Thursday July 4, 2002 at 12:35 pm

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“When I get old just kill me off”, that’s what I thought about all day as I sat in apparent geriatric center to have me ankle checked out. My appointment was for 10 am and I got there with a few minutes to spare even after waking up at 9:30 and having to call for directions. Nonetheless, I expected the same quick service I received at the ER, but apparently that was not going to happen.

After an hour of waiting the Dr’s nurse finally called me in, of course this was just to sit for another 45 min waiting for him to come in and say I needed to get X-rays AGAIN! By this time the nurse had already taken the splint off and unwrapped my ankle. Let me just say what I thought my ankle would look like based on the range of motion and lack of pain I felt were completely different than what it actually looked like. Then again it may have been because all the blood rushed to my foot and swelled up from having it hang over a ledge for 45 min and from having me trying to walk on it numerous times.

The end diagnosis is ‘DING DING’ broken Distal Fibula, so since it’s broken on a “none weight bearing bone” as my brother calls it, they didn’t want to put it in a cast, and simply prescribed an ankle brace to wear for the next month.

So off I went to get my ankle brace, note, I was walking, or at least trying to walk on foot at this time as advised by my Dr, the help stretch the muscles in my calf. Over the last 4 days I’ve accumulated 15 cramps in various areas due to the lack of muscle movement. When I got to the fitting room, there was no one there, but there were a whole, bunch of medical goodies I could have snacked but opted not to. Finally the nurse arrived and pulled out a few braces to test, I stopped her before she could even get half way across the room, Every single one of them were barely large enough to accommodate my arm let alone my ankle and leg. She did however find one that fit very snug, but after a bit it was too snug and couldn’t feel my toes.

All the available braces were way to small, and I almost suggested just putting it in cast, but then she decided to call their supplier to see if they could get one in by Monday. They were out, so they called the manufacture to see if they could overnight one to be here by Monday. The manufacture then told them they had just sent they’re last few out with a rep on his way to Green Valley and that he was currently in the Phoenix area at the time. So they page him on the 2-way, and he gets diverted to the office to drop off one for me. Mean time I’m stuck in the geriatric ward waiting for him, why do I say it’s a geriatric ward, well hen they pass out juice to people while they wait and it turns out to be Pedialyte, and there are no children present then you know your in a geriatric ward.

Finally the guy shows up and I get fitted into it, it’s much more comfortable than the other smaller one, but defiantly makes me look like I have a Robo-Cop leg or something. The only benefit I can see I get form this is that slacks and khakis won’t fit over them, so I get to wear jeans until I can walk without it. So off I headed to work now 4 hrs after I should have been there, but I had already called in and let them know the situation and they were cool with it. Now all I have to do is wait to get the almost evident gigantic bill, and to top that in the midst of writing this at work now, I received noticed that I didn’t get the Level 2 position, but my manager is pushing to get me hired on in the next few weeks, all I have to do is not be late form anything and I should be good to go. This of shouldn’t be a problem since I can’t really move around anyway