A few years ago, when my mother was very ill before her death, I would leave work on Fridays and drive to Little Rock so could take care of her while my sister worked the weekend shift at the hospital.
One Friday she wanted something from her house which was on the way to my sister's. I stopped by there and went in and gathered the things she needed. As I was leaving, I noticed the roses were blooming beside her porch so I went back into the house to find something to cut a bouquet of roses to take to her. I couldn't find sissors so I found a knife and went back out. Instead of going down the steps,,I just stepped off the porch beside the rose bush (only about a foot to the ground).
When my right foot hit the ground, something crunched, loudly, and I did a special little flip, shined my ass to the neighborhood, and landed in a heap in the yard. It hurt SO bad, I thought it was broken and these thoughts were going through my head like,,"how am I going to get up??" "Oh shit, I hope noone saw me fall." Then, "god I hope they DID see me fall, how am I going to get UP?"
By the time I rolled around a little and got my foot and leg out from under me, my ankle had already turned blue and had swollen to triple it's normal size. I was in so much pain and was sobbing and thinking how damned stupid I was that I didn't notice the neighbors from across the street until they were standing beside me. They were kind enough to help me to my car and bring an ice pack for my foot and leg. They even locked the house up for me because there was no way I could get up those steps to do that right then.
They offered to call someone for me but I knew I had to get to Little Rock to take care of my mom before my sister's shift started. So, with the ice pack taped around my leg, I drove on. What should have taken a hour and 15 minutes of driving ended up taking me almost 3 because I kept having to stop on the side of the interstate and prop my foot up on the dash to ease some of the pain enough to drive on a little further. When I finally made it to Little Rock, my sister had to bring crutches out so that I could get out of the car.
I still managed to take care of mom that weekend and after Terri got back from work, we took care of the pain with a gallon of white wine. It took about 8 weeks in a cast to heal everything that I messed up that day, the least of which was my dignity.
Whewww,,was that a mouthful or what?
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