The Stairs of DOOOOM
are in my back yard.
Imagine the scene – it’s about 10 on a beautiful Saturday night. MrDanesi leaves to take home a friend of BoyDanesi’s and pick up GirlDanesi from work. I opt to stay home, work on my craft room some more, get a chair up there. The chair I’m going to be using for now is just a folding chair but it’s the best we have and it’ll do fine for now with the pillow I intend to use (with a hand-knit cover made by me, of course). All I have to do is go out back and grab it as it’s one of several we have in the gazebo.
For the first time in about two years I proceed down a set of stairs without holding on to the rail. This has become habit as I’ve developed a rather nasty tendency to fall/slip down stairs on a regular basis and I can’t tell you why I didn’t do it this time, other than maybe some sense of not liking to admit I can’t do something as simple as walk down a single flight of stairs.
You see where this is going, right?
It’s dark, I’m enjoying the night, looking at the alley and the houses behind us in the moonlight. I’m feeling good, content, happy to be out in the night air when I completely miss the last stair. Just miss it. I step down and out just that little bit too far and suddenly I’m on the ground fighting not to scream and/or puke. I pull my left foot to my chest and realize oh shit, it’s not supposed to bend like that is it?. The thought goes thru my mind that had I had a video camera on me this could very well be my very own Scarred story.
When I can breathe somewhat normally again I start to realize I’m outside in the back yard and I’ve closed the back door. The windows are open but I’m not entirely sure how the hell I’m going to get anyone to realize I’m out there, I’m not at all sure I can call out loud enough when everyone comes home. I know there is absolutely no chance I can put weight on my foot, as well as I know there’s also no way I’m getting back up those damned stairs on one leg. I decide to sort of crab-walk my way backwards up the stairs, placing my left leg on top of my bent right leg to keep it as immobile as I can.
I manage to get thru the back door, slide across the kitchen floor on my butt (realizing exactly how disgusting the floor is as I go), crab-walk to the couch, and pull myself up. At this point I can see my foot clearly and I’m pretty sure it’s broken. There are no bones sticking out or anything but there is something very definitely wrong. There is a large swelling on the top and it seems to be bent to the left.
I spend an eternity stretched out on the couch, my left foot propped up on the arm, my dog sitting over me as I cry out in agony.
When everyone finally gets home GirlDanesi is the first thru the door. She takes one look at me, asks if I’m ok, and runs back out the door calling for MrDanesi when I choke out, “No, I think I’ve broken my foot.”
The trip to the ER wasn’t nearly as bad I feared it would be. I was in agonizing pain the entire time but once they got me into a wheelchair and I could keep my foot elevated to some degree and stable I could at least concentrate on the knitting I brought with me. I’ve gotten good at breathing thru pain because of my past “female issues” and I managed to keep that up thru the check in and inevitable wait. The x-ray was by far the worst of it, getting my foot into the three positions the nurse wanted hurt worse than the actual fall had and if the table hadn’t been metal I’m sure I would have torn holes in it as I was writhing and grasping at anything I could.
It’s never a comfortable thing to have a nurse look at any part of you and tell you she’s never seen anything like that but not nearly as bad as having an ER doctor tell you he can’t remember the last time he’s seen an injury like that.
So it turns out I have something called a Lisfranc fracture, I’ve essentially severely dislocated the joint in the middle of my foot. Did you know there’s a joint there? I do now! I’ll have to have surgery and will likely be unable to use that foot “for several months”. At the moment the foot is in a splint, waiting for the swelling to go down to make the surgery possible. I have an appointment with a podiatrist tomorrow where we will schedule said surgery and get a referral to the Home Health people who will come in to the house to see if there’s any help they can offer.
Here’s the hellish part – we live in a row house. Three floors not including the basement (which is GirlDanesi’s domain so I don’t need to worry about that). Our bedroom? On the third floor, of course. The only bathroom? On the second floor. Of course. The only rooms on the second floor are BoyDanesi’s bedroom and the craft room, neither of which is (or can easily be) set up for convalescence.
As of right now I’m set up on the couch. GirlDanesi brought down and set up my computer here, utilizing the coffee table and two side tables to do so. My damned crutches are perched at the end of the couch where I can reach them to be used to take the three or so “steps” to the stairs I have to crawl up to get to the bathroom. Do you want to know how humiliating it is to literally crawl, on your hands and knees, into your bathroom and have to use the toilet itself to lever yourself up to take a piss? And then slide down, oh-so carefully, back onto your knees to make your way back to the stairs to slide down, again oh-so slowly and carefully, back to the crutches you had to leave there because there’s no damned way to crawl up a flight of stairs and carry them.
Oxycodone and Ibuprofen are keeping me from tearing my hair out but it doesn’t take the pain completely away. The doctor did warn me about that so at least I was prepared…but it still FUCKING SUCKS. I can’t find a position that’s comfortable for more than a few minutes. Hell, I can’t even get myself a snack because I’m too wobbly on one foot. I know, I know, that’s what my family is for and they’ve been really wonderful. It still sucks and this is just the beginning.
All because of one lousy stair.
