One morning she came home from Dr. Patel’s office. The pain in her elbow and the area just above it was terrible. She pulled out the pain pills to take two. One pill didn’t seem to have any effect any more. She was becoming addicted. The bottle was almost full. She stared at the bottle and considered dumping the whole bottle into her hand and taking them. Her right hand was worse than useless. Death would end the pain and misery. She realized that she could not even dump the bottle into her hand.  She considered dumping the content of the bottle down her throat. Something stopped her. She remembered a book she read while in high school by Charles Stanley’s daughter. She lost her leg in a motorcycle accident and during her recovery took up skiing. She became a world class down hill racing skier. One of her best friends and fiercest competitor was a young woman named Karen who had a serious congenital leg deformity. Her parents forbid her having the deformed and useless portion of the limb removed by surgery, a procedure that would have given her a more usable residual limb. Her parents said God wanted her that way. She became distraught and depressed and finally committed suicide. Karen remembered how she felt so bad that this girl’s life had been sacrificed. At the time she thought it was so sad the other Karen had not waited till she was twenty one and had the surgery. There was something special about her, possibly the name resulted in some emotional connection.

Author’s note: The book mentioned above really exists. I am not sure of the name of the girl who died, it may not be Karen.

Karen had wondered a thousand times in the previous six months, “Why me?” One thing she was sure of, it was not God that did this, it was evil and hateful men. God didn’t want her this way and she also knew he certainly didn’t want her dead. She remembered the verse from the bible, “If your right arm offends you, cut it off.” What a terrible thought. And yet she had just considered taking her life like her namesake because of her arm. There was no doubt that her right arm offended her. What if she were to become depressed and carry out this act? Her mind raced. There was no way she could emotionally, mentally or even physically cut off her own arm. The pain would be terrible. She had cut raw steaks. It was tough to cut one with even a sharp knife and using her right hand. And the bone would be even more difficult. She remembered the hiker who cut his trapped arm off to free himself. He cut through the elbow joint to avoid having to cut the bone. Her elbow was a metal joint. It would not yield in the way a live elbow would. She shuddered that her mind was even looking at the ways to take this drastic action. She wondered if she was loosing her mind. If she could consider cutting off her arm what else could she contemplate? And even if she could cut it off, how would she be able to stop the bleeding. If she couldn’t she would bleed to death. She vowed that she would not risk her life. She would not follow the other Karen. It was as though the other Karen were speaking to her and telling her to live. She would not waste the other Karen’s life by wasting her own.  The other Karen’s life and death would be for something.  She would live and make some difference for someone because Karen had in a way been there for her.  There had to be a solution. After some time she decided there had to be a better way. Something had to come along to fix her arm.

The occupational therapists had spent time trying to teach her to live with one hand but she had pretty much ignored them, hoping to be able to regain use of the arm. She had done little for herself up till now.

She went to the kitchen and got a snack and a drink. As she ate she realized that although there were many things that were difficult with one arm over the last month she had mastered enough to live alone and her mother returned home. She had a housekeeper and companion come in a few hours week to do things she could not. She had replaced clothing with items that she could handle. That afternoon she finally resigned herself, her arm would never work properly. She must learn to live with one arm. One of the things she hated was the sling. It made her stand out but without it the arm strayed and several times got badly bruised. She would have to find an alternative.

As she finished the snack she picked up a wooden spoon in the kitchen, went to the bathroom and got an ace bandage she used for an ankle sprain about a year ago. She positioned her fingers on her right hand straight, put the bowl of the spoon in her right palm with the handle up her arm and wrapped it with the ace bandage. The wrist that flopped and was useless to do anything was now firm. She started doing things around her home to see if this would help. The area above her elbow and upper arm protested the activity but she recognized the upper arm pain as muscle soreness from exercise after lack of use. It was good pain, not bad pain. It would get better with use. The bone just above the elbow where the artificial joint met her body hurt every time it was stressed. That was bad pain. It was getting worse. She decided to talk to the doctor about it the next time she was there.

She spent the remainder of the afternoon with her hand wrapped and found there were so many things she could do. Up till now her focus had been to get back the function of her hand. Her focus was now changed. She would learn to use the residual abilities of her injured arm. And she would begin to rebuild her career with what she had left. Unless there was some new development that would give more chance of success she would not have more surgery to restore her arm. Those surgeries were causing pain, wearing down her body and not bringing any help.

She got her evening meal and ate. With her hand wrapped it could be used for support and pressure to handle things. When she finished she picked up a pen and pad and started writing. She had been right handed. Since the shooting she had not written except to sign her name. Now she committed to learn to write left handed.

When she finished writing Karen took off her makeshift brace, put on her sling and called a cab. She had the cabbie drop her at a drug store. She found a brace on a rack that was like the ones she had seen people with carpel tunnel wear. She took it to the counter, paid for it and asked the woman at the counter to open the package for her. She pulled off the sling and put on the brace. Her fingers were exposed but the portion of her hand that was scarred was covered and supported so it didn’t just hang. There was scarring around her elbow but if she wore a three quarter length sleeve she looked fine. She put the sling in the bag, thanked the clerk and went back to browsing. She found rubber jar opener, a thing that you wrapped over a jar lid to help grip it. She looked till she found one in tan and got two of them. She found a couple tubes of superglue and added them. When she was ready to leave the store she picked up another wrist brace and paid for the items.

