On New Year’s Eve, I made a resolution to be more active.
On New Year’s Day, I broke my foot.
So that’s the way it’s gonna be, huh? Oh, it’s on, 2015! It. Is. On!
I guess I shouldn’t bust out the brass knuckles just yet — or, you know, buy them. Where does one buy such a thing? Do I lose my street cred if I pick up a decorative pair in the gift shop for the “Newsies” musical?
It is a tad premature to purchase a weapon with a no-return policy. I don’t really know whether I broke my foot. I just really think I did. Despite my best efforts, the results have been inconclusive. Either way, it hurts like a beast, and this limp didn’t exactly help me hit the ground running on my resolution.
It all started about noon on Jan. 1. My son and I had come in from a walk, and I was chasing after him and tickling him, when I rammed my foot into the corner of our coffee table. Lesson learned: Never, ever, under any circumstances, play with your children.
Everyone is skilled in something. My talent lies in breaking my extremities. I broke my big toe a week before my first marathon. I broke my right thumb within the first month of a four-month backpacking trip in Europe. Nearly 10 years later, I still can’t lift it high enough to hitchhike back east. I broke two toes jumping into a shallow pool. Then I broke the rest of the toes slipping on ice while on crutches from the pool break. I am well-versed in tiny digit trauma. And this 2015 coffee table incident was, in my estimation, a solid break of at least one of my toes.
Not that I’d let that stop me. After all, I had postponed getting my toe looked at until after the marathon so the doctor wouldn’t dissuade me from running. Every step of those 26.2 miles sent spikes of pain up my leg. I’d still hoofed around the EU, waiting until I arrived home to go to a doctor. Some people call this stupid. Namely, my mom. But I call it, well, stupid. But far be it from me to be someone I am not.
Stubborn and unabashedly committed to my resolution, I refused to let my injured foot stop me from being more active. So I went to a buffet. There is a lot of walking at a buffet. At least, there is if you’re doing it right.
Over the next few days, my toes stayed blue. And then they turned kinda knobby. A tad crooked. The whole top quarter of my foot went black, too. But I’m fairly confident I read that you shouldn’t see a doctor unless your toes actually start falling off.
Knowing I could rent a wheelchair, I went to the zoo. I only had to hobble across the great expanse of the parking lot. And then one flight of stairs. And then another flight. And then a third, before arriving at the kiosk where you rent wheelchairs. Only to be told we needed to provide a cash deposit and must walk to the other end of the zoo village to access an ATM.
Five days after the injury, I still had not regained movement in my last three toes. I went to urgent care. They didn’t have an X-ray machine. Instead, they relied on an ultrasound. After gooping up my toes and maneuvering the ultra-wand around my foot, the doctor announced that my fourth toe is pregnant with twins. We are all very excited but unsure which of my other toes is the father.
OK, the doctor didn’t see twins. The problem was he didn’t see much of anything. The swelling had caused a fuzzy image. He sent me to another clinic, whose X-ray machine was broken. They sent me to a third clinic, which was too busy to see me. Yesterday I returned to the third clinic and had to wait, standing and pacing in the waiting room for two hours before I was X-rayed.
I’m currently waiting to hear from the doctor regarding the results.
I have to say, at first I was bummed about how my injury might keep me from my resolution, but between the stairs at the zoo and walking to a million clinics, I’m more active than ever.
I break my toes, not my resolutions.