a slight misstep

On the night of July 23rd, the kids and I were loading up the van with our suitcases. We had planned to stay the night with Marc's parents in Salt Lake so that we wouldn't have to wake up quite so early for our 6:00 a.m. flight to North Carolina the next day.

All was out of the house, and I was carrying my suitcase down the outside stairs when I stumbled. I don't know if it was maxi-dress I was wearing, or the flip-flops, or what, but I just fell on the concrete stairs and my suitcase tumbled down without me. My right foot twisted and went underneath me, and it hurt. Oh it hurt.

Marc was out of town. I couldn't put any weight on my foot. I looked across the street and remembered that my neighbor Heidi was out of town. I just sat there for awhile and cried. Lucas started to cry a little because he was upset by seeing me cry. Eva went over to the other side of the driveway and muttered, "This is so disappointing!" Max ran inside to call 911. I was shouting after him to definitely NOT call 911.

My cute neighbor Traci (who is actually one of the sisters that I visit teach) came over because she had seen the boys putting the suitcases in the van and wanted to know where we were going. By that time, I had formulated a plan to drive myself over to InstaCare, but then I had to admit that there was no way I could drive.

Traci brought me some crutches and took me to go get x-rays and Eva wanted to come along – she found the whole thing fascinating, so I guess maybe the excitement mitigated her disappointment somewhat...

Good news! Those delicate bones across the top of the foot were not broken, I had merely strained all the ligaments. They sent me away with a lovely therapeutic shoe and a prescription for pain meds.

Marc's parents had to drive down and pick us up. We didn't get to their house until almost 11:00, and then they fed us a huge dinner because none of us had eaten. I think I finally fell asleep around 12:30, and then we had to wake up at 3:45.

In the airport, I had to be pushed around in a wheelchair. I won't lie, it was a little bit mortifying. My kids were champs about everything, and Eva didn't even whine about having to walk while I rode!

Fortunately I only had to use the crutches for 2 days, and then I could just slowly hobble around.

Still, it did put a bit of a damper on my beach vacation.

The people at InstaCare told me my foot should be healed in 2 weeks. It's been 4, and I'm still wearing that blasted shoe.

Eva asked me the other day when I was going to stop wearing it, because, "No one thinks that that looks good." Thank you, dear.

After hearing a real scare story from Heidi yesterday, I decided to go in for a follow-up visit, just to make sure that all was well. I had to get more x-rays today, just to be safe. (No results yet.) I was told that the stabilizer shoe isn't helping anymore, and that I should be wearing something with good support, like tennis shoes. Great... I'd like nothing more than to have to wear tennis shoes around all the time! At least with the dumb shoe, everyone knew I wasn't wearing it as a fashion statement! Sigh. I guess I have no real choice, especially since my foot is still swollen and I can't squeeze it into any other shoes. But at least it's not all purple anymore, that was rather disgusting.

So. That seems like a rather long tale about a slight misstep, but it also seems to have defined my last month, so there you have it.