Tuesday July 2, 2002 at 07:07 pm

Well I must say, I’m glad everyone had fun this weekend, or so it sounds like, or appeared to be so at least. I had a little excitement of my own as well, and I can without a doubt say this had to be by far, the most inexplicably, undeniably, the shittiest weekend I have ever had. Oh yeah I had excitement, the excitement of waiting to find out how much the emergency room is going to charge me for my little visit on Sat.

Oh yes, lets recap, shall we. Sat morning, no really plans other than to go get my haircut, and pop into work for a few hours. Of course Mike wanted to go run errands, but I told him I needed to get some things done before hand that I had no idea how long it would take. So we came up with a plan that if my haircut was going to be a while which it normally is, simply because we BS when we’re there. If this was going to be the case, Mike would go do his stuff and come back and scoop me up afterwards.

So as I got ready to go I could here the kids upstairs, running around there apartment, and could only imagine the ruckus they created bases solely on the sounds of things bumping and crashing into their floor, our ceiling. As I walked out I stepped into what seemed like a barricade of potato-sized rocks, possibly be used to redirect rocks towards the army of little green army men that were posed just off the edge of the walkway. For a brief moment I remember a time when I would have done the same thing. But as I was much older now, and remember the countless time my very own parents punished me for leaving such things in people walkways I promptly destroyed the creation with a few quick sweeps of my feet, knocking the rocks back into the small area in which they originated.

Any other time I would have dismissed the situation, but the was no other situation the children from upstairs were a constant annoyance, and not just to me but to Tom, and Liz as well. They nightly ritual must have consisted of jumping from a couch or bed into the middle of the floor, as every night we were bombarded by sounds of pounding and crashing against their floor. Finally last week, Tom decided to bang back on the ceiling to let them know they were too loud for 12:30 am, the sounds quickly reseeded but were alter back to near full swing when I had come home form work. They had also, according the Kid, had been attempting to dump a large cup of water on one of her friend but, instead ended up dumping the water on her from the balcony above our entrance. Therefore, not such guilt or betrayal was felt when destroying their apparent hard work of creating the monstrous barricade surrounding the toy men. I say betrayal because when I was at that age I was the king of damn, creation river diversion, and timed detonations of damn, rivers, and an occasion lakebed or lagoon. I swear if I could find the job to do this very thing as an adult I would do it in a heartbeat.

So with the rubble cleared I followed Mike out to his car, as I stepped off the sidewalk curb and under the covered parking area, my leading foot fell just shy of the ledge, as it neared the ground I felt it touch something, thinking it was secured I proceeded to put the rest of my body weight down with it. As this happened I realized it was on an uneven surface. The next thing I knew, my ankle was bending in at the joint, and the rest of my body was folding over on it. I felt the bone popping, which was normal, and tried to force the other half of my body to continue in the other direction hoping it would not roll completely and hit the bone on the ground. Unfortunately this was not happening, so I switched to plan be which would be to spin and try and correct the position of my ankle, as to avoid the bone hitting as well. Unfortunately this failed as well. The last thing I hoped for, but would be unable to initiate, as I would be almost on the ground at the time would be if in process of spinning, either my shoes came off or it lost it’s grip and simply spun back into position.

~ SNAP! ~

Wincing at the minor sharp pain as my ankle going way beyond its normal range of motion popping in the process of bending.

~ THWAP! ~

Breathing a momentary sigh of relief as my knee pops, and absorbed some of the contouring irregular movement, and the fact it’s been wanting to pop and not popping for the last 3 days.

~ KATHUDD! ~

The bone hits the ground hard with at least 250 pounds right on top of hit.

~ AAAGGHH! ~

My reaction to the pain

“SONOFA…. DAMNIT…GRRRR…LIL MUTHA….ISH “

My reaction to the fall, then the fact that I’ve scuffed my new LUGZ fairly bad, then seeing hidden rock my heel landed on along with recalling who put it there, and last but far form least seeing that my freshly washed shorts now has a nice black stain from the ground.

At first the pain was intense but as I stood and put some weight on it wasn’t so bad, yet. I knew I’d be sore for a some days, as this very same thing has happened several times before, just with not as much intensity as it was happening now.

I limped my way to Mike’s car as he laughed at what he thought were my apparent antics, but was quickly aware of the unintentional nature of the situation when I began bitching about my shorts, shoes, and the fact I was limping fairly heavily. I’m fairly sure that if I had bailed out on the day and just went back in and dropped some ice on it the swelling would not have been as bad, but like I said before, this has happened before. So I’m thinking walk it off, get the pain out, get a compression wrap, and ice it throughout the day would take care of it, and by Monday it would be fine, again, just as usual right?

