Summer 2024 has been … interesting. I fractured my clavicle on my dominant arm Memorial Day weekend, and in the context of owning, operating, and cooking for a coffee shop in a touristy coastal Maine town, this scenario was less than ideal.
I chronicled my progress week by week, largely in hopes of minimizing my own profound frustration at all the things that I could not do, so that I could then look back and recognize that there was, over the course of the ensuing weeks, forward progress.
I moved from needing help to get dressed and pee, to being able to put on a button-down shirt by myself. I moved from insomnia induced by being restricted to only sleeping on my back, to adjusting and finding some hours of rest. I moved from having to coach my husband through baking a batch of scones to being able to crack eggs successfully and roll out dough with my left hand. Speaking of that left hand, I learned to print with a reasonable degree of legibility, even at a moderate pace.
But there were still the ongoing frustrations. One-armed vacuuming would lead to increased contralateral pain for two days after. Sitting on a day-long zoom call, typing with one hand, would lead to trapezius spasms that were more painful than the original fracture. Walking outdoors was intimidating because I had become so apprehensive about falling. I couldn’t bond with my dogs because any rambunctiousness on their parts could lead to further injury, even risking a need for surgical repair.
Good days, and less than good days. The journey back to bony union, back to wellness, has been non-linear. There have been loud echoes of my journey to become and remain alcohol-free.
I returned to the one tool that I know serves me best in this circumstance of forward-then-backward: gratitude. And yes, I spend time resenting the simplicity of this tool as well. This, AGAIN???, I find myself saying. But then I do it: five things I’m grateful for right here, right now, right in this moment. And breathe. This tool, gratitude, is ridiculous in its simplicity. Which is why it feels so ridiculous to practice. But damn it all to hell: it works.
Why does it work? I’m tricking my brain. That’s it. My brain’s bias is always to see the negative first, and in bold crisp color, so as to point it out to my awareness and thereby keep me safe. My brain will likely never be inclined to see the positive first, so I need to trick it and bring that positive into the foreground. This positive awareness has physiologic consequences, too, resulting in my whole system doing a re-boot in that moment that I’m listing off five things for which I am grateful. It’s a magic trick. And who knows what consequence there might be to something as cellular as osteoblast activity?
I had an orthopedics visit the other day, 19 weeks post-fracture. I was hoping that my x-ray would deem this my final visit, but instead it revealed a small area of persistent lucency. So, one more visit ahead. The lucency reminds me again that nothing about any journey toward wellness is quick, nor is it entirely in my control. But all of the basic tools are still needed. Today, I can make two-armed omelets, I can walk a dog, I can put on a shirt over my head.
I couldn’t do any of those things 19 weeks ago.
I am grateful.
Jenie
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