Serves Me Right

On a Friday night three weeks before the big move, Craig and I were having one of those picky little disagreements that mean the participants feel stressed and refuse to back down and be nice. I don’t even remember what it was about, but I remember that the skin above my eyebrows felt tight and I didn’t feel inclined to see things his way. I was planning to get up in a huff, stalk across the kitchen floor, and fling a bag of chips into a cupboard, closing the door not with a slam, but with just enough emphasis to communicate my lingering irritation.

I failed to notice that my right leg was asleep, and the signals that were telling it to move weren’t getting through. When I put my foot down for another theatrically emphatic step, I didn’t notice that I was walking on the top part of my foot, not on the bottom as people normally do. My foot twisted under me, and just before I was able to catch myself on my other leg I heard an ominous crack.

Well, the argument lost steam for me right there. I left the bag of chips on the kitchen floor where they had fallen and hobbled to the couch, noticing with dismay that my still deadened foot was making more little crackles with each normal step. No, I said to myself. It isn’t hurt. My feet pop all of the time; it’s just the way they are. I reached the couch, sitting and turning my foot so I could examine it. My skin was still so numb that it felt like touching someone else’s foot. Besides, I can’t be injured; I have too much to do! The eighth grade trip is on Tuesday! All week I’ve been promising my students that Mrs. Dean and I are going on all of the roller coasters with them! If I can’t go, they’ll think I am an old, motion-sick loser! My foot does (OW!) not hurt! Mind over matter: if I do not acknowledge an injury, I’m still all right.

The next morning, my mind had to acknowledge that I couldn’t walk to the bathroom without help. The first step off the bed was so painful it sucked the breath out of my lungs.

“Craig, I’m really worried,” I said tearfully. So much for mind over matter.

“Don’t be,” he reassured, “cats are really easy to litter train. She’ll be using the box before the day is out. You’ll see.” He thought I was worried about one of the mountain of small tasks that I had yet to start on.

“No, it’s my foot. It hurts really bad!” I trilled hopelessly. Craig walked over to the couch and sat down opposite me, fingering my streaky purple foot like a stack of index cards.

“Does it hurt when I press here?” he asked, as showers of white sparks clouded my vision and I gasped in shock. “It’s probably just fine, but let’s drive down to urgent care and have them make sure,” he said cheerfully.

He told me later that he knew from his examination that my foot was broken. He barely touched my joint and I grimaced like a torture victim, but he didn’t want to worry me so he maintained his air of casual calmness as I got ready.

I sometimes joke that Craig can judge how busy my workweek has been by whether or not I’ve made time to shave my legs. It had been a pretty long week, if you know what I mean. Though in pain, I couldn’t stand the idea of throwing on some sweats and having a highly educated stranger touch my unwashed, unshaven extremities. Getting into the tub meant putting all of my weight on my right foot for a few seconds. It hurt so much it made me dizzy, but I had no choice. I couldn’t hide the telltale signs of an incomplete beauty regimen by wearing pants. What if they had to cast me and I couldn’t get my jeans off afterward? Or would I have to take them off and wear a hospital gown home?

My limp up to the counter at urgent care was so piteous that they actually asked me if I wanted a wheelchair. I was immediately admitted to the room with the reclining bed and all of the operating equipment in it, the one I assume they save for the seriously hurt people.

Try as I might, I couldn’t make “walking across the kitchen” a worthy enough explanation for why my foot hurt so badly. The x-ray technician took it upon himself to further clarify the situation.

“Did you have a little drink before, huh?” he asked with a knowing smile and a conspiratorial wink. I hadn’t, but it didn’t surprise me that he asked. I had often listened to lame stories of other people’s injuries and assumed that a few too many beers had been left out of the story.

“No.”

“Were you mad?” he asked again.

“That I wasn’t drinking?”

“No. When it happened, were you mad about something?” The question was direct, but so kind that it disarmed me completely.

“Yeah.”

Still smiling, he shook his head understandingly. “Bad things happen when you are mad about something. A while ago my nephew left his Legos on the floor and I stepped on one.”

“Ouch, that must have really hurt!” I said.

