My Cane

Some of you may be wondering why I am walking around with a cane. Let me address these imaginings individually, and in bulleted form.

• No. I have not picked up pimping in my spare time.
• No. I have not recently discovered large sums of money (Gold-diggers need not apply).
• No. I am not some sort of martial arts master so there is no sword hidden in my cane (Though that would be sufficiently bad-ass).
• There is nothing wrong with my leg.

However, there is something wrong with my foot. I broke two of my left toes.A couple of days ago, I visited my parents at their place. Nothing out of the ordinary during that entire Saturday. Late that night, after I had a couple of beers, I decided to chase my dog. Which is fine because even though he is 14 years old, he has some serious spunk left in him. So after chasing him for a little bit in my parent's tiny townhouse, he made a quick turn into the living room and I followed. However, my feet did not. I plowed my left foot into the leg of the oversized ottoman. It hurt a little bit but nothing more than a stubbed toe...which is what I thought happened. Only later did I realize I was clearly mistaken.Sitting on the couch, keeping my foot up, the pain slowly grew. It grew so much it was as if my foot was split in twain. In slow and agonizing fashion, I removed my sock. To much shock and my parents' dismay, my two left most toes (pinky toe and ring toe?) were pointed at a 90 degree angle in relation to the rest of my foot. Looking back now, it is likely that half of my toes went one way around the ottoman leg; the other toes went the opposite way. My mom got me an ice pack; my dad looked at me with half shame, half amusement. As I writhed there in intense pain, I started to laugh hysterically.My parents, debating whether or not to take me to the hospital at 11:30 at night, were perplexed as to why I seemed happy. This is what was going through my head, "I BROKE MY TOES CHASING MY GERIATRIC DOG!!" So that made me laugh. A lot. Also the laughing lessened the pain more than the beers ever did.The next morning my toes did not shift back into position. I was bummed because now I had to go to the hospital. So my dad generously drove me to the area hospital and we waited until my name was called. Having to explain how you broke your toes, the way I did, five different times in a hospital is very demoralizing. Thankfully the X-ray tech confirmed my broken state and sent me to the attending resident.This is where things went downhill. The resident doctor approached me with dragging feet, frayed and frizzy hair, and a hunched posture. I knew immediately that she was coming off of an 18 hour shift, or longer, and I was her last patient. She looked at my foot, looked at the X-ray, looked at my foot again and proceeded to ask me how it happened. BING!! Number Six ladies and gentleman! After another explanation she decided that all I needed was taping. So I clenched my jaw and grasped the gurney, preparing for the pain of re-setting. Unfortunately the pain never came. I left the hospital, an hour after entering, with two prescriptions in hand and wondering, "What the hell just happened?"Soon after arriving at my parents' townhouse I realized that I will need some sort of walking aid. My mom offered me the crutches she had from when I broke my foot in college (inquire within), but I declined. I knew that waiting at my apartment was an old cane that I liberated from my uncle's apartment when I helped move him many years ago. So I left that Sunday afternoon, filled my two pain reducing prescriptions, picked up a foot for my cane, and departed for my abode.Now this is the part of the story when I tell you about the lesson I learned from all of this. I'm not going to reflect on how a dog, closer to death than I, managed to best me. I'm not going to explain to you how having a high-deductible health insurance plan sucks. I will tell you this. I do stupid things.And I love it.