Yah … I started this about a week ago, then got uber-distracted by “life.” So here it is, in all its wonderful glory.
As you may have guessed, I have a problem with my ankle. It’s wickedly sprained and sucky to walk on. Or … it’s sucky on which to walk, lest I end my sentence with a preposition. The normal person in me doesn’t really care. Upon further pondering, the English major in me doesn’t care either. Hmm. That’s odd.
I digress. The following paragraph will be an attempt to wrangle in the topic and get back on track. Here we go … aaaaaand we’re off.
Yes, my ankle is severely sprained. I blame the city of Roy for providing me a dumpster in which I can toss all my now-not-wanted piles of crap that have been collecting since 2004. Unfortunately, I did not utilize the dumpster for such extrication of said crap; instead, we used it to perform even more menial manual labor by cutting out dead tree branches from our shrubbery. No, the shrubbery is not of multiple levels “so you get a two-level effect with a little path running down the middle,” though that would be nice. Our shrubs have little maple trees growing up through the center that choke out the actual, desired foliage. If I wanted maple trees, I’d plant them–not in my shrubs, but in my backyard. It’s just ridiculous that those things are killing my plants. Lovely.
So we cut and sawed and ripped and pulled. We filled a great portion of this dumpster with the debris. Unfortunately, rogue pieces of branch decided to jump ship and play in the road. You know … like all tree branches *want* to do, but only the rough-around-the-edges branches ever attempt. This one particular disestablishmentarianistic branch decided to hang out right in front of the dumpster door. For a couple of days, it laid there in the road, hanging out with the wayward bermuda grass tufts that creep up between the asphalt cracks. A couple days went by. My wife discovered some other dumpster-worthy trash items that she wanted discarded, and she asked me to unceremoniously haul them off. I was all too thrilled to oblige the request, for I am a big fan of de-junking. In my zeal and haste to be rid of this junk, I ran out to the dumpster, stepped up into the gaping maw that awaits our refuse, double-under-handed it to the back, and turned around to exit. In order to exit, I had to step down onto the asphalt … where waiting for me was the ROGUE TREE BRANCH. The inside of my right heel caught the right edge of the branch, and before I could shift my weight to my left foot, I crumpled to the ground in a screaming ball of agony. I could no longer support ANY weight on that leg, and any attempt to do so was met with a bodily demolition-style implosion that ends with me writhing on the ground. Awesome, right?
The doctor I went to said that I have to stay off of it for a few days and keep it elevated. “If the swelling doesn’t go down in a few days, come see me again.” Not only did the swelling not go down … it actually got worse. As in, it went from a baseball sized lump to a softball sized lump. I’m no foot doctor-type guy, but I always thought that swelling should *decrease* as time went on. Silly me! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
Hmm. Actually, it’s not that funny. In fact, there is zero humor to this. Swelling sucks. Especially when it’s in conjunction with the fact that MY ANKLE IS STILL NON-FUNCTIONAL. This whole scenario happened over 2 weeks ago. It should not take this long for a sprain to heal, IF it’s treated properly, which is what I thought those numb-skull doctors were doing. Guess what? They weren’t. “Oh, here are some drugs, and, umm … don’t walk on it … keep it elevated, but whatever you do, DO NOT MOVE IT!” THAT’s where they dropped the ball. I should have been doing little things to keep the tendons from healing incorrectly.
To the doctor’s credit, he did say that if the swelling wasn’t down by Thusrday that I should give him a call and come back in. So I did. OH! I forgot. Initially, he said that I literally had to stay off of it and keep it elevated. I told him that I was required to sit at a desk and couldn’t keep it elevated, and that I did quite a bit of walking back and forth from lab to desk, lab to desk, lab to desk, etc. It would have been impossible to elevate it and stay off of it. So he wrote a letter indicating that I couldn’t return until Friday the 14th. That was before I went back in on Thursday. After seeing the new swelling, he said, “Yah. You’re gonna need to stay off of it for a while longer. Don’t go back to work until Wednesday the 19th. This whole time I’m freaking out because I’m worrying about my not-so-abundant paid time off bank that I’ve accrued over the last 10 months. I have a bit of time, but taking that much time off would put a *serious* dent in it.
Enter my incredible boss. He called me Thursday and asked what the time line was for me returning. I told him that it wasn’t happening until next week. His first response was, “Hope you get better.” His next response? “I’ll call HR and get the ball rolling on getting you set up with short-term disability.” In other words, I DO NOT USE A SINGLE HOUR OF PTO. Granted, it wasn’t all roses and play. In fact, there was *no* play. Well, none if you don’t count watching a ridiculous amount of Stargate SG-1 and other junk on Netflix. Wait … did I just call SG-1 junk? Cuz it’s not. Schlocky, yah, but a pretty cool show. Considering it was originally supposed to only be 16 episodes, and it ended up stretching over 10 years and 3 spin-off shows and movies, yah. Pretty cool show. Anyway, that was my week.5 off. Fun, but by the first Wednesday, I was going out of my mind. I know we all joke about not really wanting to go to work, and we all say we crave taking an extended break from work … I can honestly tell you that there is no way I’d do that week and half over again, given the choices of sitting around doped up on lortab and tramadol and going to work. It’s not my thing, it wasn’t all that fun, and I would have given my left ankle (e.g. the good one) to come back to work. I exaggerate not one iota in saying that I literally could not walk those first few days. When I tried, I basically ended up either hopping on one foot, or just not bothering.