“Yes, but then I got mad. I had told my nephew to pick up his Legos and he didn’t. I was so angry that I stomped my foot as hard as I could. My heel caught the corner of another Lego and drove it pretty deep into my foot. That REALLY hurt, and I had to get stitches. Sometimes bad things happen, but getting mad makes it worse.”
When I saw the doctor look up from my x-rays and frown at me, I knew it was going to be bad news. “It’s a hairline fracture.” He handed me a piece of paper.

“You have a hairline fracture of the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal,” I read silently.

I let out a long, slow breath. Great.
“We will give you an orthopedic brace.”

Score! No cast!
“You will have to wear it for six weeks.”

Six weeks! Are you kidding me? That would be…. the middle of July! I pictured introducing myself around Lexington in an orthopedic brace. “Hi, I’m Krista, your new neighbor/coworker/client/tenant/friend. I’m such a total idiot that I can’t cross a kitchen floor without committing grievous bodily harm, but it’s nice to meet you, too!”

“Sitting too long can pinch off your nerves. You need to move around more.”

“Yes. Definitely.” It’s all my fault. Go ahead and rub it in.

If you start tingling, change positions and don’t get up until full feeling returns.”

“Good idea.” Oh, I don’t think I can do that. I enjoy walking around on perfectly dead legs. Wasn’t the point that I didn’t feel any tingling? If I could FEEL that I had no FEELING, wouldn’t that mean that I COULD feel something?

“Would you like crutches?”

No. I would not LIKE a broken foot. I would not LIKE an orthopedic boot brace. What kind of a question is that? “Do I need crutches?”

“Well, some people get them if they need to walk a lot. It keeps the brace from dragging on the ground. How about pain meds?”

“No crutches, no drugs.” That’s all my students need. To see their English teacher hopped up on Vicodin. Hellllooooo, class! I feel goooooooood today, don’t you feel good, too?”

“Your injury is in a weight bearing area, so in six weeks you need to return for an x-ray to make sure proper healing has taken place.”

Not likely. In six weeks I’ll be three time zones away. I have PacifiCare insurance. As in The Pacific Ocean. They’ll refuse to cover anything short of an appendectomy out of the area, and I’ll be stuck writing a check for it. “Sure.” The doctor left the room, and I kept my face stretched in a rictus of cheerfulness until the door shut behind him.

“Wear this for six weeks,” said the nurse, strapping up what the staff called a “moon boot” for obvious reasons.

“I’m moving in three weeks,” I said numbly.

“Of course you are! Nobody ever breaks a bone when they don’t have something better to be doing. It’ll all still work out. Now, take a few steps and see if that feels all right!” said my nurse-cum-psychologist.

The boot worked by transferring my weight to my shin, keeping my ankle completely immobile while I took rocking steps forward. It was awkward, like a five-pound barbell was draped across my instep, but it beat the duck waddle I did to get into the clinic. “It feels pretty good. How many weeks until I can Thriller dance?”

As I shuffle-stepped past the checkout counter, I handed Craig one red sandal and smiled ruefully as I explained my injury dismissively. “Just a little crack in the bone, nothing serious, really. I’m fine!” I said brightly, waving to the nurse and insisting again that I didn’t need the offered wheelchair. I really did feel fine, up to the moment Craig shut the car door after me and I dissolved into self-pitying tears. “I broke my foot!” I wailed, with tears dropping off my nose and landing on my shirt.

We decided to drown my sorrow in a downtown Modesto coffee shop. Even carrying a latte across the café to our table was tiring and painful. Yesterday I walked miles without a problem. What a difference a day makes. “Sometimes bad things happen, but getting mad makes it worse,” the x-ray technician said. Boy, did I feel stupid. What bad things were happening to me? The long months of waiting were over, and we were leaving so soon. If I was so far behind on my work, why couldn’t I work harder instead of wasting time arguing like it was an Olympic sport?

I smiled tentatively at Craig, and he smiled reassuringly back. We had never really resolved our previous argument, but it was gone anyway. We were working as a team again, even though one member of the team would spend the next thirty-three days on the injured list.