Things had been going so great. I was in a zone where cleaning was coming along wonderfully. Downstairs looked great, the only thing left to do was vacuum. I'd even gotten a little decorating done outside for Christmas - the wreath on the door and the net lights over the bushes outside our window. The lights I'd put above the door weren't working, but I could figure that out later. I was going to bring out the bag of garbage from upstairs, the garbage that I'd used for cleaning downstairs and the garbage from the kitchen can out before heading out to pick Peter up from PDO and I'd feel really accomplished today.
On my way downstairs with the bag of trash, however, my ankle decided that it didn't like the way I was walking. It turned under me and I heard a snap. Then I tumbled, painfully, down the stairs to smack my head on a bin of books that were going to need to go to Goodwill and/or the library. "Please, no." I prayed, blinking the stars out of my eyes. I couldn't afford a broken ankle. I moved to my knees, then tried putting weight on my right foot. It was holding, though it hurt like hell. Maybe it wasn't broken. Maybe it was just a bad sprain. Maybe it just needed to be walked out. Maybe...
As I made each step, I hoped and prayed that it would feel better. Instead, it felt worse. Tears welled up in my eyes. This was going to suck. And I had no choice but to drive on it. My husband is 30 to 45 minutes away from Pete's PDO and the overage rates for being that late would be far more than we could afford. So drive I would.
I called my husband as I drove, carefully trying to put as little pressure on my ankle as I had to press down the gas and the break while also trying to ignore the pain shooting up my leg. I asked him to come home. Driving 5 minutes to PDO and back I could do. 30 minutes to the ER, I wasn't so sure about. Then I called PDO, and asked the director if she could bring Pete to the van for me. Walking down the hill they have there was more than I thought I could do.
Once I got home, I made two more calls - Teddy's school, asking that they have him waiting in the office for Rich to pick him up, and my doctor's office asking if I should go to the ER or to acute care. I shouldn't have bothered with the second - as I suspected, she told me, "ER! We wouldn't be able to set it here if it's broken. And from what you describe, it sounds like it's broken."
So now I'm waiting for Rich and Teddy to get home so we can drop the kids off at my friend's house then head to the ER and wait to find out how bad is bad. I'm hoping for a bad sprain, but expecting a break. And I keep thinking two things: "Why is the end of 2012 having to suck so badly?" and "At least my house is clean... ish."
And a lot less fun than the other options.
