Kris's Kompletely Krappy Day Part 1

I had a REALLY crappy day yesterday. Kompletely krappy. Let me tell you all about it.

I got up yesterday and everything was perfectly normal. I took a shower, got dressed, checked my email, let the dogs out. All the usual stuff. I needed to take out the trash before I could leave, so I took my stuff out to the car, opened the garage door and pulled the two garbage cans out to the curb. Because we had done a bunch of cleaning this weekend I had a lot of cardboard and plastics to recycle sitting on the porch. I walked over to pick up the box holding the plastics, turned and found myself on the sidewalk on my back staring at the sky wondering what the heck had happened.

After that first shock of "Oh my gosh, am I dying?" that you always get when you hurt yourself, I realized I wasn't dead, and that my left ankle hurt. When I managed to drag myself to the step and sit down, I realized it wasn't my left ankle, but my right ankle. Ow. Really hurt! I sat on the step for a while and tried to get the pain under control enough so I didn't barf all over. I waved to the neighbor who was taking out his trash and apparently didn't think it was weird that I was sitting on my front step at 6:00 and the morning and doing nothing.

I managed to get to my feet and hobble over to the car where I had left my purse. I got out my phone and called Ann to tell her I thought I sprained my ankle and wouldn't be by to pick her up as usual. Then I managed to hobble back into the house, let the dogs back in and collapse on the couch. I called for Greg a few times, but he sleeps with earplugs, so he couldn't hear me.

So I hung out on the couch for a while with my leg elevated, swelling and starting to turn pretty colors. I was pretty darned sure I sprained it. I tried to get up and go to the bathroom once, but I couldn't put any weight on my ankle, so I gave up.

When I heard Greg stirring I called him down and told him what I had done. He got me some ice for it while he showered and had breakfast. I called my doctor to make sure that there wasn't something else I needed to do. He asked me a bunch of questions and said he wanted to see me because it sounded like more than a sprain. He couldn't get me in until about 1:45, so we headed to the ER.

I have to say Southwest Washington Medical Center's staff is nothing like the staff of Scrubs. Nothing. One really weird thing is that they have free valet parking for the emergency room. Um, okay. That's nice and all but kinda weird, don't you think?

Anyway, we waited in the ER waiting room for an hour and a half. ER waiting rooms are so weird. Nobody in it every looks really sick or injured or anything. There was someone hacking up a lung and one lady clinging on to a barf bowl like it was a lifeline, but everyone else looked fine. I still had to wait forever, so I guess that triage thing is all a bunch of hooey.

So I after getting my own little cubical in the REAL ER I got to wait another eternity for 1) a nurse, 2) a doctor, 3) the x-ray technician. During this time I got to tell everyone who walked by and asked that I tripped on the sidewalk and hurt my ankle. Has there ever been a stupider way to hurt yourself? Honestly.

I finally got to see a nurse who told me off for chewing gum while waiting to be seen in the ER ("it promotes stomach acid production. If you had to go to surgery you'd have all this stomach acid in your stomach." Oh. My bad. Maybe they should post a sign saying that in the waiting room. There are signs that say everything else!). She tells me she thinks the ankle is broken but she's "been wrong before." A nursette comes in and hands me a bad of ice and leaves without a word. Um, right. And I'm supposed to keep this ice on my ankle how exactly? I'm not a contortionist, people! Greg goes and asks the gabbing gaggle of nurses if there is something he can use to attach the ice to my ankle and someone brings in an ace bandage and wraps in on. There ya go!

Okay, I have to go put my foot up now. Stay tuned for Part 2 of Kris's Kompletely Krappy Day where you'll get to meet the ER doctorette, the ER receptionist, more of the snotty ER nurse who yells at us for having the door open, the x-ray technicians, and the two unknown people who wrap up my foot. Wow, I bet you can't wait!

Oh, and I took pictures in the ER cubical with my cell phone. Got in trouble for that, too, but I'll post those too.

And just so you don't die of curiosity before I get to Part 2...the damned ankle is broken.