No Touchy!!!

What is it about wounds and nice people? They seem to gravitate towards each other. You will be standing there minding your own business, 3 days post shoulder surgery, and some well meaning person you haven't seen in a while will come up, give you a giant bear-hug and slap you on the back. OUCH! No, I haven't had surgery... lately. But, there is a guy that goes to our church-meetin' place that was recently in a very bad boating accident that had, oh, 10 surgeries, or so, to try to keep from having to cut off his arm. His arm was nearly torn from his body and in actuality was virtually detached, literally hanging on by a thread. On top of all that he nearly died from the subsequent infection. Dirty lake water and a nearly detached limb don't mix. Well, actually they do. Far to well it turns out. This was about 6 weeks ago that this all happened, and he just got out of the hospital about 2 or 3 weeks ago. So, he is far from healed. But he made his way back to the meetings and, of course, everyone was really happy to see him, back from the dead, as it were. I counted at least 5 ladies come up and give him a big bear hug and slap on the back. I instantly went back to last winter when I had both shoulders operated on about 12 weeks apart from each other. You miss a few meetings and people are happy to see you back and they instantly forget you were recently cut open. There were two people in particular that if I saw them coming, I would go the other way and go hide in a men's stall if I had to. One time I made the mistake of not wearing my sling. Big mistake. You have that thing on and people are reminded that you are not 100%. So, from that time on, I was sure to wear the sling if I was in any pain whatsoever. Plus, if one of the aforementioned nice people came my way, I would yell, "NO TOUCHY!!!". Worked like a charm. (What that is called is creative license.) Seriously though, the best was when I was standing there talking to someone, and one of the nice people made a sneak attack. The old fella came up behind me and started giving me a shoulder rub. I about jumped through the ceiling. From that point on my wife played goalie, and I am happy to say she had a shutout.

In closing, try and remember when someone has surgery, they pretty much don't want you to touch them. If you do touch them, stay as far away from their surgical area as possible. But if you end up being the one who has surgery, broken arm, whatever, always wear something that will remind people which side and where the injury is. Wear it even if you don't need it. Finally, employ a goalie system. It will pay dividends, I promise.