Yeah, well, you wouldn't post either if you broke your ankle

On January 15, 2011, I was in the yard with family. It was a balmy 54 degrees and I declared, "Let's work in the yard! Let's clean up and make it look good!" I should have known, when J accidentally smacked me in the head with a large branch which was cut from an overgrown Maple, that the day was to go awry.

The four of us were working down in back of the house on a slope. Hubby had the chainsaw and was cutting low-hanging limbs from trees. The boys were hauling debris down to the burn pile. I took a shovel and was digging out a fence that the previous owners had buried. I tossed the slats aside for the boys to drag to the burn pile. I had just tossed the last one aside when WOOSH! Down I went. Excruciating pain and scream from me, I managed to have my brains and yelled, "Call the hospital!!" Hubby had J go up to the house to call 911. Hubby wanted to move me off of the wet ground, and I could not stand on my left foot because it felt all crunchy inside. He carried me to a plastic chair that was carried up from the burn pile (no, it wasn't in the burn pile, but near it) and that's where I waited for the EMTs to show up.

Long story short, in the Emergency Room I was given morphine for the pain. I had never had that stuff before. Hubby has, on numerous ER visits, but not me. X-rays were taken, and I think that was the only time I cried during the whole thing. Turned out that I broke my ankle in three places. I'd always wondered what it was like to use crutches. Never broke a leg or anything up until that point. Walgreen's was open 24 hours, so that's where we went after the ER to get meds and crutches. I hate crutches. I think my wondering what they were like was an omen.

I had surgery on January 24. I now have eight pins and a metal plate in my ankle. I'd show the x-ray to you, but it's a PDF file instead of jpg or gif. I was laid up in bed until February 2. Hubby was nurse, cook, maid, you name it. He was great (and still is!) through it all.

Luckily, I work from home and was able to use a laptop in bed for a while until I felt ok enough to hobble on crutches into the living room where the desk is. That is where I've been working ever since. Now, on the topic of having the laptop upstairs and the desk upstairs - this must have been a sign. My home office is downstairs. After December, I moved up to the desk upstairs and used the laptop. The move was because my downstairs office was so frozen (no forced-air heat) that I couldn't work. When it was 13 degrees in November, that was the last straw. It's almost like this was all meant to be. And it was a Godsend that hubby wasn't working or in school at the time - who would have been my nurse, cook, housekeeper??

I've had good days and bad. I've been sad, depressed and a crying mess. Why isn't my ankle moving very far? Why is it stiff, even though I've been exercising it? Why did I have to fall in the first place? Why me??? Can I just turn back time, please?

Today is April 5. I am still using crutches, but I've been given the go-ahead to put weight on my foot and try to walk. I am anxious for physical therapy to start but first need to get through my next appointment with the surgeon. He'll move my ankle and see if I need more work (I do, I know that already) and he'll send me off to PT. That's why I haven't posted in eons. I will be better about it, I promise.