foot talk

i'm curled up on dad's lazy boy, in mom's suite. it's quiet. the loudest thing is the ticking of clocks. mom is napping. all the lights are off--the only light from the window behind me. this is only the 6th post of 2024 and probably the last. it's been an eventful year. i'm kind of sad to see it go.

so, you may or may not know that i sprained my ankle on boxing day. well i did. i had a photoshoot to do that day. nuria--from work--has a daughter and always hires me to do a photoshoot of her every year. usually for her birthday but this year it kept getting pushed back for various reasons such as bed bugs and dad passing just to name a few. but nuria was not to be put off. since there is no daylight outside of working hours this time of year, we settled on boxing day because we were both off. 

boxing day came around and i was feeling resistant. i didn't get ready until the last minute. i didn't listen to that niggling voice that said "check out if your camera is ready." "it is ready. what could it possibly need?" i grouchily internally answered. well it needed a memory card. and i couldn't find mine. the last time i used it was to upload the pics from dad's service so i thought it would be in my little work station next to the lazyboy (i do stuff here). but it wasn't. and it wasn't anywhere. my back-up was broken. naturally i didn't start looking for it until it was time to leave and so naturally i then threw a little fit looking for it. and naturally that didn't help. so i calmed down and said a prayer. and looked in my tech drawer and found a memory card i didn't use since amy's wedding in 2018. her pics were still on it. so i was late. nuria and zoya were already at the park waiting for me. so naturally when i started walking out to the car and looked down at my feet, noting i was still wearing my yellow crocs, i shrugged, "it will be ok." i said to myself. 

myself should stop listening to me.

Martha came along. she needed to get a new bank card. we were going to do that after the shoot. she brought along the 80 pages of light reading she had to do before her upcoming surgery.

it had been raining in the morning but it stopped. great. perfect. nuria and zoya were playing at the playground part of the park. zoya was in a butterfly raincoat and boots with butterfly boots, a touque and a pink tutu. we started the shoot, walking around the park stopping in various locations and taking shots. i was feeling like we were almost done when i spotted the grassy knoll. a hill, if you will. i wanted zoya at the top if it. but she wasn't about to go to the top of it without my lead, so i took her hand and guided her up and walked back down. 

it was right at the bottom where catastrophe struck. one yellow croc'ed foot hit a mud-leaf patch and slid forward. the other yellow croc did some weird things. it seems to me it buckled forward and then to the side. the body could not cope. the body slid and lolled in the mud. i lay there curled on my side for a second. nuria was freaking out. "how can i help you? are you ok?" "i don't know," i groaned. "give me a second." i knew i hurt my foot but not how much. "actually, give me my camera. i may as well take some shots while i'm down here." i said, and proceeded to take 10 or so shots of zoya who was still on the hill-top. "did you see me fall?" i asked her. i got the cutest smile from that question.

eventually i got up. by myself. i wasn't sure my foot would hold me but i did. i limped back to the car. but as i did it was getting progressively more painful. still i got martha to take some shots of me. for historical records. i was completely covered in mud and leaves on my bottom half.

by that time my foot was hurting a lot. we waited for nuria to come with some water and wipes and in that time i knew i shouldn't walk on it. i decided to drive myself right to the hospital to get it x-rayed.  martha had to take care of me. she did a very good job. she got me a wheel chair and pushed me around the hospital as needed. 

it didn't seem that busy but the triage nurse said it would be a hefty wait. many hours. my phone was at 40% so i asked martha to charge it in my car. then a few minutes later i asked her to check it. it had only charged 7%. right after that i got moved to a room and had to change into a gown. i got mud all over the bed. the mud had gone right through my leggings and my garments and legs were muddy. i sent martha back for my phone. she was very patient. she found me a pillow to put my foot on. and when i was chilled from being wet and then practically naked, she found me two heated blankets which was just divine.

x-ray was horrid. holding my injured foot in painful positions... i wanted to cry. but i grit my teeth and shook with the effort instead. maybe i groaned. forgive me.

