I’d always read how doctors warn women that their bones weaken as they age. I didn’t really pay attention, or really care, beyond thinking briefly that this wouldn’t apply to me since I’ve always had really strong bones and normal aging factors don’t apply to Superwoman. I’ve taken a few really hard knocks over the years, mostly horse related, and while I broke my tailbone, fractured a few ribs, cracked my cheekbone, and have had my fair share of jammed fingers, I never had an injury that required a cast. Until now. And all I did was stub my toe.
We had been here about three weeks, and the house was still a construction zone. Part of the roof of the porch was ripped off to build the fireplace chimney, boards were all over the floor, tools were scattered everywhere, clothes were piled on boxes, and everything was in a jumble. One of those big driving thunderstorms blew in, and I realized that rain was pouring in from a few different spots, so I was running around closing windows and moving things away from spots where there weren’t any windows to close. As I was running from one end of the wet veranda to the other with an armful of stuff, my foot slipped on the wet tile and slammed my little toe into a pile of boards.
It didn’t hurt right away. I knew immediately that no pain for how hard I’d hit was bad. I put my armload of stuff down, went to the bed, and curled up on the edge so I could take a good look at my foot. My little toe was sticking out at a funny angle and my whole foot was starting to tingle, so I grabbed the little toe and put it back where it belongs, feeling very proud of myself for being so easily fixed. I got up and started walking, and realized that I could feel a nasty grinding from the bone on the side of my foot and casually wondered why a dislocated little toe would be popping and grinding there. This state of shock lasted another few minutes, and then it started to HURT. I started to get that semi-nauseating adrenaline rush whenever my foot passed within a few inches of a corner or piece of furniture or anything that could bump it. Then I started to feel semi-nauseous in general, and sat down to feel sorry for myself. Tom came in a little while later, and I got up to get the door for him, and as the dogs also ran to greet him, one of them stepped on my foot. I said a bunch of bad words, burst into tears, and curled up on the floor holding my foot.
Tom, immediately recognizing that this was not normal behavior for me, sat down, put me in his lap, and asked what was wrong. I proceeded to sob out all that I thought was wrong with the world, and finally got around to telling him that I’d stubbed my toe and hurt my foot. It didn’t help that I was overtired, having been on an airport run to Belize City with M three days before, out shopping all day two days before, and surfing in the back of the Land Rover for nine hours as we did the mapping the day before. It also didn’t help that by this time my foot was swelling to the point where I couldn’t get it in a boot, and we hadn’t gone for our walk with the dogs yet that day, and I was starting to figure out that I might have a sore foot for a few days. Of course none of this prevented me from unlacing my sneaker so I could get my foot in it so I could Nordic Track for 40 minutes. Denial is a very powerful analgesic.
By the next day, my foot was really swollen and really bruised, and wouldn’t even go in an unlaced sneaker. Normal walking wasn’t working because of the grinding, and I knew I’d broken a bone. But, I reasoned, toes can’t be casted anyway, so it wasn’t worth the hour-plus drive to town to see a doctor, so I just started walking on the inside of my foot so it didn’t hurt too much. M had seen my Facebook post, so she showed up with a couple of comfy chairs and a footstool, knowing I would be up and around but thinking that if I had a nice place to sit and read, maybe I would stay down with my foot up. I did spend more time than usual sitting with my foot up, but in a couple of days the swelling had gone down enough that I could get a sneaker on, so I started going with Tom to walk the dogs, and generally just doing everything I would do anyway…walking the dogs, mapping, going out in the tow vehicle, marching around the property. Superwoman does not let an itty-bitty broken bone slow her down.
But, after 17 days, it wasn’t any better. The bruising was gone, but it was still swollen and the pain was starting to wear on me. We had to go to town for some other errands, so I succumbed to peer pressure and allowed, Tom, G, & M to persuade me to stop for an xray. I consented, mostly because I figured they would tell me that it was just a broken toe and it would get better in a few weeks, and then I could say “told you so” to everybody who had told me they thought I’d be coming home in a cast.
But they got to say “told you so” to me. I went to the hospital and saw a doctor, who poked and yanked my toe in and out of joint (after me being so proud about straightening it!), and who then sent me for an xray because he said he thought my foot was broken. So, I walked on my broken foot to the xray department. The xray tech wrote up a slip and told me to go pay my $15BZ at the cashier, so I walked there. She didn’t have change for a $50 and I didn’t have any smaller bills, so she suggested I walk out to the parking lot and see if any of the food vendors had change. They didn’t, and they sent me over to the taxi stand to talk to the taxi drivers. None of them had change, so they sent me to the other side of the parking lot to the Bowen & Bowen truck, saying that they might have change. They didn’t, and at this point my foot was getting more than a little sore, so I went back to the cashier and told her that she could hold my $50 until I got change, but could I please just go get the xray. She didn’t want to hold onto my money, but told me to go get the xray and I could pay later. I went back to the xray department and explained my dilemma, and the tech took the xrays and sent me back to the doctor.
