Monday, September 9, 2019

Them's the Breaks, Kid

So I may have broken one of my toes last night.

It wasn’t even a great heroic story.  There were no burglars, no daring leaps from speeding vehicles, not even a long field goal to win in overtime. 

No, the sad truth is that I dropped a bottle of wine on it from about three feet off the ground.  I wasn’t even going to drink any of that wine, though in retrospect I probably should have, at least afterward.  It might have made up for things.

I was looking for a light bulb in the hall closet.  Unfortunately that’s where we keep all the alcohol in the house and since we generally regard the prospect of drinking as being much more pleasant than the actual act of drinking we do end up with a fairly large collection of bottles in that closet.  One of them was in the way of the bin of light bulbs – the other thing we keep in that closet; I’m not sure how we settled on that particular combination of things for that space but there it is – and when I went to reach past it the bottle fell over.

Now my toe is wine-colored, which makes a certain amount of sense. 

Saved the wine, though.

The thing about broken toes is that, like broken ribs, there isn’t much point to going to the doctor about them.  What are they going to tell you?  

“Yep, it’s broken.” 
“What do we do now?” 
“Oh, it will heal eventually.  Try not to tap dance for a while and you’ll be fine.” 
“Thanks.” 
“Don’t mention it.  That will be $4,500 plus the title to your back yard.”

It didn’t actually hurt all that much, to be honest.  Once the initial thud wore off I kind of forgot about it until I went to bed, whereupon it shoved its way back into my memory pretty hard.  But as I am in the middle of my annual Fall Cough and I was, for the first night in a week, actually getting some rest, I forged ahead and aggressively slept through it.  So there.

This morning was kind of a drag and I ended up going to work rocking the Dad Combo of socks and sandals rather than attempting to shove my foot into an actual shoe, but after a day of teaching it seems to have calmed down, mostly.  My teaching style has been described as “duck in a shooting gallery” so I suppose the exercise did me good.

Assuming I am right in my diagnosis I figure I can look forward to a few weeks of general annoyance at the state of my foot followed by many years of sitting around a pot-bellied stove predicting the weather to anyone who walks by.  I’m kind of looking forward to that part.

4 comments:

LucyInDisguise said...

Steel-toed safety boots, with metatarsal protection.

Just sayin’.

Lucy

David said...

It may come to that. It may indeed.

I'm beginning to suspect that it's not broken, just bashed all to hell. I can go up and down stairs pretty normally now, which is my benchmark for any foot injury, and I've been able to put my regular shoes on since Tuesday. Still bright purple, though.

LucyInDisguise said...

Yeah, sounds like you busted a couple of veins. AKA bruised.

Watch out for racing stripes headed up your foot towards the leg. Ice periodically as practical to reduce swelling.

As for pain, I always recommend "Suck it up, Buttercup".*

Dr. Not Doctor LucyInDisguise

* Of course there always that Medicinal Mary Juana, if ya don't mind the munchies and the giggles.

David said...

Still illegal in this state, unfortunately. I'll have to find other painkillers, preferably of the single-malt variety.

As long as I don't hit it on anything it doesn't hurt that much. I'm guessing my punting career is on hold for a while.