This has been a week of stupid. Not just normal stupid, like "I left the coffee maker on" or "I was ten minutes late to work because I lost my keys" or "I forgot to kill the chicken before I ate it." Nono! Because for me, apparently, normal stupid is not good enough! Apparently, God is so proud of how I handle normal stupid that He's decided to SUPERSIZE it!
Now, I've said before that I really don't want to talk about myself in this blog. This still holds true. But for various reasons that will become evident as you read, this had to go in the POC section.
Friday night at Homegroup, I was sitting on the floor as I am wont to do. The floor is so much more comfortable to me for some reason, even when the searing lower-back and sciatic pain starts. The couch just doesn't work for me. Violates my chi or something (Jen, forgive me for using your chi joke, it just fit in so well here). Anyhow, getting up off the ground, I felt my wrist pop a little bit. No big deal, happens all the time. Moved on with my life, didn't think anything else of it.
You see where this is going. Hang on, gotta tighten my wrist brace.
I've mentioned that Scarborough Faire is going on right now. Since it takes three women, a pair of neoprene gloves, and a freakin' TREE to get me, Jen, and Jeni Graves (another awesome friend that needs to visit the POC WAY more often than she does) into our costumes, we had all planned to meet up at Jen's apartment semi-early and head out together.
So my alarm goes off at 7:30. But before the soft, polite "meep! meep!" could wake me gently out of slumber, I attempted to jam my hand under my pillow and woke up.
"Ow...."
There was a pain in my wrist that was quite a bit beyond the normal "slept on it funny" pain. So I tried to flex my fingers.
"Ow!"
Okay, maybe I can get some more sleep and figure it out in the morning.
"OW! MOTHER OF BISCUITS OW OW!"
Okay, so, sleep is a no......
by this point it was 7:30 and time to get up. I was so determined not to be late to Jen's that I had showered and packed my stuff the night before, so all I had to do was brush my teeth, wash my face, dress, and go! Sounds good, huh?
NO!
First of all, everything took twice as long to do because my right hand was utterly useless. Now, I am left-handed, so I wasn't totally crippled, but you'd be surprised how many things it takes two hands to do. Toothpaste is an evil little invention, by the way. Takes two hands to squeeze and manipulate the toothbrush. Nevertheless, I kept trying to use that hand, hoping it was just some soreness that would work itself out. No such luck. The pain just kept getting worse and worse. But hey, I was running ahead of schedule, I could stop by Walgreens and get an ACE wrap, no problem! So I get ready to trundle out the door.
....Where's my phone?
....no, seriously, WHERE IS IT?
Corrie had to call it a dozen different times, because I, the genius, FORGOT TO TAKE IT OFF OF BUZZ! I can hear the little monster vibrating somewhere in the vicinity of my bed, tore apart my sheets, and found nothing. Well, with a car on the verge of falling apart on the road, not having a cell is NOT an option.
"KEEP CALLING, CORRIE!"
"Are you serious?"
"I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT!"
Then, I see a flash of light coming from under my bed. The side that's against the wall. That's right. Hurt wrist and all, I had to LIFT MY BED AND MOVE IT OFF MY PHONE!
Sometimes, you just gotta let the cuss words out. Holding that stuff in will give you cancer.
So, now I am in a tearing hurry, stop at Walgreens (thirty minutes late already), and make my way out to Jen's house. Between the loading and unloading, my wrist is throbbing, and I'm increasingly more mystified as to what this could be, besides a huge, peanut-butter flavored wad of OW!
Jen and Jeni got tired of my whimpering and made me go BACK to Walgreens for an actual brace. The brace worked like magic and took about 70-80% of the pain away. That fact was actually a cause for concern, since that started me thinking that it might be a stress fracture.
I got through the rest of the day okay, except for one stunning accident in the haunted house that caused me to CRY LIKE A LITTLE GIRL. Luckily, the medics at the front of the faire were nice and gave me a crapload of ibuprofen. But by the time I made it home I was in a lot of pain. Managed to get to sleep for only about four and a half hours before the pain woke me up. I was really worried by now, because the only thing I could think of that would cause pain like this would be a stress fracture, and since I don't have insurance right now, I CAN'T AFFORD A CRISIS LIKE THAT!!! AGH!
Despite that fact, I had to get Laura to take me to the ER. Poor, tired, "I just worked a twelve hour shift" Laura.
Just FYI, I may be a little impish in the hospital, but I am NOWHERE NEAR as bad as Laura.
FIRST she tried to put me on a bedpan.
THEN she pulled down the scopes and started looking in my ears. When the nurse came in, Laura actually JUMPED AND HID THE SCOPE BEHIND HER BACK!
When the words, "Ooo, I wonder what'll happen if I push this blue Code button" came out of her mouth, I near 'bout lost it.
I finally got Laura to sit down, and in walks the same doc that treated her for her fingers.
CRAZINESS!
So I'm waiting to see if he remembers us, and apparently I was looking at him funny, cause he raised an eyebrow at me. I raised mine in return.
"......what happened?"
"I dunno."
Not the answer he was looking for, I guess.
"You don't know?"
"Nope."
"....so why are you here?"
"So you can fix it." I could do this all day, Jefe.
"......okay."
He looked so confused, I took pity on him and actually explained myself, gave him the lowdown, the 411.
"Huh. Weird."
"I know, right?"
Did I mention this doc is kinda hot?
Oh, and he DID remember us. When he said we looked familiar, Laura held up her two injured fingers and yelled at him for not remembering us before. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Laura? He apologized, and apparently remembered me because I was "pretty funny." It's nice to be remembered for something.
Anyway, the x-rays made me cry. Again. I'm not a wuss, but by this point I was exhausted and stressed, had been put on a bedpan, and had light shined in my ears against my will, lost a staredown with a hot doctor, and was about to have to pay through the nose for them to tell me to keep doing what I had been doing until I felt better.
My spidey-sense always tingles when there are unnecessary medical bills being incurred.
So yeah, apparently I just ruptured a ligament. In Corrie's words, "I don't think there's any 'just' to that statement." I don't mean to sound ungrateful. A ruptured ligament heals much faster than a break. But a lot of people don't get that sprains can be more painful than breaks, and expect you to be able to get over it in a couple of days. Plus, all this fuss....for a sprain? GAH! I know how to treat a sprain! I didn't need the $200 ER bill! So when the cool doc stuck his head in to say that the x-rays were negative, my reaction was, shall we say...somewhat less than enthusiastic.
"Okay, it looks like there's no breakage, so more than likely you just blew a liga--"
"ARGH!"
"......."
"How stupid is this??"
"Hey, it happens. Lean on a joint just the wrong way at the wrong time, and it pops."
"*grumblegrumble*"
Now, three days later, it's sore but nowhere near as bad as it was. This is mostly because Darvocet is the coolest thing since peach smoothies. I'm guessing I should be able to get through tomorrow with just ibuprofen.
Thanks to the roomies for putting up with my drug-induced cackling....I promise I'm not doing anything stronger than pain pills. Thanks to the cute doc for putting up with my grouchiness. Special thanks to Laura for keeping me sane and giving me abovementioned drugs.
STUPID!!!!!!!!!!! GAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!