Just call me Lefty

Let me tell you a funny story about me. Grab a drink, sit back and enjoy this view into my crazy life.

On March 1st, 2026, I was working in one of my gardens in the front yard pulling weeds. It was early Sunday morning and I was trying to finish before the sun came up over the house from the back yard and it got too hot. My sweet husband decided he wanted to come help me. But see, he had just had a knee replacement 2 weeks prior to this and was still using his walker. I asked him to please go back inside and let me finish. I was so worried about him falling.

My husband a couple days after knee replacement surgery

Greg is not the type to just watch me do anything. He is forever my helper. He grabbed the rake and started raking up my weeds I had pulled. He grabbed the large wheeled garbage can and pulled it over to where I was working. As he walked back over to the other side of the garden to continue raking, I jumped up and told him if he was going to be raking the weeds, he needed the garbage can closer to him and I started to push the OPEN garbage can over to him. I emphasize the word open because with these large trash cans, if you lean them down to push them forward on their back wheels and the lid is open, that lid is extremely large and drags the ground. A person such as myself, who chooses to move this receptacle in this manner, might just step on that lid, which will cause the garbage can to come to a complete halt and this person might end up inside the trash can.

AI rendering of what I probably looked like when my husband turned around after hearing a loud noise.

Yes! I did this! Yes, it was completely stupid! Yes I hurt myself pretty bad too. I broke my nose, had a complete tear of my bicep tendon and some other issues on the right shoulder and a partial tear on my left shoulder. I had shoulder surgery on April 22nd to repair my right shoulder and have been in an immobilization sling for 6 weeks.

The day after my fall. It got worse before it got better.

The day after my surgery. Talk about feeling useless for 6 weeks!

After I fell, the pain was intense and left me unable to move. Greg turned around and saw me laying in the trash can and said "are you serious?! What are you looking for??" He thought I was joking around. He later told me he heard me moaning so he hobbled over to me and when he looked inside, all he saw was blood. After he helped get me out (I couldn't move myself because both of my shoulders were messed up and I was in extreme pain) and get the blood cleaned up and ice on my nose, we sat on the front porch bench and had a good laugh about the whole thing. I checked the Ring camera hoping the incident was caught on the camera but it wasn't. :-(

I go in for my 6 week check up this week and start therapy and hopefully start back to work in the next couple of weeks. I've been out of work on disability since my surgery. This time off has allowed me to work on my nursery and plants though, so for that I am blessed! I have learned I can do a lot left-handed and what I can't do on my own, Greg helps me when he gets home from cutting yards. He owns his own lawn care business and he's cut back on his yards, so he's normally home by 12:30-1 everyday.

The moral of this story - PULL don't PUSH those large wheeled trash cans!