe even two, before publishing the cartoon.

On Monday, we knew something was strange when she still couldn't raise her arm higher than her waist - and trust me, we know strange. Angie finally agreed to go to see a doctor, who gave her his highly professional medical opinion.

'Of course it hurts - you fell on it.'

Oh, if only the doctor had ever met Angie before. It didn't take long before the doctor reassessed his initial diagnosis and ordered an X-ray.

'Okay, there is a piece that's broken off and it's the part where your tendon is attached to the shoulder, so I can understand why it is so painful.'

After more than a decade of pure bliss, I can testify that Angie just loves to be right. Even with the immense pain, I'm quite sure that she was grinning like the village Trump as the doctor was busy back-pedaling. All that fun came to a halt, though, when he explained that she would need to have an MRI to see if she would need an operation. Until the MRI, she had to wrap herself like a mummy in an upper body brace.

And that brings us to today. Angie has problems driving with two hands and I value the lives of pedestrians, so I volunteered to drive her to the clinic. After four hours of tests and waiting rooms, we finally got to the see THE DOCTOR. Yes, I'm pretty sure after all the waiting that they only have one.

The doctor whisked in, picked up the chart and plopped down in his chair.

'So, does it still hurt?'

'Yes.'

'Of course it hurts - you fell on it.'

I shit you not, I thought Angie was going to try her damnedest to beat the doctor with her left hand. Either the doctor has a sense of humor, which would be odd because he is German, or he saw 'the look' in Angie's eyes. Either way, he chimed in again before Angie could figure out how to unravel herself.

'Just kidding. Let's look at the MRI results.'

In the end, the news was, mmmhh... let's just call it mixed.

• The tendon did not retract from the shoulder, so no surgery is needed. Yeah!
• Angie can go back to work tomorrow. I had somehow chalked this up to the negative side, but apparently she's one of those people that actually enjoys working.
• She cannot drive. For the sake of pedestrians everywhere, I saw this as a positive thing, but Angie has a 'thing' about using public transportation.
• She gets to continue sporting the arm thong for the next 9 weeks. I think you know both my view and Angie's view on how to tally this one.
• Starting next week, she starts physical therapy so that in 10 weeks she can start working out again. When the doctor explained this, Angie actually laughed out loud. So yeah, I think it's safer to say that in 10 weeks, Angie could theoretically start working out. Strike 'again' and emphasize 'start'.

When we got home, Angie was still feeling sorry for herself. Simba, our extremely bizarre cat, who  normally would have seized this opportunity to console her by peeing on her head or using her leg as a scratching post, decided for a change to afford Angie the distinct honor of snuggling with him.

Yes, fine - I was jealous. In my defense, though, I was able to control my green streak by reminding myself that this day was all about Angie falling out of a trashcan and not about me.

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Ladder Talk: (I'm writing again, so back off on the fact that I forgot to do Ladder Talk tonight!)
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: ZZZZzzzz....
David: ZZZZzzzz....
Tom: ZZZZzzzz....

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: ZZZZzzzz....
David: ZZZZzzzz....
Tom: ZZZZzzzz....

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: ZZZZzzzz....
David: ZZZZzzzz....
Tom: ZZZZzzzz....