I busted my foot

my fracture is further toward the toe, my skin is not invisible and I have fewer radiating concentric rings

So, a while back I was walking Emmylou and noticed my foot was hurting.  But, look, I am aware I have some mild arthritis - which I've had for a decade at least, so sometimes things just start hurting for a while.  If I adjust this or that, it gets better.  But if I do something really repetitive, like push-ups, my wrist will start yelling at me.  

Anyway, I assumed this was that, and I would just get some new shoes and Dr. Scholl's inserts and all would be well.  Well, not so much.  

I woke up one morning and my foot was just hollering at me, which is not a great sign as I am a fellow who prefers to sleep horizontally and had barely used my feet all night.  

Immediately, I got online and got an appointment with my Primary Care doctor, and that appointment was a week out.  After a ten minute visit, I got an appointment for an x-ray so she could get a look and direct me to an orthopedic doctor.  That x-ray was *supposed* to be two weeks out, but I fixed it and it but a mere week out.  

The x-ray happened, and as I was leaving the x-ray room, they said "well, it'll be 3-5 working days", and, indeed, it was the following Friday that I got my results.  This led to a recommendation from my doctor for an orthopedic doctor.  Which was another week out.

The x-ray results seemed to say "you have an extra bone in your foot", which was not the diagnosis I was expecting.  And for a week, I was telling people "weird, the problem is that I have an extra bone...", and was mentally prepping myself that I was likely to have surgery to remove said spare bone, but would wait on the doctor's diagnosis.

If you're thinking "gee, The League, from your description, that's several weeks of walking around on a potentially broken foot", you're correct!  

And did it hurt?  Friends, it hurt like a mother@#$%er.  I was a sad The League, and poor Jamie has had to do all the driving for weeks as it's my right foot.  

Things got so irritating, I even bought a cane, and was pimping my way around the house.  

But, we made it to the orthopedic doctor and he seemed cool, and said "yeah, you absolutely have an extra bone, but that's the not the problem.  You fractured your foot."  Then he proceeded to show me where my extra bone is, which, yeah, I always thought my feet looked weird, and it is confirmed:  they are weird.  

Then I saw the x-ray, and I could see *something* which he said "that's totally a fracture" and given how my foot felt, I went with it.

Anyway, the orthopedic doctor put me in a sandal-like boot before I even left his office, and put me on Vitamin-D which is good for bones.

A week later, I was in getting an MRI on my foot (and this will annoy everyone) during which I fell asleep.  Apparently magnetrons and horrendous metal sounds sooth my soul.  But the team gave me plastic headphones and piped in Fleetwood Mac, so maybe it's Lindsey Buckingham who rocks me to sleep.

The boot helped a lot, just stabilizing things, but, also if I wore the boot too long it caused weird muscle spasms from holding my foot in place, so I've been learning to not wear the boot non-stop.

Tuesday I went in for my follow up and doc showed me the MRI and not only can you see the break, you can see how stressed the foot is around the break.  

So, I'm having surgery.  Yay.  They're screwing the foot back together.

But, hey, I've made it 50 years without surgery that I can remember.  I guess I had a minor thing done when I was a baby.  But I've avoided broken bones and appendicitis and everything else.  

The decision for surgery was easy.  It's the path to healing fastest and a permanent fix.  It should keep that foot intact for the duration.  A small bit of inconvenience of a few days of post-surgery non-fun so that by Christmas I'll be performing soft-shoe routines again.

The most important bit here is really that Jamie has had to do *everything* for weeks on end.  I can't drive because it's my right foot and I can't slam the foot down on the brake, etc..  I can do stuff around the house to a degree, but not at my usual pace.  And a huge one is that I can't walk Emmylou, which I love to do and was part of why I wanted that particular dog at the shelter - she seemed like a good walking buddy.  But now Jamie is having to deal with her non-stop while all I can do is sit on the sofa and throw her Lambchop toy on a loop.  

So, mad shout out for Jamie, who is doing *everything*.

But, yeah, whenever people are proclaiming we have the best medicine on the planet and if we had socialized medicine we'd have to wait for anything, I guess I'd point out:

• Decision to call doctor - Day 0
• Appointment - 7 days (1 week)
• X-ray - 8 days (1 week)
• X-ray return - 7 days (1 week)
• Orthopedic doctor - 7 days (1 week)
• MRI - 7 days (1 week)
• MRI follow up - 4 days (1/2 week)
• Surgery - November 6th
• Recovery - ...?

So a total of about 5 1/2 weeks from "yikes, this hurts" to "we will schedule surgery".  And that's after weeks of walking on the foot hurting already.  Add in about 9 days between discussion and surgery.  And THEN I'm at least 6 weeks out from walking around like nuthin'doin'. 

In TV and movies, people go to the doctor and we cut directly to a doctor in a white lab coat walking in and putting x-ray films on the light board (and smoking a cigarette).  Which... maaaaybe that would be the case if I'd gone to the ER.  Which is what I plan to do next time this happens.   

Honestly, aside from Jamie having to do *everything* the biggest problem is that I was just ramping up my workouts to try to get back to where I was pre-covid when I was about as healthy as I'd been since I stopped doing karate in 2001.  But every time I try to get healthy again, some bullshit like this happens.  It's insane.