Column: An ounce of prevention doesn't mean it's cured

When I was about 2 years old, I was told I ran into a table with such force that the gash on my forehead required three stitches.

I have no memory of this, of course, but the scar remains.

It’s hardly noticeable, not with my long hair flopping down as it has ever since I got out of Catholic grade school, but it’s there if you look closely, situated under the hairline above my left eye.

No, it’s not of the Harry Potter lightning bolt variety — Lord Voldemort had no beef with me — and I’m certainly no wizard, but it’s a reminder just how fragile and close to the edge we live.

The human body is a remarkable creation, capable of astounding feats of longevity and endurance, but it has its limits, not the least of which is the heart, which can be so easily broken, figuratively speaking. Most of us get over it, though again, some scars endure.

Those three stitches remain the only evidence of actual damage I carry around, though I can recall an incident that occurred during recess of my ninth grade year, one that scarred me for a long time.

I was new to the public school system, and like any 14-year-old kid in an entirely foreign environment, I wanted to make a good first impression, to fit in, to avoid being stigmatized as an outcast.

Toward that end, when I was invited to join a pickup game of basketball — owing to my height, probably, which was above average for my age — I eagerly accepted, having logged hundreds of hours shooting hoops in the driveway outside the family home.

Everything was copasetic. I made a few, missed a few, threw a lucky pass or two — until the moment I went over a bulky guy’s back to grab a rebound. All of a sudden, I felt a lacerating pain in my left thigh, as if someone had jabbed a jackknife into my flesh.

I could give you a dozen guesses as to what had happened, but I’m pretty certain you’d never even come close to being correct.

As it turned out, the fat kid under the basket had a sharpened No. 2 pencil jammed into the rear pocket of his jeans, jutting out point first, and when I came down with the ball, it entered my thigh.

Of all the playground calamities you might imagine occurring during a friendly but rugged game of basketball — a bloody nose, a stoved finger, a black eye — lead poisoning would not be listed.

A few years earlier, when, in a tied Little League game, I was struck in the ribs with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning — driving in the winning run — my father took me to the emergency room, just to make sure nothing serious had occurred.

On our way back to the station wagon, after getting the all-clear from the attending physician, Dad stopped and looked at me.

“Let’s not tell your mother about this,” he said. “She’d just worry.”

That’s the same logic I employed after being impaled by a pencil.

I could see it when I showered and dressed for school, a black smudge under the skin, but told no one. Over the decades it’s faded away so that now it’s like a fossil that’s vanished from view.

I figure that if that pencil tip was going to find its way into my bloodstream, it’d have happened long, long ago, or so I hope.

I want to mention two other incidents to round out my medical history. The first took place just after I graduated from Notre Dame.

Having no job waiting, I signed on to work on a landscaping crew.

I’d spent several summers at both the college and the town’s park department, doing things like mowing grass, planting flowers, trimming shrubs and pulling weeds, so I felt pretty well-qualified.

But unlike those part-time positions, this one was a real serious job.

The men I met weren’t interested in anything but breaking “the college boy,” something that became obvious in a short time span.

I got the worst assignments, the ones the old guys wouldn’t touch, and on the morning of the third day of my employment, I tore a muscle in my right forearm as I jerked bulky bushes from the soil.

Thankfully, the doctor prescribed Valium and advised me to quit.

Several years later, during a Church League softball game, I lined a single to left, but before I’d taken three steps toward first, I felt something hit my right calf, as if someone had thrown a rock at me.

I collapsed in the dirt and tried to get up, but I couldn’t manage it.

The doctor told me I’d ripped a ligament and prescribed crutches.

“What? No Valium?” I asked, thinking, “No harm in asking.”

These days I content myself with bowling Friday mornings in a 50-and-older league, just to feed my competitive appetite, but even that seemingly benign distraction has had its consequences. My right elbow has become inflamed and insists on sending me shooting pains every time I let loose with another lousy roll.

It feels like a crocodile is biting my arm, but I’m not going to seek any doctor’s advice since I know it’s the kind of ailment that’s going to take time to heal, and if I’m scarred until then, so be it.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where there’s no waiting for unqualified advice.