She called the cab again and got a ride from the drug store to a shopping plaza. In a women’s shop she bought three pullover blouses with three quarter sleeves wide enough to put her hand through.  The ones she picked had only two or three buttons at the top. If these worked she could get more later. She also found shorts, slacks and skirts that had elastic tops and pair of sneakers with Velcro fasteners. She decided to find someone who could replace buttons and snaps on several of her skirts with something else she could master.

In the department store she found an item that could be fastened to a counter top to hold a bottle so she could open it. She bought three of them. She also picked up two pairs of left handed scissors and a small adjustable vise that would clamp to a counter top. She also found what looked like a pair of very large tweezers, about seven inches long. She bought them. When she finished shopping she called the cab again and went home.

She called the handyman who took care of her home from the cab and asked if he could come over in the next day. He told her he was in the area and asked if he could drop in when he finished the current job. She agreed.

It took her nearly fifteen minutes to un-package the items she had just bought. She took the one rubber jar grip and placed it on the palm of the wrist brace. With a pen she marked it and cut it to fit. She wanted to glue it to the palm but at first couldn’t get the superglue open. After a couple tries she found that she could hold the tube by gripping it with three fingers of her left hand and rotating it with her thumb and forefinger. She couldn’t turn a very tight lid but it was possible to open and close some things. She lay the rubber face down, spread the superglue on it and then placed the palm of her wrist brace on it. When she picked up her hand she smoothed the rubber. The glue would dry. When it did she would be able to grip things between her hand and another object. She realized that would enable her to grip the steering wheel of a car. That brought up a thought. She needed to get a car. That could wait for now.

She took the tweezers and glued a piece of Velcro on the one side of them, then went out to her deck and bent the ends so they closed more. Inside she wrapped a rubber band around it a couple times to hold it shut. She would be able to stick it to the Velcro on her brace and hold things as she would between her fingers. It would be crude but there were things she could do with it that she could not do without it. She wondered how many more things she could do if she just thought some about it.

The insurance company had paid for her car. The money was in her bank account. She needed to replace it. She called the DMV and asked the regulations. They advised that she needed an assist knob on the steering wheel to drive. She called the auto salesman who sold her the previous car. She told him to see if there was an identical car available. He told her there was one of the same color of the current year which had some additional features. He told her what they were and she said she would take it. He laughed that she hadn’t asked the price. She replied that she was assuming it would be in line with the price of the previous car. He looked, with the options it was about fifteen hundred dollars more.

She laughed. “I will take it and not haggle about the price if you can throw in a necking knob.”

“A what?” He had never heard the term.

Although she was young she was well read and knew the knob on a steering wheel was once called a necking knob. “The knob on the steering wheel that is used to turn a car with one hand.”

“Oh. Yes. We have them.”

“Can you get one in for that price?”

“They are just over hundred dollars.” He thought for a minute. If he gave this to her he would give up about fifty dollars of his commission. That was not bad if it sold the car. But if he could get another feature for more than two times that on the car he could give it to her and keep the whole commission. If he could sell her something bigger he could get an even bigger commission. He remembered she had agonized over whether to get a bike rack the on the other car. “You know this doesn’t have a bike rack. I know you had thought about getting one.”

“I don’t know if I will be able to ride.” She stopped. “How much is it?”

“Three fifty.”

“Go ahead, add the three fifty to the price and put them both on. But I want the car as soon as I can get it. Can you get it ready in the next couple days?”

“I think I can get it ready for tomorrow if you want it then.”

“Give me a call when you know. I will come in to sign the papers.”

He smiled as he hung up. She got the car she really wanted. He just got a commission that was not fifty dollars smaller but instead a hundred larger. She laughed. Had he not mentioned the bike rack she would not have thought of it.

The handyman arrived. She had him mount the bottle openers in her bathroom, kitchen and family room. She had the vise put on a shelf in a walk in closet off the family room. She had learned that she could do many things if they could be clamped and held for her. He asked her if there was a way to make the bottle opener portable. He laughed, got out a small C clamp and attached the other one to it, then showed her how to attach it to a counter. “You can put this anywhere. Just be careful on furniture, don’t tighten it real tight. I’ll glue some felt pads on it to help but don’t use it for a day till the glue dries.”

“Wow. Do you have any other good ideas?”

He handed her another clamp. “Take this. If you can clamp something to a counter it helps. You can clamp a book if you need it to read. I’ll put some felt on it too.”

“Wow. How did you learn that?”

“Broken arm in a cast for eight weeks. You learn fast.”

He finished the work. She asked how much, he gave her a figure and she handed him a check. He looked at it. “That isn’t the right amount. It’s too much.”

“I got more from this than you asked for. Call the extra a tip for the tips. I am going to need a person like you more as time goes on. I want you to come in and feel that I want to know if you think something will help me.”

“Thanks. Anything extra helps. But you didn’t have to.”

“That’s what you don’t understand, I really had to do it.”

About an hour later the car salesman called back with the information. The car could be ready late tomorrow.

She called a cab, went to the dealer, signed the papers and came back home. Tomorrow she would have wheels.

Karen: Chapter One – The Attack

Karen Chapter 5: Back for Surgery

Karen Chapter 7: Rebuilding Her Career