Humor in adversity

Space Age Prosthetics

These last three weeks have transformed our lives, from active participants in the attractive life of, Florida retirees, into the dreary experience of sitting idly in various Doctor and hospital waiting rooms, hoping for better days. The constant parade of the very ill and the very old that one sees is an alternate picture that lies beneath the glittering façade of retirement in the Sunshine State. Even knowing that this is hopefully, a brief visit into the “land of the infirm,” is still unsettling.

I got better news today. The arm wound was healing nicely. I was almost ready to arrive in the rehabilitative phase. More importantly, I was able to lose the eleven-hundred-pound cast (so it seemed anyway) that had been an anchor on my arm and life style these last few weeks.

The good Doctor referred me to something called the Hanging Clinic. (honest.) There, I was was fitted out with a new-age, arm brace, constructed of mostly light Velcro straps and thin new age plastics. The object of the brace is to freeze the elbow joint into a certain position until more healing occurs. It has a fancy dial on the elbow with numbers and degrees of loft. The contraption could well have been fitted onto the arm of Luke Skywalker in a Star Wars movie. My mind was instantly in gear as to possible alternative realities about this contraption that I could foist off onto trusting but gullible friends and acquaintances.

I asked the technician if the armature came with a space helmet and laser blaster attachment fitted onto the arm. I think she thought that I was under the influence of too many after-ops medications. 

The freedom I felt, from losing the four-hundred-pound arm cast, made me almost giddy. I would have to wear this sucker for another month, so I might as well have some fun with it. And as always, in adversity, you need to have a sense of humor.

We went for a walk the next morning and stopped by the club house for coffee and to watch the golfers launch their surlyn covered missiles into the ninth green. A friend stopped by and greeted us. Like any small community, anything out of the ordinary is instant grounds for inquiry.
“What is that contraption on your arm?” he inquired.

“Oh,” I replied, “it’s a new golf trainer. Haven’t you ever seen one before?” He replied doubtingly in the negative. I showed him the fancy degree of loft-dial on the armature. “You see this?” I asked. “You dial the degree of loft, of your club, from a ten-degree driver to a sixty-four-degree gap wedge” into the contraption. It automatically then shapes your arm into the needed curvature that best adapts itself to the neuro muscular synaptic relay that is required for optimum launch of the golf ball.”

“Is that so?” he inquired. “I have never heard of that.” “Oh, it is in all of the new catalogues on golf equipment” I replied. “I bet if you asked at the pro shop, they could help you out.”

When the newly informed golfer headed indoors to ask Jeff Carter, the club pro, for such equipment, we knew it was time to head for the hills. I can only imagine who the golf pro thought was goofier, me for spinning such a yarn, or the gullible rascal who had swallowed the yarn, hook, line and sinker.

It was enough chuckles for us for one day of rehab. Now, I have to start wondering what other uses this hi-tech marvel can be put to. Maybe it really would help to develop a golf swing? Nothing else ever seems to.

To be continued, as the story advances, to “back to normal” status.

-30-

(633 words)

Joseph Xavier Martin