The Tuesday before last, I was standing on the side of the girls’ bunkbed, having a heart-to-heart with a sullen child, when I stepped off onto a toy (which I had told the kids three times to pick up that morning), fell into Janie’s dresser, and collapsed on the floor in agony, my left foot throbbing. I crawled around in pain until the afternoon, when I crawled out to the front yard to supervise them riding bikes and was discovered by Steve and Marloy, who had knee surgery last year and had saved her crutches. Steve brought them over and adjusted them to my height, and I hopped around on them for another day. By Thursday, I realized this wasn’t a sprain, so I went to urgent care and got an x-ray which revealed I’d snapped the tip of my fifth metatarsal. Janelle had come over to watch my kids and brought over her left foot boot from when she injured herself, just in case I needed it. The urgent care doc told me to keep my foot in the boot for 4-6 weeks and keep weight off my foot until it no longer hurt to bear down. I’ve mostly only had the boot off to ice my foot, shower, and sleep, but somehow in the past week, I’ve managed to fall on it while hopping ice back into the freezer AND wake up in the middle of the night, hearing crying, and step out of bed only to have the pain remind me that the cries were from the Haney’s baby, not mine.
Yesterday, though, I slipped getting out of the shower and fell onto it again, wrenching my back and stunning me with the pain. After I scraped myself off the floor and into some clothes, Naomi took me back over to urgent care, where another x-ray revealed I had re-broken the foot and undid any healing that these past two weeks might have accomplished. The doc told me if I can’t totally keep my weight off it, I need to get a cast. He referred me to an orthopedic practice and told me to take it easier. Because that’s so easy with four small children… It’s really a bummer.
A blessing in all this is that Naomi and Jonathan have been visiting us, and they’re very up on keeping off feet, since Jonathan tore his achilles this winter. Naomi has been such a trooper about helping me with household tasks and reminding me to ice and take my ibuprofin around the clock. I, of course, feel like the worst hostess ever, and told her she needs to go home and take a vacation from her vacation with us! I’ve already had cleaning ladies in once, and I’ve hired babysitters to take my kids to swimming lessons all week. Sarah and Naomi have been doing my grocery shopping for me, I ordered a bunch of stuff from amazon pantry so I don’t have to brave Target on crutches, and I’m trying to teach the kids how to do more around the house while I sit and elevate my foot for the next 4-6 weeks. Unsurprisingly, I do not easily sit still all day, every day. Since Janie pulled apart my nook, Sarah lent me her kindle, and I’ve been trying to read PG Wodehouse and let the house fall in shambles around me. I even broke down last night and asked our community group to bring us meals for a couple weeks. Asking for help is so hard!
So if you don’t see as many exciting action shots of the kids for the rest of the summer, that is why. We’ll be featuring a lot of amateur work from the kids for the next few weeks…
So are you in a cast now??
Nope, haven’t gotten to the orthopedist yet. Lots going on today!