I'll Tumble For Ya...

Well today was interesting - I felt great and had a pot roast slow cooking, smelling up the house, got all geared up and went to visit Ron and my mom at GHS. Things are quite uneventful until I decided to head down a flight of stairs, and missed the last step with my clunky Danskos. I fell in slow motion, rolling my foot funny while turning my body to cushion Lucy from the fall. She was fine. I layed her down and called for help - and then she started crying. I saw someone I knew (security guy) and called his name and he came over and radioed for the nurse (Sally). So once he was on the radio everyone heard that a woman had fallen down the steps and some of them could hear Lucy crying. Within moments a half-dozen people were there, including my mom who could take Lucy and calm her down. I had heard a "pop" sound so I didn't want to put any weight on it.

Ron, wandering by, bumped into someone who said, "hey I think your wife sprained her ankle" and he didn't even know I was in the building - then he looked up to see my mom with Lucy, and me sitting on the ground. Probably quite surprising to say the least.

The principal and the security guy carried me up the steps and stood me upright, which is when I started to feel nauseated, turned green, and developed very muffled hearing - like after a rock concert. I felt better when I sat in the wheelchair and Sally pushed me toward the office, but still a little queasy. Those signs showed that I probably had a fracture, which is sort of what I figured. My mom took Lucy to her house, and Ron and I went to the med center where I had x-rays, which showed that I had an avulsion fracture of my cuboid and dorsal talus bones (info for all your medical professionals out there!). Anyway, I have to wear this splint thing and use crutches for 5-7 days (no weight bearing) and then a follow-up will tell me what I can do depending on how it is healing. What really bothers me isn't that I broke my foot, or that I feel like a complete klutz... it's that I am going to need a lot of extra help taking care of our daughter, who toddles and climbs and is definitely not one of those kids who sits still for like, 3 nanoseconds. Even if she was calm all the time, it's hard to carry a 24 lb. child while on crutches.

I felt really terrible because she was obviously scared and I could hardly comfort her because there was so much going on... and now she's sleeping over at Grandma's and Grandpa's house so that tomorrow morning is easier to manage. Right now the fact is, I can't do it alone... and I really do not enjoy being "taken care of" like this. Much of how I perceive myself is based on being the one who takes care of someone else, so this is an adjustment. Hopefully I can allow it to heal well and be back in business within a couple of weeks.

No scans to share this time - but you can check out last year's injury which was pretty gnarly too. You can see the fracture goes almost completely through my toe, and then you can see the x-ray after it was set. Before having Lucy I never broke a single bone. I guess I need to be much more careful!