Wrong

As we got to my barber shop walking as becoming quite difficult by manageable, unfortunately Tyrone, had locked himself out of his house and wasn’t going to be in for some time, granted I could have sat there and waited with a big bad of Ice fro next door, but I opted just to have Mike dropped me back off after going by a GNC store, hoping I would be able to at least pick up a compression wrap there. Unfortunately the GNC we went to only had supplemental products and no real athletic gear.

We eventually made it back to the house; as Mike pondered if I was still down to go the movies later that evening, which I was more than willing to go to, however my ankle was saying something else. At this time it was making it’s presence well known by inflating to the size of softball, at which point everyone suggested that it might be broken. Of course I think I’d be in more pain if it really were broken, and simply ignored the suggestion for some time and once again stuck with the original game plan, compression, raise it up, and ice the hell out of it, just like I’ve done in baseball and football, more so in baseball however.

After 3 hrs however the swelling was holding steady and showing no signs of relief. I finally resolved to the fact that something a bit more serious may have happened and this alone was not going to help it. A few calls around the area yielded un-welcome results, showing it was going to cost me at least $100, for a visit to the Emergency room, but I knew I’d have to do it. Also at this point my ankle decided to reaffirm the fact of just how bad things were as I tried to stand and found myself unable to place any pressure on it all. Thus limping into the ER on my now was now out of the question, no matter how much I wanted to

Now something I have to say about civilian hospitals is thank good they’re civilian. I’m used to military hospitals, so much so I could probably account for the majority of my younger years being in, going to, or coming from one hospital or another, for something or another. Usually a visit to a military hospital is an all day event, at least for me it is, as my medical records span 3 oversized manila envelopes and was gradually working on a 4^th when my military ID finally expired. So not really ever experienced a civilian hospital I prepped myself for a very long day. All of this was totally useless and proved more troublesome once I was there, as I was in and out within an hr and a half. Of which 20 minutes of this was spent waiting for a ride.

I had Mike drop me off, as Tom, Liz, Kid and him had made plans to go to the movies, which seemed to be his biggest concern of the day. However he was kind enough to get a wheelchair from the main waiting room, after which he promptly left. Was I annoyed you ask, what do you think? Slightly ticked at the fact that for the most part he would have been completely content with simply dropping me off outside and taking off, yeah I was a littler pissed, seeing as I seem to recall a time when we kicked at a hospital waiting on him some time ago as well.

Nonetheless, I had to take care of the situation at hand, which is when I noticed it. Silence, there were no screaming babies, no pestering kids, with mother, yelling across the waiting room for them to put down the magazines or to stop hitting their siblings. There were especially no high-ranking officers, in a sense cutting in line simply due to rank, and no crackling loudspeakers blaring code medical terminologies to what seemed to be an omnipresent being every 5 minutes.

The 2 nurses and Dr. on had found some amusement/amazement at the size of my ankle and decided to take a picture of it, almost as proof to what would soon be one of the outlandish stories people where while sitting in a bar making small talk, or as they sat next to the water cooler the next day, simply trying to pass the time. I don’t know if it was the fact that Mike, ditched me there, or the fact that I had never been to a civilian hospital before, but I decided I might as well make the best of the situation and at least humor them, as they wheeled me from one corridor to another, from one from through another, to finally resting in a room in which a kid, probably 10 or 12 was waiting to be seen by the Dr, for a broken arm. Things were somewhat looking up; at least I wasn’t the only one with a broken bone.

The Dr. finally came in with my X-rays, and determined the bone was not broken, but was severely sprained and should have broken. Her main concern was the area that I actually landed on the bone, where the swelling was heaviest, as there was a small portion missing from the bone, which could mean that I ether chipped the bone of fractured it, resulting in a possible fractured distal fibula.�Either way, I would be off it for at least a week, and would have to come back to have it examined again. They then spent the next 25 minutes, trying to splint my leg, but were having some difficulties due to the size of my leg, and the contour of my calf muscle. Finally after making some minor alteration to the bandage they had me wrapped up, and ready to go. Only problem was I had a place to go, just no way to get there, and I was out of bills and only had plastic.

I was finally able to get a hold of Kim, who was willing to come and pick me up in exchange for the commitment of taking her to dinner. Which really wasn’t any different than what we had already planned, just that now I couldn’t back out of it, if anything else came up, that I felt more compelled to attend or partake in. This really wasn’t a problem as I wouldn’t make plans for something like dinner and then bail on the person, that’s just phucked up.

