“To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!”
Another day of an ugly, painful leg and foot though my foot is getting better, losing all its black and blues. This morning after I was awake for a bit I still hadn’t ventured out of bed. I knew that once the blood flowed to the leg I would be in yelping out loud pain. Finally I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The pain came. I wailed a bit. The dogs stood and watched and wondered. I made it downstairs without mishap. For that, I am thankful.
When I was a kid, I broke my wrist when I was three or four. I lived in a project in South Boston then. Our yard was a mass of metal fences around clotheslines. each clothesline was for an individual apartment. I jumped off the fence gates for fun. I even jumped off backwards. The one time I asked my mother to watch from the apartment, I landed poorly and put my hand down to the pavement to keep me from falling. I complained my arm hurt but still kept jumping. My mother told me she called my grandfather and asked him for advice. He told her to move the wrist back and forth. She did it while I was sleeping, and I didn’t have a reaction, but my grandfather told her to get me to the hospital to check. They found the break and put a cast on. I was quite proud of that cast!
I broke my cheekbone by falling down the stairs. Nothing could be done. It just had to heal. It did, but sometimes I get a pain in my cheek just before a big storm.
That’s it, my list of broken bones. For someone who falls, it is a short list. I did fall down the stairs when I was ten but only needed stitches on my chin so it doesn’t count.
I am tired. It takes a lot of energy to deal with this leg. I even take a nap every day, but I still go to bed early for me. Last night it was just after the news at 11:30. I woke up at 4 in wicked pain because I had neglected to take the pain pill. I couldn’t hobble downstairs because of the pain so I moved my foot around until it hurt less. I fell back to sleep until 8:30.
For many things, I am impatient. This leg is one of them. I do what I’ve been told, but I hate it. It was a week ago Wednesday that this whole thing started. In my opinion, that’s plenty of time to heal, but no, I’m still waiting. I’m thinking enough is enough.
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June 3, 2022 at 1:40 pm
That leg of Yours truly look bad! I didn’t understand how bad that fall actually was! How’s Your finger? I hope that at least has healed well.
I’ve had no falls with any bigger injuries for quite a while now, thankfully. I fall quite often when walking in the forest with the dogs but the ground is soft and covered with moss so mostly any pain will go away pretty soon thankfully.
Take care and I do hope it gets better soon!!
Christer.
June 3, 2022 at 5:14 pm
Christer,
I have a topper on my mattress. I think because of my finger, I was restless in bed. The topper slid beyond the mattress. I didn’t know that when I sat up and on the side of the bed. There was nothing to hold me so I slid to the floor. Nala was on that end piece as well and started to fall on her back with legs in the air. She cried because she panicked. She landed on my shin, all 62 pounds of her from the high bed. The pain was super intense. I had to sit on the floor a while before I could move. By Sunday my foot was swollen and toes were black. My shin was swollen and bright red. I went to Urgent Care in Dennis. It was closed. I tried again on Monday, and it was closed as well. I went the next town over to have it checked. That doctor told me to go the the emergency room at the hospital. I was told they were admitting me because the leg was of great concern. Though I am home, it is still swollen and really painful. You saw how ugly it looked. It is a bit less swollen now but still ugly.
I am doing my best!!
June 3, 2022 at 5:19 pm
Hi Kat,
Glad to hear that the bruising is going down in your foot, but your leg seems to be the worst injury. Take your pain medicine, reduce moving around, and be careful on the stairs.
My one regret owing a two story house is that I will someday become so old and infirm that I will not be able to walk up the stairs. At least it’s a straight stair so I could install a chair lift.
When I was in the third grade I fell off of a jungle gym in the elementary school yard. I put out my left hand out to break the fall onto the hard ground. This resulted in a compound fracture of my left wrist. I was also in a cast for six weeks. Being a lefty, I had to learn to do a lot of things with my right hand. Luckily, south paws develop a certain level of ambidextrousness because we live in a right handed world. To this day I hate writing script because I was never taught to turn my paper the opposite way from righties. Therefore, I curve my had around the top of the page and strain my wrist while dragging my hand through my writing. This smears ballpoint pen ink or pencil lead. Thank goodness for typing and word processing. That jungle gym was removed from the school yard because it was a hazard a couple of years ago. Every time we drove by the school yard my kids would remind me that I was a klutz and I that I fell and broke my wrist.
That was my only broken bone growing up. Impatience is both a blessing and a curse. When injured I think that I’m still 20 years old and can bounce right back in five minutes. Unfortunately, my body is halfway through my seventh decade and my muscles and bones don’t heal as quickly and the pain doesn’t diminish instantly. All things considered, getting old still beats the alternative, dying young. 🙂
June 3, 2022 at 7:28 pm
Hi Bob,
The leg is definitely the worst. It still hurts quite a bit. After I put it down from being elevated, the pain is horrific for a few minutes.
If I have to, I can use all fours to go up the stairs. My bedroom is there and my shower so I can’t avoid upstairs.
I know lefty’s had a huge amount f trouble when we were growing up One of my nuns tried to covert the lefty to be a righty. The rest, though, tried to help the leftys adjust to writing. I remember watching kids twist their hands across the top of the page to try to write. They usually had ink stains on their hands and smeared their papers.
We grew up mostly unscathed with all sorts of hazards including the jungle gym. I surprised we didn’t have a whole slew of injuries. new all the playgrounds have safe equipment, but the excitement is gone.
I was never injured as an adult except once when I broke a bone, which one I forget. My orthopedist was the same doctor the Celtics used. I had to keep my hand and wrist still so it could heal. Because of that, I got tendonitis, painfully worse than the injury.
Nothing heals quickly now. I am much more careful than I ever was.
June 3, 2022 at 8:18 pm
Yes, in the bad old days some people believed that left handiness is a sign of the devil. I remember my third grade teacher required that we buy fountain pens. Because the teacher wasn’t smart enough or trained to have me turn my paper the other way. I had become accustomed to writing with my hand covering my writing. This smeared the ink and ink got everywhere. To this day I’m glad that fountain pens are a relic of a bygone era along with black and white TVs, and rotary dial telephones. Ugh 🙂
June 3, 2022 at 9:06 pm
I can’t imagine the mess that fountain pen made as you dragged your arm across the ink. Dumb teachers should have figured it out.
Yes, we are getting old! Look at all the antique stuff which was every day for us.