Friday, October 14, 2011

Injuries, Dreams and Thoughts

The Injury:

Sometime on Wednesday morning I pulled a muscle in my right arm, near the shoulder. If you stand facing forward it is the muscle you use to lift your entire arm by swinging it forward, the short head of biceps brachii. I did it either lifting and moving a heavy box, which twisted, or while opening a heavy door. Based on the location of the injury I suspect the box was the root cause.

Typical of a pulled muscle, it didn't start hurting right away. It was only as I moved through the day that it began to hurt and restrict use of the arm.

Wednesday it was sore. Thursday was the worst of it, where pretty much the entire shoulder hurt. I slept okay both nights, largely by virtue of sleeping on my left side (no pressure on the injured area) or my back (a small amount of pressure).

I've been treating it with ibuprofen and ice, which has imrpoved it. After a round of icing on Thursday night, the overall swelling was down enough that I am not able to put my finger right on the injured part - the short head of the biceps brachii - and able to tightly target the ice, which vastly improves the effectiveness of it. I am on the road to healing, though I suspect it will take a couple of days.

The Dream:

Then, last night, I added another violent dream to my October portfolio.

In the dream I was driving down the street when I got caught in traffic behind a cop car and a crazy person and traffic ground to a stand still. As he got out of the car, the cop gestured for me to remain in my car and walked over to confront the crazy person. Suddenly, that confrontation went awry.

The cop drew his pistol and trained it on the crazy person. The two of them began circling each other, until suddenly I was down range from the cop. I laid down on the seat of the car, trying to get as low as I could. Suddenly, a shot rang out and my heart leaped into my throat. I lay there on the seat of the car, not knowing what had happened, debating whether I should sit up and look.

Suddenly, the crazy person was at the car window, with the cops pistol in his right hand. He banged on the window with his left and gestured for me to open the door, intending to car jack me. I pushed the button to unlock the door and as reached down and grabbed the handle, in that split second I kicked the door as hard as I could with both feet. The door slammed into him, he staggered backward and fell.

I rushed out of the car, intending to run, when I saw that, on falling, he had dropped the pistol. He rolled over on his stomach and started crawling for it. In his rear pocket was a short, bloodstained, section of iron rebar, wrapped in friction tape. I figured that improvised weapon was how he had overcome the cop.

Realizing I had the upper hand I rushed him and knee dropped him in the center of his back, slamming him into the pavement. While he was stunned I pulled the rebar from his pocket. He rolled over on his back and we began to fight. The fight lasted for several minutes and moved up and off the street, onto the sidewalk, then down the sidewalk. He put up a serious defense, which I battered relentlessly with the rebar. After a few minutes, he decided to turn and run, which allowed me that clean shot at his head.

The first blow to his head from the rebar send him to his knees. The second blow laid him and the sidewalk. I dropped down on him and hit him three more times in the head. He lay there, limp and unconscious, blood streaming from his scalp lacerations, bright and red. In the distance I could hear sirens. I stood up, glanced around at the horrified spectators, tossed the rebar to the ground and leaned against a bus stop to catch my breath. The entire encounter had taken a few short minutes of all out desperation fighting on my part.

Thoughts:

I would not call this particular dream a nightmare, since I didn't wake drenched in sweat or shaking from adrenaline. I just woke up and thought "wow, what a violent dream". I am rarely sure what triggers such dreams or where their form comes from. The ghosts of October play a part in it I'm sure.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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