My foot was, very clearly, broken, about an inch into my foot from the toe joint, and the doctor told me that it hadn’t even started to heal on its own, and the break didn’t seem to have anything to do with the out-of-joint toe. He sent me to the emergency room and they put me in a back slab cast, with plaster on the back and an ace bandage around the top, and told me to come back in a week for another xray and a real cast if the swelling had gone down enough.
Tom had dropped me at the hospital at about 2:45 while he went to do errands and I took a radio so I could call him when I was done. This had been fine with me, because I figured I had a better chance of talking my way out of a cast if Tom wasn’t there trying to make me do what was good for myself. I did try to talk my way out of the cast, but it didn’t work and I couldn’t really argue with the xray showing the unhealed bone. When I was done getting the cast in the emergency room, they wheeled me out to the open air waiting area where I could see the parking lot. They told me I wasn't to put any weight on my foot, and should use crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair…and the hospital pharmacy was all out of crutches. So, I was essentially trapped until Tom showed up to get me.
The cast was on around 4PM, and I tried to radio Tom to tell him to pick up some crutches before he came to get me so he could make sure to get to the pharmacy before 5PM. I turned on the radio, hit the Talk button, and got the dreaded dead battery tone. I tried again, with the same results. Remaining calm, I figured that since he had dropped me off at around 2:45, he would have to be there before too long. Wrong. A few hospital employees were sitting on a bench near me and had been watching me fuss and fidget, partly because I was impatient with waiting, and partly because I was really uncomfortable and couldn’t move. They remarked that they had seen me marching around trying to get change, and couldn’t believe I was walking on a fracture. They asked me if I needed a ride, and I told them that my husband was coming to get me. I remained calm, sort of, although had I been able to get up and storm around, I no doubt would have. Tom finally pulled in at about 5:15. I leaned out and motioned him to drive into the pickup area by the benches, and as he got out and came around the truck to help me, one of the employees warned him that he’d better be careful. It was exactly the right thing to say, and we all laughed.
We got me loaded, I explained the crutch dilemma, and we decided to radio the farm to see if anybody had any crutches here. There weren’t any crutches here, but M called a friend on the Western Highway, and he had a couple of pairs of crutches. Tom had arrived too late to pay the cashier the $15, so we finished a few last errands in town, and headed down the Western Highway to fetch the crutches. After visiting for Julian and Olda for a few minutes, and getting a really handy bag for my leg for in the shower from Olda, we drove home, arriving at the farm around 8:30PM.
By this time, my foot was really swollen. I went to bed and propped it up, but the swelling didn’t go down for hours. Finally, in the middle of the night, I unwrapped the ace bandage and removed the cast, and had a few good hours of sleep. The swelling was down in the morning, so Tom replaced the cast. I had problems with the swelling all week, whenever I spent more than a few minutes on my feet (well, foot and crutches), and I finally took the cast off for good on Friday – but I didn’t walk on the foot, and sat with my foot up as much as possible.
On Monday, I went back to the hospital hoping that I wouldn’t get yelled at for removing the cast, which I had very specifically been told not to remove, but also hoping that maybe it would have healed enough that the doctor would decide I didn’t need the cast. I was partly in luck, and the doctor understood why I had removed the cast. However, he sent me for another xray, and when I took the films back to him, he told me that I still needed a cast, although the bone had started to knit. Hanna and Lori had driven me to the hospital because they had some other errands, so they went in with me to open doors and carry my bag. This was great because I really appreciated the help and they made it a lot easier, and Hanna stood in the cashier’s line to pay my $15 bill from the previous week, not to mention the fact that I probably couldn’t have driven myself anyway, but they also provided witnesses and a reality check. The doctor told me that I should come back in two weeks for an xray, which I tried to interpret as telling me that the cast would come off in two weeks. When we got home and I told Tom, in front of Hanna, that I was to go back in two weeks to have the cast removed, Hanna laughed and told Tom that the doctor hadn’t said the cast would be removed, he said he wanted to xray it again in two weeks. Nonetheless, I am hopeful.
The shorter, lighter cast is much more comfortable than the plaster and ace bandage, but it’s still a major pain in the butt to have to use crutches. Not only is it tiring, but I can’t carry anything unless I can put it in a bag. And, if I’m up and about too much, my foot still swells and the cast gets very uncomfortable. I’m trying to be good about keeping off my feet and keeping my foot up as much as possible, but it’s difficult because I think it should be all better after almost four weeks. But, maybe the doctors do have some idea what they’re talking about, and I will just have to hope that my deteriorating, post-menopausal bones will have healed enough in a couple of weeks that the cast can be removed.
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