Okay, so last year I slipped and fell due to icy conditions once with no damage done. This winter has been a bit different. Coming out of the office bungalow about three weeks ago, I took a header into the snow bank next to my walkway from the bottom step (there's only two). I lay there for a moment, taking pain inventory and everything seemed to be okay and it turns out that other than some bruising, it was.
Which brings me to this past saturday, January 30. I had been working furiously at the office all last week listing "stuff" on eBay and then this week making daily runs to the post office to mail out said stuff. In fact I was really having a good time of it, packaging, mailing taping, addressing, and making a daily late afternoon beeline for the post office to fill my orders for that day.Which brings me to saturday, January 29th. I was up early, wanting to save my stove at the bungalow by leveling out the coals and adding some smaller dry wood to keep the bungalow cozy while I worked on answering eBay questions, and finishing up the second round of re-listing items that didn't sell the week before. By 11 AM I was pretty much caught up and decided to take an e mail I got from my sister-in-law on how to test someone to see if they have just had a stroke or blood clot and type it up in larger print to be posted on the refrigerator at the house.
I finished that project, slipped my pea coat on, and left via the side door to head back to the house to show Kim my handiwork. I made my way along the narrow walkway to the two steps that lead down to the ground, all the while perusing my leaflet. I started down the steps, when my right foot hit the first step down, I stepped right on a patch of ice and the next I knew I was air borne - and came down with my left ankle masquerading as a foot! As I hit the snow bank face first I was more aware of the blinding, white hot pain emanating from my ankle than the cold of the snow. I knew this was not a fall from which I would rise up and be on my way.
I lay there for a couple of minutes then called Kim on my cell phone which I luckily had in my coat pocket. It rang five times, the answer machine kicked in and half way into my first sentence of explanation Kim picked up and got the rest of my tale of woe. She told me not to move and within minutes was by my side. By now, oddly, the pain had begun to subside quite a bit. With Kim's help I got to my feet and I hobbled my way to the house with Kim at my elbow.
Getting up the three steps into the house introduced a whole new set of problems and after several futil attempts I decided that crawling on hands and knees would work best. this I did until I reached the doorway. Then I rolled my way into the house, got help from Kim to the bed room to get a look, sans pants, at the ankle. It was now swollen garishly. Most of the pain was around that bone that sticks out just above low cut shoe line - on the inside of the ankle. After "marital discussion" it was decided that Kim would drive me to urgent care for x-rays.
The doctor on call took a look at it and requested the x-rays so a nurse wheeled me down to the lab and a pleasant young man took three pictures of the offending ankle. I was then retuned to the original room where we sat for some time. The doctor came in and told me that his assistant was much more proficient at wrapping ankles so there was more waiting.
When the assistant finally came in, he first wrapped the ankle with ace bandages, then put a sort of heavy cardboard layered with cotton batting on my lower leg, bending it so the middle was under my foot and then there were two equal sides running up both sides of the leg and fortified with yet more ace bandages until he achieved what you see in the accompanying pictures.
I was given a prescription for pain pills which we filled at Walgreen's just up the street from the clinic. We also purchased what turned out to be a somewhat unusable wheel chair and went home. I have spent most of sunday in bed trying to keep my foot higher than my head and mostly failing, hoping that the swelling will have subsided enough by tomorrow morning to have a hard cast put in place.
This, of course, happened because finally I started getting some gigs! I have a 6:30 PM - 9 PM shot as a single at the Red Parrot this coming thursday, a teachers inservice in Melrose-Mindoro on February 12th, and an afternoon luncheon show for a Cooperative near Madison on February 16th. And I will not miss any of those gigs! even if I have to crawl!
As they say in show business: THE SHOW MUST GO ON! And so it shall!
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A teacher noticed that a little boy at the back of the class was squirming around, scratching his crotch, and not paying attention.
She went back to find out what was going on. He was quite embarrassed and whispered that he had just recently been circumcised and he was quite itchy.
The teacher told him to go down to the principal's office. He was to telephone his mother and ask her what he should do about it. He did and returned to his class. Suddenly, there was a commotion at the back of the room.
She went back to investigate only to find him sitting at his desk with his 'private part' hanging out.
'I thought I told you to call your mom!' she said.
'I did,' he said, 'and she told me that if I could stick it out till noon, she'd come and pick me up from school.
KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS!
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