I have neuropathy. One of the results of that is that my nerves don’t react properly in my lower legs. To best describe it best, when you go to the doctors and he taps just below your knee to test your reflexes and your leg kicks out a bit… well mine doesn’t. It means that I have lost a bit of balance which means that I don’t get on Mark’s skateboard too often. It also means that I fall a couple of times a year. Sometimes it is just a stumble, other times I fall down my front stairs like I did this morning (and I have a couple of times in the last couple of years).
As I was going to work this morning, I stumbled down the stairs leaving the house. I heard a crack. I felt the pain. I laid there for a second and called for Wendy to come as I needed a bit of help getting up. I stumbled to my car and told myself it was a bad sprain. Every time I pushed in the clutch, I thought I was going to pass out. I got down there, did payroll, and called Wendy to come and pick me up. Instead of one of the emergency rooms, I went to the my doctor’s office (they have an x-ray machine there). I never saw him but another on call doctor saw me for a second, wheeled me down to the x-ray machine, took a look, and told me that I had a severe third degree anterior ankle sprain and I had fractured my ankle.
The good news is that I don’t need surgery and the sprain is going to take a lot longer to heal than the break. So far the ankle is swollen up hugely and I am icing it, elevating it, and am keeping it immobilized. I have crutches but a month ago I bought a telescopic trekking pole which I will use as a cane for a while. Plus it’s winter in Saskatoon, I have a mental image of my crutches going one way, my body going the other way and the end result being multiple surgeries to put me back together. This viewpoint was reinforced by the doctor mentioning how dangerous crutches were in the winter.
He said it was going to be a while until I was running again but it’s not like the Boston Marathon was on my 2010 to-do list. Well may I could say it was but this injury sidelined me. Either way I won’t be running for a while.
It is interesting in that it allows me to compare the pain of this to the nerve pain I get all of the time. Now this is a constant throbbing pain (which Advil helps to deal with) while the nerve pain isn’t constant, it about 10 times worse. I don’t know about you but I find that fascinating.
Finally I want to thank Wendy and Mark for kicking my leg already and putting me in mind numbing agony and also Oliver for throwing himself on my foot. That hurt quite a bit as well. If I was a child, I would have been taken from them and put into foster care. I may have to keep the my trekking pole close just to whack them away from me.
Update: I have my walking cast/splint on today and it’s making the world of difference. I can put weight on it (despite the pain) but I can’t move the ankle up or down or side to side at all without feeling tremendous pain. The ankle brace stops that and basically immobilizes it. I still can’t navigate stairs but I can walk slowly from point A to point B without needing crutches.
Sheesh!
May you heal faster than I have been after spraining my thumb. It has been 2 months for me and it still hurts. Of course it doesn’t help that it was my right hand and I am right handed and use my hand to work.
And I suppose it is one of the feet you walk on eh?
Almost surprised they didn’t put you in a walking cast for your comfort. It would protect you more from flying little men landing on your ankle.
maybe if you had more faith this kind of stuff wouldn’t keep happening to you…