A Minnesota Uff Da
(H)e that hasteth with his feet
sinneth.
--
Proverbs 19:2b
We went
to the Twin Cities for our daughter's softball tournament and had to miss the
University of Nebraska's College World Series opener in Omaha. Ordinarily, we
would have been there in our long-held box seats.
Oy!
The "oy"
turned into an "uff da" in a hurry - which is what I was in too much of.
See, on the
same trip we also visited friends who recently moved up there to a southwest
suburb, Chanhassen, which, prophetically, is an American Indian word for "sap."
That's
what I was that day: a sap.
Their TV
was downstairs. We put on the baseball game. I was upstairs when I heard the
crowd roar. We must've scored!!! I scrambled downstairs to catch the replay,
exulting:
WOOOO!!!
But my slick
sandals, to the carpeted stairs, were like well-waxed skis to the slopes.
I did a
soaring open pike into a full layout with an inward twist.
Artful,
actually. But I didn't get enough
height on my dive, nor enough water under it. My heroically-proportioned corpus
came down hard on my right ribcage:
WHAMMMM!!!
My friend
found me, speechless for once.
I
sprawled flat the rest of the game, depleting my cell-phone battery with
updates to my beloved, who was 'way north of town with the softball team, TV-less.
I mentioned my indoor dive in my final report about the Husker win.
"You
might've bruised your ribs," he muttered. "Better go have an x-ray."
But this
was the first sleepover for Maddy, 5, with her best friend Cissa and sister
Sofia. You don't haul kids to the E.R. at 10 p.m.
So I left
her, and drove myself to the hospital in Waconia, 15 miles away.
They were
astounded I hadn't been rushed in by ambulance. It seems my right lung had been
punctured by ribs fractured by my indoor dive.
On the x-ray,
my lung looked like a balloon that had been run over and stomped upon. I must
admit it was an ego boost to have all those handsome doctors looking at
pictures of my chest and saying, "Wow!"
But once
I knew what I had, the pain magnified. An old coot in the next enclosure was begging
for opium.
I entreated
the nurse: "I'll have what HE'S having."
Meanwhile,
my husband got the motel manager to drive him the 45 miles to Waconia. He
arrived just after they'd shoved a tube through my ribs into my lung to pump me
back up, and the narcotics - not opium, but close - made me lose my Pizzaioli
pizza and Izzy's ice cream, repeatedly and with gusto.
Meanwhile,
Maddy's first sleepover was a holocaust. She kept popping up and declaring:
"This isn't going to work."
Eventually,
though, it did. And I saw once again that, whenever you fall, the grace you're
given while you're lifted back up makes it well worth the pain.
Though I was
hospitalized through Monday, my husband had a happy Father's Day after all: he
got to go on the log ride with Maddy at Camp Snoopy 4,000 times.
The
doctors and nurses were all named "Larson," "Olson" and "Hanson." They treated
me like a Valkyrie queen. The discharge orders said no cooking or cleaning for
six weeks. Was this Waconia, or Valhalla?
Our
friends brought me pink, fragrant, Paul Bunyan-size peonies, and tactfully stenciled
"No Diving" on their stairway wall.
My mom was
relieved to learn I had on brand-spankin' new underwear.
Though I now
know where every bump in the road is, back to Omaha, and the Huskers eventually
lost despite my supreme zeal, my "Mother's Little Helper" pills helped me not care.
Friends
brought in dinners, I found a comfortable position to sleep - on my left
earlobe - and the doctor says I'll be pain-free in a month, as a long as I
don't talk, sing, sneeze, hiccup, have gas or breathe.
The
doctor's name: Olson . . . same as the motel manager who drove 90 miles round
trip to bring my husband to the E.R. to say those three little words: "Nice
going, Klutz."
A
Minnesota vacation: it takes your breath away.
Of course
I'll be back: in orthopedic shoes with rock-climbing cleats, a life preserver,
helmet, choke collar, and a new tattoo: "Haste Makes Waste . . . You Dumb
Chanhassen (American Indian Word for Sap)." †
