IT'S NOT JUST MY LEFTIST POLITICS THAT CAUSE ME HEADACHES

I am left-handed. According to Stanley Coren, this makes me more likely to die in a power tool accident (as seen as last week’s episode of CSI) and generally more clumsey than people who are right-handed. In fact, Dr. Coren’s book, The Left-Hander Syndrome, makes the claim that people who are left-handed die, on average, 9 years earlier than right-handed folks. At least, while alive, us left-handers tend to be more creative. Super.

There has been much written to discredit Dr. Coren, but yesterday, I was a walking advertisement for his theory. Now generally, I am the clumsiest person I know of, but my injuries are often minor – stumbling over nothing on the sidewalk and scraping my hands and knees, bumping into furniture and developing mystery bruises, etc. Very rarely do I cause lasting injury. Anyway, as any reader of the blog (or anyone who knows me in person) can attest, I am a rabid Mets fan and was very excited when the Mets swept the Dodgers to win the NL Eastern Division and advance to the NLCS. Serious good times. I was so excited on Sunday when talking about the Mets, that I jumped up on the steps of my apartment and smacked my head on the low ceiling. And I mean I really clopped myself. Everything went black for a second and I got really dizzy. I started to throw up. I could not shake the dizziness. I had a concussion.

So, to sum up. I got excited and jumped on steps which I have walked up and down countless times, knocked myself out and caused traumatic brain injury. And, depressingly, it had nothing to do with which hand I use to write.

And, while I am feeling much better today, I am still slightly dizzy and my vision is blurred. But of course, according to WebMD, the only treatment for a concussion is to rest and since it’s not like my job involves much activity, I am sitting at work nursing a headache. I wonder at what point I am supposed to seek medical attention. Do you think that I need to put left-handedness down on insurance applications as a pre-existing medical condition?