Bi-Weekly Injury Report

The Hematoma from Purgatory is healing nicely. It's down to a largish reddish smear of a bruise and a touch of edema. Thanks for all the calls and letters. It has been pushed onto the back burner by my latest run in with the awesome power of pneumatics and the torsional rigidity of southern yellow pine. Mind you, I can't say with absolute certainty that my sixth left rib is broken, but if it isn't, I'm going to go on behaving "as if" it's broken. Because it feels like it is (painful, if not impossible, to fully inhale; uncomfortable to move upper body, especially torsionally) and the treatment is the same with or without the X-pert X-ray diagnosis.
So what it was was I was working. Like I do. Building a simple shed roof over a wierd doorway. The high end is attached to the house, and the low end is supported by two 4x4's. The underside of the roof is exposed from below, so the sheathing is 3/4 inch plywood so the tips of the roofing nails don't protrude and look all unsightly and unProfessional from below. As I'm sheathing it, I recognize that the framing is a little bit out of square. The posts are plumb and the diagonal measurements on the ground indicate squarosity, but up in the air at an 18 degree pitch it's hard to maintain that degree of accuracy given out of plumb existing walls. So I figure I'll just use the plywood, which is cut square, to square the roof and make the shingles look all neat, orderly and Professional.
So I nail the top and bottom corners on the right hand side exaclty where I want them-- lined up with the lower right corner and the right side rake. Which makes the lower left corner over hang the eave by maybe an inch. No big deal. I am a Professional. I set up the 4 foot step ladder on the lower left corner, climb up to a step or so past where the ladder says don't climb or step past here, and start a screw in the plywood. (Spoiler: I do not fall). So I have a drill in my right hand, the last rafter in my left hand and my chest against the bottom edge of the plywood. Using my chest and arm, I slowwly push the plywood into place. It isn't moving as easily as I thought it would. In fact it's quite difficult. So a relax and start again, holding my breath to stiffen my chest, and, i , slooowwly, push, it, into, plaace. Almooost there. Breath out. POP. Never heard that sound before. Can't be good. So I go down and grab a scrap of 1x4 to put against my chest and have at it one more time. And it works just like the time before, only without the POP, and the screw gets screwed in and I nail it off, finish the boxing, put on the roofing paper, drip edge, and shingles and call it done. Wonder what that sound was?
No time to dwell on it. That evening I run the stairs at Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium--28 flights of 90 risers-- the Liontamer Way: Flight 1-oneatatime, Flight 2-twoatatime, Flight 3-oneatatime hopping, Flight4-threeatatime walking with arms outstretched. Repeat 6 times. In thirty four minutes. Then a mile on the track in under 6:30. OK? You've now earned your beer.
Next day (Sayurdy) (Saturday) sand and polyurethane 42 feet of 5/4 pine stair tread and a like amount of 1x8 for risers. Taking a welcome break to get the race results from RiderX's domination of her class in Central Illinios. Then there's only time for a quick 25 mile ride into the vanishing woods and farms of east-central Orange County (one hour, 15 minutes)(on the Surly). Sunday it's still in the 90's, but I bust out the Se7en for 65 miles of sweating and swallowing bugs and visiting the local emus. (3 hours 35 mins.) What was that wierd popping sound?
Monday get the stringers prepped for their new treads and risers, a little electrical stuff, so forth. Not feeling too good, though. Try to stretch. Not so much. Got a little knot in my back, right behind where that pop was. Hmmm. Recognize I been holding myself all crooked lately-lifting my left shoulder up and tucking my right shoulder down. So I take Monday off except for not stretching and taking some vitamin I. Tuesday is stair installation day. Which involves lugging the air compressor onto the truck, into the client's house and into the basement. The thing weighs. It never made it into the basement. After setting it up in a spare bath at the top of the stairs, I gradually became aware over the course of the day that drawing breath was painful. And that drawing a deep breath was involuntarily aborted by wincing and gasping. Got the stairs in, the compressor out, and even rode the Tobacco Trail with Nomas that night, but couldn't really breath and had to hold the bars funny to favor my left arm and was still at a loss to understand the delayed onset broken rib symptoms. Any thoughts? Hypotheses? Second Opinions?
Oh, and I also managed to get a deluxe paper cut on my left palm/thumb joint. The deluxe-ness was due to the fact that the "paper" was the moving belt of a belt sander. 80 grit. Clean as you could cut it with a buzz saw.
Short story long: I'm taking it easy. As tolerated, as they say. But I've got two jobs to finish before I head up to Cincy and Chicago to work on Delaney and Bryn Mawr. Today it's better than yesterday. I'm taking that as good sign. Stay safer out there than I am out here.