What *really* burns my toast is that my buddy from church came over to look at it. He’s studying sports physical therapy (and pharmaceutical.Handy!), and he wanted to check it out. So he comes over, does some tugging, pulling, pushing, poking, prodding … then he says, “Yah. You’re going to need physical therapy. Your tendons have gone so far as to rebel against your white blood cells and they’re now plotting evil ways to mess up your life for the next 40+ years. If you don’t get this rehabbed now, you’ll be limping for the rest of your life.” Again, awesome.
This was told to me by a college student. Granted, a smart one. No argument there. My problem with all of this is that I had been to three doctors–people who have not only finished school, but are not several years into their careers and screwing with peoples’ lives for sick amounts of money– prior to him coming over on Sunday. Only the one I had seen 2 days previous mentioned ANYthing about PT, and even then he said that he would set up an appointment with the clinic next door and call me with a schedule. So far, neither he nor the PT clinic have called me for anything. Meanwhile, my tendons are becoming more and more screwed up, my ankle feels like someone is rubbing 40-grit sandpaper on an open compound fracture, and I am becoming more and more impatient with the doctor’s office.
Thankfully, church buddy gave me some pre-therapy suggestions, such as drawing the alphabet in the air with the bad foot while keeping it elevated. Elevation generally requires couch time. Couch time generally requires TV. TV generally requires Netflix. Netflix generally requires popcorn. Popcorn generally requires butter, salt, Parmesan/Asiago or some other hard, shreddable cheese, garlic and/or basil flavored olive oil, or any permutation containing said ingredients. Combination of said ingredients generally requires a tall glass of milk. You can see how I’d be more than willing to simply skip therapy sessions and rehab this thing all on my own, right? You can also see why I’m FURIOUS that the doctor didn’t tell me this during my initial visit back on the 10th. “Pissed” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Blugh. So that’s that. “Happy first post back, Mr. Blogger Man!” I promise other posts will be more cheery/bubbly/sappy/happy/non-crappy/snappy. This one problem had been percolating for so long that I had to get it off my chest. So … there it is–off of mine chest and into your head. Lovely day to you and yours!!
To the doctor’s credit, he did say that if the swelling wasn’t down by Thusrday that I should give him a call and come back in. So I did. OH! I forgot. Initially, he said that I literally had to stay off of it and keep it elevated. I told him that I was required to sit at a desk and couldn’t keep it elevated, and that I did quite a bit of walking back and forth from lab to desk, lab to desk, lab to desk, etc. It would have been impossible to elevate it and stay off of it. So he wrote a letter indicating that I couldn’t return until Friday the 14th. That was before I went back in on Thursday. After seeing the new swelling, he said, “Yah. You’re gonna need to stay off of it for a while longer. Don’t go back to work until Wednesday the 19th. This whole time I’m freaking out because I’m worrying about my not-so-abundant paid time off bank that I’ve accrued over the last 10 months. I have a bit of time, but taking that much time off would put a *serious* dent in it.
Enter my incredible boss. He called me Thursday and asked what the time line was for me returning. I told him that it wasn’t happening until next week. His first response was, “Hope you get better.” His next response? “I’ll call HR and get the ball rolling on getting you set up with short-term disability.” In other words, I DO NOT USE A SINGLE HOUR OF PTO. Granted, it wasn’t all roses and play. In fact, there was *no* play. Well, none if you don’t count watching a ridiculous amount of Stargate SG-1 and other junk on Netflix. Wait … did I just call SG-1 junk? Cuz it’s not. Schlocky, yah, but a pretty cool show. Considering it was originally supposed to only be 16 episodes, and it ended up stretching over 10 years and 3 spin-off shows and movies, yah. Pretty cool show. Anyway, that was my week.5 off. Fun, but by the first Wednesday, I was going out of my mind. I know we all joke about not really wanting to go to work, and we all say we crave taking an extended break from work … I can honestly tell you that there is no way I’d do that week and half over again, given the choices of sitting around doped up on lortab and tramadol and going to work. It’s not my thing, it wasn’t all that fun, and I would have given my left ankle (e.g. the good one) to come back to work. I exaggerate not one iota in saying that I literally could not walk those first few days. When I tried, I basically ended up either hopping on one foot, or just not bothering.
May.