It’s over, my dream has been crushed

Posted on by Eric Klingenberg

As some of you know about eight weeks ago I feel down some stairs and broke my arm. If it had been a normal break I should be healed by now, unfortunately it wasn’t. Lots of people have been asking about it and up to now I have been a bit vague about it. Mainly I didn’t know myself until recently and now I do know I wanted to tell my boss first, so she didn’t hear it third hand.

Now I have seen a nerve specialist and spoken to my boss I can reveal my arm and wrists is screwed. I will have to face the reality that my dream to win the Wimbledon men’s single title is probably over.

X-ray of the break

x-ray, pins, broken arm
My arm full of pins

I will have limited use of my shoulder and will never be able to raise my elbow above shoulder height. To be honest as don’t see myself joining a neo-Nazi group or re-join an evangelical church that isn’t going to cause me too many problems. The worrying thing is my wrist and thumb. I have either snapped or stretch the nerves. As the use of it is not returning over time it’s increasing looking like they are snapped. This means I can’t write or type. It is also useless for a lot of other things especially cooking. I can type and write with my left hand but not as quickly or accurately. I’ve been given a splint that helps my type with my right but it’s slow and painful. I’m not using it to type this because I’m fed up of the pain. (I know I’m a wimp.)

The specialist I saw has two possible solutions to repairing my wrist and thumb. The first being grafting a nerve, which has a small chance of working. The second being grafting a muscle on to my wrist. So, I’m looking at more operations and pain (yippie). I’m back at work now which is going ok. The progress of my book is even slower but it’s still progressing. I’m popping painkillers like a rock star and sleeping badly. When I have the operations I’ll bore you all with another post of how it went.

Next week I’ll be back to my usual drivel about writing.

26 thoughts on “It’s over, my dream has been crushed”

  1. Eric, old friend, I am so sorry to hear this. But all is not lost, you can try speech recognition programs which are surprisingly efficient. It feels a little odd at first, but I can assure you that it is a silver lining in the hovering dark cloud. You will probably write a lot more per day than you did with your hands, I promise you. Just takes getting used to, but you will manage it better than I did, I am sure. I know how it feels, not just the inability to do normal things, but the very thought of it can be pretty crushing. Hope you keep your spirits up. I cannot type either, but I can tell you that you can do much better than I. I recommend Nuance Naturally Speaking. Not sure how much it costs over there. But you could try I suppose. Take care.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. So pleased to see you back, I only thinking about you the other day. I’m doing my best to stay positive, after all the accident could have been worse, I might of had a head injury. I’m thinking about voice software so thanks for the tip. I hope things are good with you and this is the first off many conversations.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    1. I try to find the positive side, although despite being awful at tennis I’ve always dreamed of one day winning the mens single title. My accident could have been much worse, I could have had a head injury and then what would the world of literature do?

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  3. Yes, indeed, that is the first thing. If you get depressed then it just gets worse. Though I could not reply earlier, I kept track of your posts in the inbox. The spine is a little stenotic (narrower spine, ha, at least I am not spineless haha) so the use of my hands is pretty limited now. Very painful, I can assure you 😀 But I think the meds are worse. As far as possible make sure you don’t get into the habit of relying on them for perpetual relief.
    By the way, there is a company closer to you, in Cambridge, called Speechmatics which has superlative speech recognition. Not sure how much it costs. Try out any one of those and you might be pleasantly surprised that your productivity as far as writing is concerned will actually increase by leaps and bounds.
    I would love to hear from you, Eric, as always. It has always been a pleasure. My condition is not so great now, may have to undergo several surgeries and in any case it can never be reversed. So this is it for me for the rest of my life 😀 . Trying to get over the chronic depression too and something that my snake-oil selling medicine man calls fibromyalgia, which is a lot of hokum in my opinion. Just another name for psychosomatic symptoms caused by depression and/or extreme laziness and uselessness. I never trust these stupid labels doctors give us. But six years of this nonsense was enough for me, so started taking regular therapy again. My patience is wearing thin already. You have my mail id too, and I have yours, so let me not clutter up your comments section with my interminable essays 😀
    Take care, Eric. Always good to hear from you and write to you. And keep the chin up, eh. Put up that old British courage. Good man. 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. That[‘s pretty awful mate, but as has already been pointed out, now is the time to embrace technology and go with speech recognition.
    It will take time to get used to, but will probably save you a ton of time in the long run.
    You may well look back in ten years and wonder why you bothered with typing.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I will give it a go. I’ve said before the accident could have been worse worse. Despite being disabled I still live a charmed life compared to the vast majority of the worlds population, remembering that stops me becoming too sorry for myself.

      Like

      Reply

  6. That’s some bullshit, dude. I have very limited use of my left arm but still manage to write a fair amount (not as much as I’d like, but better than nothing). There are a few options –
    Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking
    dictation software – not ideal for writing prose (I’ve found that the speaking part of the brain isn’t as eloquent as the part that sends signals to your hands). Still, you have the option of writing the way they did in the Pioneer days then dictating what you wrote.
    My preferred method of writing is swyping on a tablet or phone (I’m doing that now, in fact). I highly recommend installing the Swype+ Dragon keyboard for Android. Thing is, it’s not available in the Play Store anymore – you’ll have to get the apk and sideload it. If you use Apple devices, I advise you to stop using suckass machines and get with the true mobile medium…Android. If any of this sounds doable and you’d like more direction/information/resources, I’m more than happy to help.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      5. Is that what it takes to make it as a writer anymore? Write Exaggerations or make outrageous claims? I’m pretty sure that is what a “writer” on Mediumwho I, unfortunately, click through and read(well, I bet a lot of people are doing that on Medium). I called him out and accused him for click baiting and challenged him to prove me wrong. I got no response, he got his click and read and was done with me. I want to tell you his name so that you know he sucks, but I am not going to give him free publicity. If that is what you have to do to be a success in this game, I’m fucked – I am not a hack who compromises his convictions for a few more clicks.

        Liked by 1 person

      6. Sorry I haven’t replied I’ve been off my blog for a while, well a bit more than a while. I’m sorry if my click bait tittle offended you, it was meant to be a bit of fun and indulging my love of the over dramatic. I’m forever falling for click bait being a tad gullible. As a writer I don’t think is a great strategy, it might give you the initial traffic but if the content is lacking then I quickly stop reading. As for myself my blog is just to practice, and hopefully make contact with other writers. My book, should I ever publish it, is what my reputation as a write will fall or succeed on. I hope six months on you are still writing.

        Like

  7. What a difficult choice to make! You mentioned more surgery the other day and I hoped it would repair the damage. How will this affect your work? Michael Caines taught himself to cook with his left hand after losing his right arm. Reading the above blogs there are options for speech recognition technology too! Hopefully a new operation will deal with the pain aspect and you won’t be on as much medication. Though it was sad reading, it’s nice to know you haven’t lost your sense of humour.
    Thinking of you!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  9. Oh no! That’s your wand waving hand too, isn’t it?! If you aren’t able to perform the flick of the wrist in just the right way, how will you continue to hold the forces of darkness away? All is lost.

    In all seriousness, I am sorry to hear this. But think of the bright side, now you have an excuse to train a dragon. Dragon dictation, mind you, but a dragon nonetheless

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply, go on you know you want to

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

I'm a special needs teacher living in Devon England. I'm currently writing my first fantasy novel. When not writing I enjoy chess, reading, sailing and computer games. I'm married with 2 step sons and one grown up foster son.