How did I end up with a cast on my arm?

How did I end up with a cast on my arm? Okay, this is going to sound strange, but I was in an alley trying to look inside an autobin - here’s the strange bit - wearing a full suit of armour made out of scrap metal. Seriously, check out the photos. The idea was for me to leap from the bin in full trash regalia for another phantom planet films video.

By the way, I should point out that this amazing Garbage Knight suit of armour was created by my friend, Curt Wiebe.

Anyhow, around nine o’clock in the morning of Friday February 8, Curt & I were setting up for the shoot in the alley behind his house. The freshly emptied autobin we needed to use was sitting on about a foot of snow and the tire ruts in the alley created a slope up to the bin. As I leaned forward to grab the edge of the bin to look inside, the completely slick soles of the boots of this suit of armour caused me to slip. My feet went shooting out behind me, & my upper body crashed into the bin. When I hit the ground, I guess limited range of motion of the gauntlets I was wearing put a bit too much pressure on my wrist.

I felt a little banged up at first, but after ten minutes or so I felt right as rain and we continued the shoot. We actually got some pretty good footage of my leaping from the bin and then riding an old bike up the alley.

The odd thing is, I didn't notice anything wrong with my left hand until after lunch at camp. It started to feel a little sore at first but by the time the group left at two o'clock it was down right painful.

The pain just increased the rest of the afternoon. Even though I took a couple of Advil & Tylenol when I got home, my hand was really hurting. Fortunately the pain completely subsided after an hour of keeping it elevated & completely immobile, but I decided I'd better go have it looked at just to be sure. At six o'clock, having finished supper, I loaded my MP3 player with Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets read by Stephen Fry and headed over to the Pan Am Clinic for a lengthy wait.

After I’d listened to the first half dozen chapters of Harry Potter, the good folks at the clinic took some X-rays and determined that nothing was broken. They figured it was soft tissue damage, and I should have a cast just to let any damaged tendons heal.

It wasn't until I was sitting in the waiting room of the clinic, waiting for my cast that I remembered that I’m going to need my left hand to play with The WhizBang Shufflers on CKUW 95.9 FM the following Tuesday! I was very glad when they were able to fit me with a removable cast. Fortunately, I was able to take off my cast & play just fine.

After about a week, I stopped wearing the cast altogether. I'm still being pretty cautious about what I do with my wrist, but I am very happy that it recovered so quickly!

RICK