Cast Off

The last 24 hours have been pretty painful. I managed to slide off my transfer board with my right foot twisted underneath me. It hurt at the moment, but when I got it out and straight, the pain went away. I was, at this time, headed out to the ALS Clinic for, of all things, a check on my soft tissue injury from my fall on Sunday night. So off I went, driving away in my truck.

After my visit at the ALS Clinic, where my neurologist said "Yep. Soft tissue injury.", I headed north, past my apartment and up to Crowfoot Circle and the Coop. I stopped for about a half an hour to rest; I was tired already from exercises, getting into the truck, getting out of the truck, and getting back into the truck. It was then, at about 6:00 PM, that I noticed the throbbing and pain in my right ankle. It wasn't bad, just annoying. So I went shopping.

As I spend my time rolling about the Coop looking for the things I wanted or needed, the pain seemed to rise with every bump and corner I took. It was then that I noticed swelling too, swelling well beyond the normal limits of my edema. It hurt, a lot. I was at the Coop at this time, so the only thing I could do was head home.

Once home I tried the good old fashioned McBride solution; Scotch. It doesn't have to be Scotch. Rum would do, or Vodka, or Gin. You get the idea. This self-medication treatment is applied internally, not directly to the wound, but to the body's pain center, the brain, via the stomach. Alas, even with two hefty glasses of Scotch in me, the pain, which had initially seem to retreat, pushed forward with the terror of a Napoleonic Imperial Guard charging in column.

I waited for a couple of hours, but my 11:00 PM it was just too much. I called the Fire Department. This is the correct thing to do when I have an incident. They sent an ambulance for me and carted me off to Foothills Hospital. There I was x-rayed and poked and prodded, a series of events which led to a substantial amount of crying and screaming on my part.

My right ankle has a small fracture in it. Not enough to be a break, but just enough to hurt like hell, to hurt through at least two Percosets. The doctors ordered up an AirCast for me, a kind of walking cast with stabilizes the bones with air cushions. Given that my foot is pretty much immobilized through paralysis, this AirCast is just added caution.

I will have this cast on for the next 6 or 8 weeks. During that time HomeCare will come every morning at 11:00 AM to make sure I am all right. They will try to help me dress or undress, as needed, and put the cast on or off, also as needed. I'll need a few pain killers to go with this, but that is another story. For now, the cast is on and I am underway.