After providing them with the type of humor only Kim and I can provided, we made our way to Walgreen’s, as apparently hospitals no longer provide crutches for the public anymore. And of course with this came another dilemma, how was I going to get into the store to buy the crutches without crutches. Kim’s suggestion was to use a shopping cart as if I was a little kid again, however that required me to place pressure on the bad ankle as well, and with the split now firmly hardened that pain was not worth attempting it. Finally we decided she would simply use my card and sign my name to it, and if anyone raised any question they could easily be directed to me outside. However it never came to that, and a few minutes later she came out with a brand new set of crutches for me.

They day dwindled down from there we, stopped by a store and picked up 2 6-packs of Mike’s Hard Lemonade at a driver through liquor store across the street and went back to her condo, as in my haste to getting to the hospital I had forgotten my keys. Actually I had figured that by the time I was finished the rest of the gang would already be done with the movie and I wouldn’t need them, which was a mistake. After an hour or so Mike called to let me know they were out of the movie. I told him I was at Kim’s, and asked if he could come get me, as she had company that she had already left once to come pick me up. Of course he made a big deal out of it, but reluctantly did come through. I gave Kim a hug goodbye, and reminded her dinner was on me for the next night, and was finally on my way home.

The ride back was quiet on my part, as Liz decided it was the perfect opportunity to eat up my misfortune as ammo for her amusement. Finally getting home, I just wanted to lie down and do nothing but sit and rest comfortably, somehow. After about 30 minutes I decided to try my hand at the crutches some, ironically they are quite easy to use when you have 2 good feet, but when it comes down to really having to use them it is truly a chore I wish not to endure on a frequent basis. Soon the throbbing pain on my ankle became to much of an annoyances to simply block out and I decided to get my prescription filled at the drive through Walgreen’s across the street. I went to the window dropped it off and was told it would be ready in about 15-20 minutes, unfortunately they never said if they were going to call so I decided to go to the ATM and pull out my limit to give Tom for rent, and found myself sitting in my car in the parking lot waiting for the call that the “feel good stuff” was ready.

Bored now I decided to give a few people a call, and ended up talking with my friend Sean. Just as the conversation was winding down and noticed the huge amount of smoke that seemed to be hovering around my car. After a few moments of wondering what the hell was causing it I put the car in gear and moved about the parking lot to see if it followed. Strangely enough it didn’t seem to until I came to a stop, as if just putting the car in drive cleared up the cause. Either way it wasn’t a good sign and as Sean and I discussed it the likely culprit, was a faulty or destroyed head gasket, of which to purchase a replace is very cheap, however to install it is somewhat difficult and with a bad leg to go with it near impossible with the resources available.

I went home and sat and watched as after a few minutes the exhaust began to carry a whitish gray about it more so than normal. I sat for sometime, there wishing I could wake up form this dream, but as I got out of the car a realized there was no way for me to carry the drink I had just purchased and get back to the apartment, I knew this was not a dream but an all to real nightmare, one I couldn’t control or wake up from. I ditched the drink and slowly almost clumsily made my way to the apartment, and fell to the couch. I propped my leg up, grabbed the remote, cracked the can of coke I had grabbed on my way in and shoved in my pocket, and took to Vicodin’s. If I couldn’t wake up I might as well go to sleep for a few hours.

Sunday morning I woke up in the same position I had fallen asleep in, in the same clothes, with the same splint on my leg. I spent my entire weekend on that couch, until I finally got up around 2:30 AM, took a shower-bath-shower (that’s a shower that turned into a bath, and then back into a shower by the end of the whole ordeal). I then set my alarm clock as usual, took some Motrin and Vicodin and went to bed. The next was going to be full of more fun surprises if not one very clumsy ordeal to get dressed for work, getting to work, and the biggest as of yet, getting in a none handicap enabled building. But since it’s already Monday night as I write this, obviously it wasn’t too bad since I’m not dead yet, but I can say this. This has been the longest I’ve ever sat at my desk and not gotten up for some reason or another. I’ve gotten up 4 times all day, twice for the bathroom and the other two were to simply stand and stretch my legs. It’s impossible to go on a break, because by the time I get outside, my break would be over, as for lunch, luckily if one person leaves for lunch they are usually more than willing to grab something there for someone else as well, hence the Lunch Biotch Service.

2 more hours left in the day, and then I’m out of here, so unless a meteor or something hits, that about covers my weekend.

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