My weekend, uneventful till I decide to go out to my car at 10pm on Sunday. I had been home all weekend and seen very few people, we all need peace at one time or another and this was my time. I couldn't sleep so I thought I would take a drive, clear my head and perhaps get some ice cream. I throw my old jeans on with a fleece that is looking quite disreputable these days, put on my sneakers and I was off. Up the stairs, out the front door. Then I start to step down the front stoop (a small 9” step mind you) when my right ankle twists under me at an almost 90 degree angle and it makes the most sickening sound I have ever heard. Its what you would hear if you stepped on a small bag of dry kindling. In hopes I will not make it to the ground I double over in pain on the car in the drive way trying to gain purchase with my trembling hands without dropping my keys and mobile. The pain is all consuming, there is a sick sinking feeling that only pain can bring on increasing in my stomach. If the car had not been there I would have found myself on the cold evening pavement like a discarded fish.
Hobbling back inside my thoughts of a drive evacuated from my mind all together from the searing pain that is sending phantom signals strait up my right side. I get some ice and ibuprofen, take off my shoes and socks to asses the damage. The pain increases sharply for a moment as I slide the sock off to see that it is swelling and there is the presents of a bruise beginning to form. I take the ibuprofen, slide back into bed, gingerly elevating my right foot and rest the ice on the ankle in question.
I spend the next two days (Monday and Tuesday) with my foot elevated and a full regiment of anti inflammatories. Ice; check, ibuprofen; check, tea; check, movies; check. I watch as my ankle swells larger and darkens in color. Then it happens. On I wake up Tuesday examine my ankle once more and realize that my throat is sore and my head hurts. I come to the realization; I have a head cold developing.
Stuffy, headache, ankle a lovely shade of green and still a bit swollen, a cough developing, tissues at the ready, exhausted from tossing all night in pain and stuffiness, (the fever subsided yesterday afternoon) with peppermint tea steaming beside me. I sit here writing this out for you. Next week has got to be better.
