Smrt Lernins

Let me tell you about Officer Daddyman’s cast and two slings.

Earlier in the week, Daddyman hurt his shoulder while exercising. He’d probably irritated it a few days before then, but he really did on a number on it Wednesday night. That’s the same day that Babypie came down with the Death Cold. On Wednesday night, I came down with the Death Cold, and was sick throughout Thursday, the day that Daddyman went to the doctor and was told he had a torn or pulled tendon in his shoulder. He was ordered to two weeks of PT.

Since Officer Daddyman is a police officer, he kind of needs two arms to do his job, so this was already pretty stressful for him. The shoulder would not, however, be the low point of Daddyman’s no good, very bad week.

No, the low point was yesterday, when I left the kids with him for an hour to go run some errands. While browsing the aisle at Target, I received a call from Daddyman, saying that I probably needed to come home and take him to the urgent care, because he’s pretty sure he just broke his hand and he can’t drive himself. Apparently, Babypie had knocked or pulled over some part of the Wii equipment and Daddyman did a poorly-planted “take a knee” to catch it, favoring his right side to avoid hurting his shoulder further. His hand hit the floor at just the wrong angle with all of his body weight on top of it, fracturing the fifth metacarpal. He’s in a splint-cast thingy and has to go see an orthopaedist on Monday to find out whether the (rather inept) urgent care doctor was right when he said the bone might need a pin.

The long and short of it is that Officer Daddyman now has NO good arms. He has limited arm mobility on the bad shoulder side, but no shoulder mobility. He has shoulder mobility on the broken arm side, but no arm/hand mobility. He can feed himself, though he wasn’t too great with the grapefruit, and he managed to do a little on the computer with his left hand on the mouse, which means he will hopefully be able to return to work after the ortho checks him out. He’ll quite obviously be on light duty for several weeks, so he’ll probably be stuck on PDO (the desk), and he won’t be able to do his part-time work, which is something of a financial blow. I’m really glad I’m going to be watching his co-worker’s child, because that’ll mean we won’t actually be making less money. *phew* So relieved that’s lined up!

Anyway, send some love and/or prayers and/or positive thoughts and/or sympathy Officer Daddyman’s way, because it sucks to have two arms in slings.

Today, I hurt myself homeschooling.

Yes, seriously.

Technically, I sustained my injury while doing some reorganizing of Captain Science’s binders and our mutual workspace. Unbeknownst to me, the Tank had taken a pair of scissors to the metal coil on the back of one of Captain Science’s creative writing notebooks, leaving the metal coil untucked, slightly sharpened, jagged, and serrated. I sorted through the grammar binder, cleaned up the table, was in the process of handing Captain Science the notebook so he could bring it up to his room.

He grabbed the notebook out of my hand more quickly than I had prepared for, so I didn’t release it fast enough. The sharp metal sliced across the meaty of the palm just below my left index finger (does that have a name? I think I used to know the palmistry term for it, but I’ve since forgotten) and across the bottom joint of my finger, leaving me with two deep, painful cuts. The pain was unexpected and shocking. I admit to some yelping and tears, though I think I managed to avoid dropping the F-bomb on my children, for which I believe I should be commended.

The worst part, really, is that the sudden, sharp pain triggered an anxiety attack, which I’ve spend my evening trying to tamp down and ignore. Smile like you mean it.

I now have a patchwork of different sized bandages and a wounded pride that I got hurt so badly on a freaking notebook. Homeschooling is very dangerous, y’all. Beware.

Monday went pretty darn well for our first day of trying to homeschool with a broken arm. Captain Science read one short book on Greek history and one short book on Greek gods. He did three chapters of grammar and was able to take a short review quiz online. We did a chapter of Life of Fred about Roman numerals. I wasn’t actually that familiar with them myself, so together we made a chart of units, tens, and hundreds. He did a little writing with his left had and dictated some answer to me. We had a nice time!

Homeschool co-op was ok, especially because martial arts was canceled due to Officer Daddyman having mandatory firearms training (hey, you want your cops to have regular refresher courses in that!), but by the end of the day, Captain Science was tired and very sensitive. He cried during his film making class, because his classmates wouldn’t listen to him and because he was given a small role due to group concerns about his broken arm getting in the way.

We’ve had a lot of success with naps this past week, but today was a bust, as we weren’t home until 3:30. No nap = extra sensitivity from both boys. Joy! Even Babypie is a little cranky from lack of a proper nap, and I’m cranky from lack of them having a nap.

We’re struggling to get a follow-up appointment for the Captain’s arm. It’s all “leave a message” and pass the buck and “no, this isn’t who you call!” I’ll be glad when this mess is all over.