Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Can't help falling....la,la,la,la...

Pity the puny of ankle and narrow of foot who, brainless but fashionable, purchase the knee high black suede boots with the wedge heel and zero ankle support, for lo, she has forgotten that two or three inches is a long way to fall if you happen to be a calcaneofiblular ligament attached to the ankle of a stork- like woman of sadly little grace.

No need to send thugs. I'll break my own kneecaps, thank you. I'll sprain and resprain the same poor old cancaneofib until it resembles, but is less resilient than the elastic you lost in your toilet tank three months ago. I will become so used to (as Marko says) "the annual wrecking" that as soon as my kneecaps are not grapefruit sized and the skin around my ankles has almost returned to the usual Caucasian fish-belly white tone, I declare myself well and strong and immediately spend days slogging up and down three flights of stairs carrying items heavy enough to tear my equally puny arms out my shoulder sockets. I move furniture. I haul bags of garbage, recycling, laundry and groceries. I dance spontaneously to Dead Can Dance (and I am not making that up.)

If this not stupid enough, I walk on uneven pavement.
You heard me.
I walk on uneven pavement.

Weedy has put in her customary keep-you-company appearance for my Doctor appointment. We sit there in the nine foot square room papered with anatomy of disease drawings like (thin gorgeous perfect red-headed) versions of Tweedle-Dee-Dee and Tweedle-Dee-Dum. This is the reward room. It means that after 45 minutes in the snot-infested, virus laden outer room, you may some hour actually see the doctor.

Dr. Margaret proceeds to poking and prodding the sore parts of my ankle very hard indeed and asking the rather redundant question, "Does that hurt?" as I yank my foot away, whimpering.
"It's a sprain," she says. And explains, "A partly torn ligament." She says the second part slowly, so that we, as laypersons, and I, as a person of drastically average IQ, can comprehend.
I explain that it was sprained but it got better and then worse.

"What did you do?" Oh god. This means remembering, which I'm not good at.

"I hauled heavy groceries and stuff up three flights of stairs." I don't tell her about the dancing or the decision, Monday, to walk up and down over a hundred stairs at work for fitness sake.

"Well, this is a common sprain if you go over on your ankle. It gets worse if you overwork or walk on uneven pavement." She explains the stuff I already know...ice, rest, physio, tape etc. while I consider moving to a city with more than two square feet of even pavement. Then, because I look unsuitably happy, she inquires, "Have you had your pap test this year?"

"No." Shit. Busted.

"Would you like to have it now?" Weedy's eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. She offers to leave for that part if I'm considering that.

"Nooooo."

Weedy, posing as the Cavalry, heads the conversation back to falls. She's fallen three times this past while, cleverly using her face as a buffer when she hit the ground. Margaret is her doctor too. The diversion is a partial success but I have to promise I will have a pap test. Soon. Damn. Is there no pity for the humiliation and suffering I've already accumulated for the month?

As we leave, I tell Dr. Margaret that really we are conducting do-it-yourself bone density tests where there is no waiting. If you keep falling and you don't break a hip, get pneumonia and die, then you aren't actually old yet and your bones have not yet turned to powder. I don't mention ligaments.

Weedy and me flee to MacDonald's to shorten our lives with transfats.

Stay tuned for "Running with Scissors."

20 comments:

Zhoen said...

Put down the scissors, back away slowly.

LJ said...

No way, Zhoen. What would I write about? You have to suffer for art! Not all of us are lucky enough to work with blood, gore and temperamental surgeons every day, you know.

Anonymous said...

oh excellent, lj. so witty and warm. love it. :-D

LJ said...

Edvard Moonke, in the words of the goddess Judy Tenuta, "I am bloated with self-esteem."
Also, I figured we (meaning "me")needed to lighten the hell up.

Anonymous said...

Oh, but scissors are so cliche. Try running with a stapler.

-HQ

beadbabe49 said...

and don't forget the needles!

herhimnbryn said...

I bet they are great boots!

Your Doc. doesn't miss a trick does she?

Mr. X said...

...and the sequel 'Pole-vaulting with machete"

Please do not damage yourself any further. We'd be very annoyed if you gave us nothing to read while you're stuck in hospital in lots of plaster :)

We suggest saying in bed pampered by males of the friendly variety until healing is complete.

Two weeks or so should do it nicely ;)

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the orthopedic ward, LJ. Do you suppose we are being victimized by a conspiracy of drunken muses? Your floozy and my airhead sitting somewhere on a curb, at the hub of a network of hidden strings... one of us comes along, unsuspecting, they jerk the appropriate string to send us flying and then sit there laughing their naughty asses off?

Eugene Jackson said...

Great work! I'm very impressed by your writing.

Eugene Jackson said...

Thanks LJ, very much. The dream was actually real. I have an interesting one every now and then. I look forward to future visits, back and forth…

Zhoen said...

(Actually, I run with scissors all the time, but they are usually in my pocket.)

LJ said...

Eugene...You have a vivid and communicative subconscious, indeed!
Zhoen...uh-huh, but you could probably sew yourself up if you fell.

Mr Farty said...

"Cleverly using her face as a buffer" - haven't we all done that at some point?

On the way into an Embra shop to get Xmas crackers back in, let me think, December, I managed to trip over an imaginary cheetah and fall flat on my face.

Ok, it might have been a leopard, I didn't get a good look at it before it ran off.

LJ said...

Well blow me down. I never thought of tripping over an imaginary jungle beast - and hell, that is SO much more interesting than tripping over my big feet. Thanks for tip Mr. Farty, if that is in fact your name.

Ariel said...

How about trapeze practice with a cheese grater in each hand, or some such? Wear sensible shows woman... Seems to be Footwear Week in t'internetland, as Mr X explains at length chez lui.

LJ said...

Ariel, are you suggesting that me and Mr. X are graceless?

phlegmfatale said...

You know, _I_ dance spontaneously to Dead Can Dance, too!!! Lovely!

AND I sprain my ankle on some sort of regular basis. See? We're, like, twins!

Glucosamine & MSM - stuff of miracles.

Anyway, I'll bet you looked fabulously bitchy in those boots. Go ahead: blame the pavement. I would.

LJ said...

Oh god. I hope we're twins. Oh. The boobs might be a problem. The...um...difference in frontage.

phlegmfatale said...

Don't worry about the boobs - I've got enough for both of us and then some. And for the boob of the male variety - I'm a magnet for those, as well. I can get us all the boobs we can shake a stick at. I'm the real-estate person, right? Let me worry about the frontage.