the story of the ankle

I've had some requests to get the full ankle story, so here it is.....

Late Friday afternoon, I was trying to get some cleaning done in the girls' room. I had asked Elena to help and instead she climbed up to Amya's bunk and wouldn't come down. I kept asking her to come down and then threatening her, but she wouldn't budge. I think she thought she was safe, since I don't go up there. Finally, I'd had enough, and I hauled my big butt up there to make her come down. On my way back down, I had a little fall. I was standing on the very last rock with my right foot. I could either put my left foot on the shelf of the bottom bunk, or down on the ground. I thought I was low enough (and my legs were long enough) to bypass that bed shelf and go straight to the ground. So I let go of the rocks I was holding onto and "stepped" down. Unfortunately, I totally miscalculated the distance and crashed down hard on my left ankle/foot. I immediately fell backwards and poor Téa broke my fall. I was initially more concerned that I'd injured her, but once I realized she was fine, I started to feel my own pain. Keith quickly came and helped me up, but I couldn't put any weight at all on my ankle. So he carried me to the couch and I laid there for the rest of the night. I wanted to go to the doctor's, but he had his electrician friend over and they were working on wiring the clubhouse (more on that later) that Keith has been working on and he didn't want to lose their momentum.

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures (at least I don't think I have) of the monstrous bunk bed that Keith built for the girls this past October and if you haven't seen it, you may not understand what I'm talking about. So here are some pictures to help you out. This is the three tier bunk bed that the girls sleep in - Elena and Maricela on the bottom, Téa in the middle, and Amya on top. This thing goes from floor to ceiling and I can't fit the whole thing in the picture with my widest angle lens; it's that big. Our ceilings are about 12 feet high in the bedrooms....this thing is huge. You can just barely see the opening for Amya's bunk in the top middle of the picture. And then the bottom opening is the "shelf" that I'm talking about. Anyway, my right foot was on the rock that the arrow is pointing to.

And just for a little more perspective, here's Maricela next to the rock I was on. As you can see, it's really not that far off the ground, since she's barely 3 feet tall and it's shorter than she is.

So on Saturday my ankle was still hurting A LOT and we went to the doctor. He xrayed it and said it was broken. On the navicular bone (the one I've circled in the picture below) you could clearly see a piece of bone jutting out. It didn't look smooth like the one in the picture. He said that probably the tendon that is attached to that bone had been pulled too hard and pulled off some bone with it (which is almost exactly what happened when I broke my thumb skiing a few years ago). However, it was way too swollen to cast, so he made a splint for me to use until the swelling had gone down enough to cast it. I told him I already had an appt scheduled for the coming Tue (yesterday) and he said that should be long enough and to have my regular doctor cast it at that appt. And I guess technically it's not my ankle, it's my foot.

So we went to the doctor yesterday, and after he looked at my xrays, he said he didn't think I had broken it. He thought it looked like an old fracture, not a fresh one and didn't think it needed casting. (Which is strange, because I've never hurt my ankle/foot badly enough to not walk on it before.) So he said to just stay in the splint and stay off it as much as possible so it can heal. And that if it doesn't get better, they can xray it again and cast it if they need to. I can put a little pressure on it now, as opposed to none at all over the weekend, but I don't want it to heal wrong, you know? I'm a little confused, but we'll see how this goes.

Here's a picture of me with my splint and crutches.

I have found out that it is NOT easy trying to get around on crutches while pregnant. And weighing (right now) 35 pounds more than usual. My hands and armpits are already sore, and I'm only moving around to go to the bathroom and back & forth from my bed to the couch. Also, you have to use your stomach muscles to walk on crutches and my stomach muscles are already sore from stretching for this baby, so now they're even worse. I usually feel a contraction or two after sitting back down...probably from the strain of moving around. Keith's been really great though - bringing my food (and my Oreos) to me on the couch, getting me drinks when I need them, and taking care of the kids. And my neighbor brought us dinner Sunday night (which was really good and I need her to give me the recipe) so that was nice, too.

And then because of all this, I had to quit the maternity subbing I was doing. I feel really bad about it - I'd already done 4 weeks and only had this week and next left to do, but it just isn't going to be possible. This was the one I was looking forward to, as it's a third grade class with some of my students from last year in it. But I had fun while it lasted.....I just hate feeling like I left her hanging.

Anyway, I've probably bored you with this story for long enough, soooo........that's it! Hope I've answered all your questions!

One more quick tidbit - At my appointment yesterday, instead of measuring 4 weeks bigger, I measured.....(are you ready for it)........5 weeks bigger. ARGH!!!!!!!