Seeing Stars

 Seeing Stars

    Despite that damn liver Greg was a healthy guy with very strong mental health. While I spent countless hours on psychologist's  couches (actually none of them had a couch) the old rage spouting gentleman never seemed to be depressed or anxious for that matter. However, when he was ill or injured he did those in a big way. He broke an arm playing baseball, broke an ankle playing football and somehow fell through a shower door that caused such bloodshed that he could not talk about the event. Later in life he had some mysterious rashes that made Doctor Heather Butler one of his heroes. She had a pricey ointment he called the magic salve that cured all dermatitus. You know you are best friends when your pal sends you photos of his grotesque skin rashes with challenges thrown to Doc Butler. Somehow, he evaded chicken pox as a kid and caught a brutal dose of it when he was in his 50's. Somewhere there is a photo of the man that causes me to laugh morbidly since it shows the most miserable SOB ever put on film. However, this post is not about skin but bones and Greg's recovery from an ankle break suffered when he was fooling around with friends in a slight drizzle at Pi-high trying to grab a pigskin. He heard the crack and knew it was bad so off he went to St. Francis where they put a rather dramatic cast on the leg that reached all the way from mid-thigh to the entire ankle area. The first part of the story was after they had given him a pop of morphine for the plaster casting and was being wheeled to a recovery room. He told his Mom in his mooney state "this is some good shit!" Truth is that he had never touched drugs at that point except asthma medicine. So, time passed and he did as he was told by the doctors. He sat in the front room on McNerney watching the tube, being entertained by family pals and hearing tales from the old sage. The day finally came and he excitedly sat on an exam table at the orthopedist as they sawed the huge cast off his atrophied leg. He limped to the car and gingerly rode home and once more took a rest on the white chair with his leg elevated as suggested. He had not bent his leg in two months but forgot whose body he was in  when someone came to the door. He threw his heel backwards and down to stand, thus tearing the tissue that had built up in the knee as the ankle healed. Intense pain! He made a cry like a wounded water buffalo and claimed he literatlly saw stars while sinking back onto the chair realizing the cast was gone but healing was not complete.