Sadly, I don’t.

This week I added a new malady to the fortunately small list of medical conditions I’ve encountered in my life. Shingles– on the eye socket. While the internet is filled with scary predictions of unrelenting pain, it’s been more embarrassing than painful, gross than uncomfortable, and overall just a real pain in the eye (not literally). With the start of an anti-viral and anti-biotic regiment I’m hoping I’m on the backside but as I type my right eye is still one big puffy mess.  Author’s note: After typing this last night my eye is swollen to closure this morning. Still no pain though!

Besides two major ACL surgeries my body has been incredibly durable for forty-something years. When you are tall, thin, and constantly active it would seem to be ripe for….miscalculations. I was a human toothpick playing sports in my teens and twenties and though my body took its fair share of abuse, it’s amazing through basketball, surfing, football, soccer, and other physical activities I have never broken a bone, needed a stitch, or spent time in the ER. I tore my ACL while participating in the dogpiling of a newby while in the Marines. Had I left horseplay out of the equation, my body would be free of any medical intrusion.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t suffered any calamities. Calamity may be too strong, mishaps is more appropriate.  Most have been more comical than dangerous but I’m pretty sure I’ve suffered two concussions. One while wrecking a dirt bike and the other playing inline hockey. Then there’s the time I stepped on a sting-ray in Baja. The time the middle fin of my surfboard stuck in my head. The time the firework went off in my hand. Or exploded off my leg. Or ricocheted off my chest. Fireworks are bad news in the hands of teen-age boys (with the recent rash of injuries to adult sport stars by fireworks maybe they’re just bad news for everyone).

Then there’s the rock throwing contest head injury. At age five a neighbor and I decided to see who could throw one of the large chalk-white rocks from our garden the farthest. Straight up. Into the mid-day sun. The neighbor went first and his measly throw barely cleared the roof of our one-story house. As his rock fell in the yard about ten feet away I decided I would not only win, but win with panache. I wound up Sandy Koufax-like and heaved the hand-sized rock high into the light blue sky. It had scarcely left my hand when the neighbor said “Whoa…..you won”. At the apex I lost sight of the projectile and after what seemed far too long for a rock to be in the air I turned to my neighbor and said “Where’d it…..”

I didn’t get to “go” when the rock bonked me on the head. It literally “bonked”. I haven’t forgotten that sound. I don’t know what the look was on my face but the kid looked scared. If I were in his shoes I would’ve laughed a little but he took off running to his house. I’m pretty sure I was stifling tears so I took the opportunity to run to my house. Finding my mother I told her what happened and after a quick search of my five-year old head and finding nothing but a large knot she sent me off with a “That was really dumb Robert”. The knot went away but the message from that sunny day was a sign of things to come- somehow I’m able to win and lose at the same time. Often.

At least shingles don’t “bonk”.