Normally at this mid-month point I post a blog under the title ”From Derb’s Email Bag.” The blog starts with a worked solution (if I have one) to the math brainteaser in the previous month’s Diary. I follow that with my responses, reactions, and rebuttals to a handful of reader and listener emails on various topics.
• OK: In that tradition, here’s a worked solution to my November brainteaser.
• That disposed of, I’m giving over my mid-month posting for December to explanations, excuses, and, um… extenuations.
What mainly needs explaining is the absence, without any advance notice, of a Radio Derb podcast last week, December 8th-9th. The hungry sheep looked up but were not fed. My sincere apologies for that.
It was a health issue: a minor health issue that was swiftly followed by a more serious, unrelated one.
Let me tell the story from the beginning. I’ll try to keep it brief. The late William F. Buckley had a conversational rule that forbade any person from talking about his health for more than 45 seconds (I think it was) at a stretch.
I like that rule. I especially like to see it applied to geezers. Persons of the senior demographic all too easily fall into discussing their ailments, which are rarely very interesting.
In brief then:
• Tuesday, December 5th: Woke unable to move my head: the slightest motion sent major pain up & down my neck muscles.
Firm in my lifelong belief that most things get better of their own accord, I struggled through the day, but in the small hours of Wednesday, the pain unbearable, I had to wake my lady for a ride to the ER.
They gave me muscle relaxants, which I took, X-rays, which showed nothing they could decipher, and a referral to a local neurologist, which I ignored.
The muscle relaxants worked (or perhaps my lifelong belief is a true one). Come Friday the neck pain was much reduced. I had, however, been too distracted to do the usual preparatory work for my podcast. Peter Brimelow let me take a pass, so… no December 8th Radio Derb. Sorry sorry.
• Saturday, December 9th: Neck now almost normal. At noon I ventured out to do garden work. Slipped & fell in my driveway, savagely twisting my left ankle.
Saturday afternoon & night I lay on the sofa with an ice pack on that ankle, murmuring: ”Death, where is thy sting?”
• Sunday, December 10th: Ankle pain now unbearable. Back to the ER. X-rays, CT, Ultrasound, … Ankle broken in 3 places—which, said the radiologist with something like awe, is as many places as it’s possible to break an ankle all in one try without taking a 14-lb hammer to the darn thing.
• Monday & Tuesday, December 11th-12th: Adjusting to life on crutches. For a badly swollen ankle fracture the mantra is: ”Elevate! Refrigerate!” So: long hours lying on the sofa with the ankle elevated & ice-packed, reading Mrs. Antognazza’s suitably long & dense life of Leibnitz.
Learned (from a neighbor) the phrase ”cast bag.” Purchased one, quietly reflecting that if, as a contestant in a TV quiz show, I was challenged to define the term ”cast bag,” I’d assume it referred to one of the actresses playing a witch in Macbeth.
• Wednesday, December 13th: Appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon to see what can be done. The answer seems to be ”not much.” There’s way too much tissue damage for an operation to be possible; but this may heal sufficiently in a few weeks.
So the rest of December’s shaping up to be a dreary extension of the past few days: alternately hobbling around on crutches, then elevating & refrigerating the ankle; alternately trying to understand windowless monads, then when to wear or not wear this damn great ugly boot they gave me.
• Worse things happen at sea. There are of course many people with distresses far greater than mine. I shall pray for them all and give thanks for my many, many blessings, chief among which is my tirelessly loving and supportive family.
