Bring Out the Gimp

There are times when I'm glad we live on the second floor. This is not one of those times. I'm on crutches for probably the fifth or sixth time in my life and I am using them as if it was my first time. When I came home, I stood at the bottom of the stairs for about five minutes trying to figure out exactly how I was going to negotiate my way up. I made it about halfway and ended up tumbling a bit and crawling the rest of the way up.

I hate crutches! I despise them really. They make my underarms and shoulders hurt. They're clumsy and intrusive and you can't carry anything with them. I remember trying to walk with my schoolbag on my back and a crutch under each arm back in high school. I learned real quick to leave the school books at school otherwise, I'd topple over backwards.

Regardless, I've spent the last three days hibernating in my apartment, partly because it's so much effort to get around and partly because I'm scared of trying to get down the stairs with my crutches. Because, you know, falling up the stairs is alot safer than falling down them. And rather than use the crutches, I've been hopping on one foot from the bedroom to the living room and back. Which means my left leg will be awesomely toned by the end of all of this and my damn floor will be covered in soda because you can't hop with a full glass, apparently.

I sprained my ankle. I sprained it pretty bad. We went to Dr. Scream's Haunted Forest in Myrtle Beach Friday night and it was pretty cool. Some dark and scary trails that you walk through and a "hayride" through the woods, which was really a ride on a trailer attached to the back of a four-wheeler. It was really fun and I was having a good time until I hit a rut in the trail and rolled my ankle, falling flat on my face in the pitch black woods. No lie, it probably could've been a scene out of a horror movie because I went down like some slasher heroine, clutching my ankle and turning screams into tears in two seconds flat.

My friends managed to help me up and get me into the tent of the next attraction where some of the actors met me. One of the women reached down and took my shoe off, which made me mad, but I was too upset to say anything. You don't take a shoe off for an ankle injury unless you're going to start treating it right away and I still had to get out of the damn woods.

Thankfully, some random reaper guy from the show helped me out and Steve came out with me. Of course, the last the reaper guy said to me, after assuring me I was going to be okay and telling me to treat it with hot and cold compresses, was "Unfortunately, it's enter at your own risk!"

I'm thinking "WTF?" Seriously, I know they're worried about liability but that was a little uncool. Here I was in pain and tears and they basically just pushed me out at the entrance and said that. If I didn't know the drill with these things, I would've been even more pissed. And for the record, there was no posting ANYWHERE, not on the tickets, not at the door, not in any of the announcements, that said "Enter at your own risk!" Perhaps it is an assumed thing, but common sense on my part would say if you're going to run a haunted trail where people walk through the dark woods and you jump out and scare them, do a walk through during the day and fill in the holes and ruts that are right in the damn middle of the trails.

No big deal though. I've done this enough times to know I needed to get it elevated and iced and to take some ibuprofen. It was a rather uncomfortable night as I had to crawl up my brother's stairs to his front door and then pass on his couch in a ball of tears and shivering because I was upset. The next day, I could barely hop on one leg to get to the car and we still had to drive an hour and a half home.

I didn't feel like sitting in the ER so I figured we'd go to the Urgent Care around home, which is basically just happy medium. We were in and out in two hours with a nothing's broken verdict, X-rays, crutches, and air cast and a prescription for Vicodin. Who knew?

I've been alternating between the recliner and the couch. I try to get up and get things done for myself but sometimes, it so much effort. Thank god Steve is here because he is doing an amazing job taking care of me. It's driving me a bit insane though because I can only sit and watch so much TV and surf so much of the Internet. I was able to start using my tip toes to get around with both legs and the crutches but I still can't hobble without the support. I was out of work today and I'll probably be out tomorrow, if not until Wednesday.

I guess knowledge helped though. Like I said, I've been through this so many times that I knew the whole RICE method by heart (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation). I knew the ibuprofen and the protection. I knew to stay off it. Even when I went in for X-rays, I knew which way to turn my leg. The lady looked at me and said "You've done this before, I take it?" I smiled sheepishly and said "Many times."

It hurts but it's getting better. I still have pain and it's very tender, but it's getting more bearable. What's harder to deal with is the stiffness in my legs and my feet from not moving it too much. I have exercises to do but it still hurts to do them so I'm not able to start them at this point. I just can't wait until I can get up and move around normally again because it's driving me crazy not being able to do anything or not being able to get up and get stuff for myself. And I know it's driving Steve a little insane, so I'm trying to be good and not ask him to get too many things for me. I usually wait until he gets up but then it kind of sucks because I've got five or six requests built up.

But here's a good moral. Last week, my razor broke and I had just gotten around to getting a new one Thursday night. We left Friday night for Myrtle Beach and when we came home Saturday, we went straight to Urgent Care. So I had no time to shave and of course, seeing as how I had a sprained ankle, this required some pushing up of my pants to reveal my legs. I apologized to everyone for not having shaved. I was so embarrassed! So moral is to always replace your broken razor right away and make sure to shave every day in case you end up in the ER with a sprained ankle.

What made it all worth was the look on the nurse's face when she asked me how I injured myself. I looked her dead in the eye and said "I fell in a hole and rolled my ankle while being chased through the woods by a man with a chainsaw."

There was silence as blood drained from her face and I could see she was trying to figure out what to write.

Steve piped up in the background and said "We were on a haunted hayride" and I just glared at him for ruining my fun.

The nurse, I think, was quite relieved that she didn't have to explain that one.