Tag Archives: pain

Revenge of the Mannequins

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In nursing school, we use mannequins to help us study. They look like this:

The mannequins are shockingly life-like.  They have mouths and hands and feet and joints. The “joint” part is important.  Specifically, they have knee joints.

I arrived at the lab this morning at 6:25 to find that there was a mannequin in one of the beds we use.  While it’s important to have the dummies in the bed during Pharmacology Lab, we don’t typically use them for the lab I went to today, which was Fundamentals Lab.  This is the lab where we learn to do everything from giving a bed bath to how listen to heart and lung sounds.  We always work in pairs, and our partner is usually in the hospital bed.  Thus, the bed needs to be not occupied by an adult sized hunk of plastic.

I’m a problem solver.  I really love to solve problems.  So when I came into the lab and saw that the bed had a mannequin in it that would need to be removed, I started to move the mannequin.

I’ve been told before that these guys weigh about 70ish lbs.  70ish pounds isn’t that heavy if you’re using the leverage of dummy arms to support the weight on your shoulders.  It’s the same principle that somehow makes giving piggy back rides to people who weigh 100 lbs. more than you a feasible option.  (I didn’t say smart. I just said feasible.)

As I was pulling the dummy out of the bed, I was thinking about proper weight management.  I was not thinking about how to best avoid the dummy’s knee from touching my inner thigh.

Because as the dummy’s knee went from ‘bent’ to ‘extended’ while it was pressed against my inner thigh, it took a considerable chunk of my inner thigh and folded it into the plastic knee joint.  In layman’s terms, IT PINCHED THE SHIT OUT OF MY LEG.

After hours of icing, the vertical swelling and the overt purple hues have subsided, leaving behind a large, painful, red, aggravated, blood-filled area that is sensitive to both pressure and even the slightest touch.

Best I can figure, it was revenge of the mannequins day.  After laying dormant for years, the dummy in bed #2 finally got his long awaited opportunity to torture a nursing student as he has been tortured for so many years.

I’m never going to move a mannequin ever, ever, ever again.

P90X: Day 4

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To say that P90X is kicking my ass would be a vast understatement.

Night before last we did a Plyometrics routine that involved an hour’s worth of squats and jumping.  And then jumping and landing in squats, and then squats to jumping, and then jumping jack squats and YOU GET THE PICTURE.  

Yesterday, as I was gingerly lowering myself down the staircase at work, a spy student sprinted down the stairs, and then waited for me at the door at the bottom.  He was going to stand there until I got to those doors, and he was going to hold that door open for me. I could see the determination in his eyes.  Little did he know, my legs had turned into two angry hillbilly trailer wives, donning curlers in their hair, drinking whiskey from the bottle, and were yelling things at me like, “YOU JERK ASS HO.  IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP DOWN THESE STAIRS I’MA BEAT YOU WITHIN AN INCH OF YOUR LIFE WITH THIS HERE BUNNY SLIPPER!”  

Nevermind the fact that there weren’t any bunny slippers in sight, I was honestly scared of what my legs would do to me if I tried to bust it down the staircase so that the nice gentleman at the bottom holding the door could go on about his business.  So I started to hobble down the stairs slowly, one at a time, holding on to the rail, determined not to go faster than my threatening legs would have liked.  But then the ego kicked in.  Couldn’t let anyone see me using the stair railing like a walker, now could I?  Nope.  So I hustled down the staircase.  Then I called Zack almost in tears.  

“MY LEGS ARE TRYING TO MURDER ME,” I said calmly.  He reassured me, promising that they would feel better tomorrow. 

This morning I was literally in tears walking to work because my legs hurt SO badly.  Zack severely misjudged the intensity of my leg hurt.  I know that I’m a chronic exaggerator, but please believe me. Aside from surgery and broken bones, I have never felt pain this severe in my life.  

“Did you pull a muscle?” My work-neighbor asked.  I had totally thought of that, I told her, but the only reason I didn’t think so, is because the pain is so even, in both legs, in all of the muscles from the knee up.  If I had pulled one muscle, I explained, I had pulled them all, and that was a ridiculous thought.

I’m starting to wonder if she was correct.  Perhaps I simultaneously injured every single muscle from my hips to my knees.  Whatever it was that I did, it’s something that no Ibuprofen can help, I can assure you that much.  

Now, if you’ll excuse me, because Irony Hates Me, we have been invited to a very fun birthday party tonight with dear friends where I will watch everyone else play bowling, laser tag, and generally have a great time, whilst I hang out on a bench somewhere and wish for death, or a wheel chair, whichever comes first.