Friday, October 25, 2002
So I’m feeling out-of-whack from sitting around inside all day. Hell, from sitting around almost non-stop for the past eleven days. So I decide to go take a walk to the Monarch convenience store, just a half-block from the house. (Part of “Waking Life” takes place in the Monarch, for trivia’s sake.)
I take my crutch and slowly hobble my little way up there — the rainwater on the ground has been loosening the plaster on the cast, allowing a bit of flexibility. I get a cut of soda, and hobble back.
The water has also been a problem, causing my bandages to sort of unwrap and flop all over like loose shoelaces, so I do this little thing, rubbing my bad foot along the ground trying to roll the bandages back up the foot and out of the way. And.
Pop.
I feel this little “pop” in my foot and — holy crap — my foot feels my better. Like, whatever misalignment of joint or tendon has been giving me so much hell righted itself, snapped back into place. I’ve got the cast off, now, and seem to be okay hobbling around the house with just a couple rolls of bandages to provide some support. And I can walk comfortably with the foot pointed straight ahead, which has been impossible since last Monday.
The body has systems to right itself, I guess. And I got to feel one in action. As the swelling has gone down and the circulation came back, I guess the slight motion from my walking finally messaged a critical piece back into place. Whereas yesterday I worried about whether some functionality could possibly be lost permanently, the sprain seemed so ugly, tonight I feel confident that this mess will be over in a couple weeks.
And I’m at the point where I can hide my injury during short walks. I still gotta have the crutch for longer walks, but I can get to the kitchen and back or get out, pump gas, and pay the cashier without anything seeming amiss. Though it sort of hurts.
Look, folks — I don’t have an exciting life. These little events are the highlights. Being on crutches turns you into a freak, and it’s interesting to see how both people you know and strangers act differently around you. People have been very kind, for starters — opening doors, helping me carry things, and just generally letting me falter on my normal duties. People have also gravitated towards the same joke about it:
“You need a better story, like you broke it fighting a bike gang.” (After my: “I just fell while leaving the Spider House.”)
I said it to myself at the hospital, though, so I’m no better than anyone else.
So anyway.
