Acorns are for A-Holes

Neat.

The last thing I thought I'd have to deal with during this year of crazy homelessness was some kind of medical crisis. Ha.

Here I am in Lansing, MI doing some rotations at MSU. I am living with some colleagues in their house about 3 blocks away from the hospital. I gotta say, I was loving this commute. Until Tuesday.

I left the house at the usual 7:40 am, clad in my favorite pinstripe trousers and trusty Dansko clogs, ready for a long day of diabetes clinic. As I was walking, a few drops of rain started pattering down and a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. I pushed my gait, since I had left my umbrella on my bedroom door knob.

And in 3...2...1, I make contact with an acorn on the medial side of my shoe. Yeah. An acorn. They're freaking everywhere here, scattered willy-nilly hither thither and yon. The main strength of a Dansko clog is also its only weakness: a strong, solid sole. Usually this sole takes you through your workday without feeling fatigue. On this day, the sole was tilted slightly akimbo, and at that angle, my entire lateral ankle collapsed.

Now, I'm no stranger to weak ankles, but usually I can stave off a bad twist when I feel it coming on. This time I went down. Hard. The left leg bent under me, and I caught myself with the opposite knee. Of course, my shoulder bag then smacked me in the back of the head. Now, in the instant following any fall, all anyone can think is EFF. Who saw that? So you pick yourself up super fast. And I did this, first checking the integrity of my trousers, then carefully testing the faulty foot.

Unlike any other time, my ankle was uncharacteristically weak. While the initial injury had been a streak of pain, it was not particularly painful now, until I was actually walking. I debated initially whether I should go to the ER. Nope. You gotta go to diabetes clinic. The doctor to whom I'm assigned is one of those really sharp guys, who I always feel like I'm disappointing. So I didn't want to be a pussy and call in sick. Just walk it off. It'll go away.

Well, an hour into it, it had not gone away. By lunch, the pain was taking my breath away and the swelling was distinct. By mid-afternoon, I was seriously worried about the point tenderness, fearing a fracture of the 5th metatarsal. By the end of the clinic day the pain was so bright that I begged off of rounds to go the ER--where I sat for 3 hours, awaiting a verdict about my X rays. 

And it was: no fracture, but grade 2 inversion sprain.

Pathophysiologically speaking, sprains are way worse than fractures, because ligaments are not very vascularized. So they take forever to heal, and their risk of re-injury is higher than a nice clean bone break.

Elevation, ice and Kirby the Corgi's patented pet therapy

So here I am, on day 3, with what looks like a big zombie-foot. The swelling has finally become manageable, and I have high hopes for being mobile on my own two feet by Monday morning. But I also have high anxiety about not being able to reliably wear my shoe collection in the future...

zombie foot.

It also occurred to me today that even if I had driven my car out here, I wouldn't even be able to drive it right now. Can't even drive a stick shift.