oh. this is my left foot by the way. in other terms it's my 'non-surgical' foot. the 'good one' or if we leave value judgements aside, the original foot. the OG. i had to explain to nurses and doctors that my feet did not resemble each other. i knew they were all looking for the lump on my right foot. i have the largest muscle bulge on a foot that i've ever seen. "there won't be a bulge on the right foot. it got cut." swelling was around the muscle bulge though. it hurt at my foot-leg-hinge. do you know what i'm talking about? it hurt all around my foot really. my arch, my heel. but the tender hot spot was the 'front hinge' from shin to foot.

i knew mr. safety, ie. my hubs, was going to be upset. he seemed pretty calm by text though.

the dr. came back and said that there was a tiny 'flick' of bone. he said that luckily they had an x-ray from 2012 of the same foot and there was no flick of bone then. he said that torn ligaments can pull off chips of bone. he said it was basically a bad sprain. and that i needed a boot and non-weight bearing for 2 weeks. crutches. everything. sigh.

my nurse was a young muslim woman. maybe from somalia or somewhere around there. anyways i really liked her. she was trying to clean off my mud encrusted foot but the saline solutions wasn't cutting it. so she wheeled me to the shower washroom, i put my foot up on the shower chair and we showered off my foot. it took quite a bit of washing and rubbing with a cloth. she said she hoped i at least got some good shots. the doctors wanted me to have a new boot. "why save the insurance company any money?" he asked.

nurse got me a gown to cover my back and some yellow hospital pants that i could wear home so i wouldn't have to put the muddy clothes back on. we bagged my shoes and clothes and martha pushed me out into the night. it was just past 4 but it was dark so it felt like night. the air went right through my thin hospital clothes. when we got to the car we found that someone had  parked so close beside it that not only would the wheel chair not fit between the cars but martha also could not fit between the cars. we didn't know what to do. i felt so vulnerable sitting there in the wheel chair in the thin hospital gown in the biting night air. martha thought maybe someone from the hospital would back out the car for us. she went in to the hospital and  came out with the security guard. she wouldn't drive our car, understandably, but she paged the owner of the car beside us. and soon enough she was there--a cheery lady who laughed and said she thought she had parked well. "that's a bad person." interrupts hubby sourly when i was telling me this story later that night. "no, she just didn't realize how close she was." i cajoled. "she didn't think of anyone." he grumbled. i love him. he was just stewing in his protective outrage. anyways. after that i easily could get in the car. i made sure my left booted foot was not pressed on anything like the emergency brake, and we drove home.

i drove up on the grass and parked as close to the sidewalk as possible. i was wobbly on the crutches but it went ok. douglas and tatiana and girls were over for a perogy dinner. we had been in the hospital just 3 hours which is not bad.

i was in a lot of pain that night. i had to keep taking tylenol and advil. i decided to sleep in my own bed upstairs. the yoga block of yester-year that i used to crawl up the stairs with was no more. but mom's little yellow tube pillow was stuffed in a nylon and tied around my knee. mom stood outside with her flashlight lighting my way as i crawled up the stairs. and i made it. quite smoothly. there was a solid table at the top to the stairs for me to crawl into sitting position and then standing position and my rolly chair was waiting for me in the kitchen. navigating threshold/doorway curbs was a little difficult but i figured it out. 

i had a video call with jozi while getting into bed. he was so overcome to see me in pain and worried about how i would manage. the first night i slept with the boot on but i kept waking up in pain. the next day i decided to take it off when i was at rest and the pain virtually stopped. i didn't need to take anything for it after that and the swelling went down each day. i had a blessing from norm and just-returned-from-his-mission-billy. 

the next day was martha's turn to spend at the hospital. she's been losing a lot of blood and was feeling weak and looked pale. she said she had my same nurse for a while. ha. 

so last night i felt like i could stand on my foot. but i waited until today. i stood on it and it didn't hurt. maybe a twinge or two. so then i walked with the boot around my apartment. then i had a much needed shower. and walked down the stairs in my runners. all that is to say. it was a little tired and sore after but pretty good. i'm so happy at how fast i'm healing.

whelp. that's enough foot talk. it's left-over perogy time. byeee.