Well, what’s been going in this week?
Umm, let’s think! I broke my toe! That’s what I did!
I had a lovely weekend doing bits and bobs and my friend came over with her trio of kids and a good day was had playing with trains and toys and catching up.
Monday I went to work as normal, and then came home. I walked in my front door downloaded my bag and stuff and took off my sandals. The top of my foot was itching, so you know when you scratch your foot on the carpet sometimes (or maybe that’s a just a weird me thing), I did that, so my piggy’s were all bent under my foot having a good scratch. As I was doing this, my bad knee gave way and I heard this ‘crack’ noise.
Now having OA (Arthur) at the grand old age of 36, means I tend to make some noise moving bits of me anyway. My neck crunches and grinds, my knees pop and click, my fingers crack etc and one of my toes (right foot, next to big toe) bends like a Barbie dolls leg, click, click, click to bend it. Rather weird, but this me we are talking about.
Anyhoo (I’ll get to the point honest). I hears this crack and thinks ‘That didn’t sound good’ but went into the kitchen then to the garden.
What I found was beyond all comprehension..............
One man, one lawn, one lawn mower, mutilated beyond recognition...............
Well, the darn thing had stopped working and in my poor husband’s state of despair he was trying hard to fix it, but doing what most people do when trying to fix something that seems to have more than one million moving parts to it.
He had taken it apart......
So there was said husband, in the middle of the lawn, bits of lawn mower everywhere, kids running around going slightly loopy down the side of the house, and me thinking ‘my toe REALLY hurts, why does it hurt’.
Mind you, he did fix it. Unlike most DIY build furniture where you end up with a screw left over you have no place to put it, the lawn mower was missing one, but none the less was working - hooray!
I was informed the water was at volcanic temperature so I could go and bath the small one first (at nice warm snuggly temperature), then we could then have a bath ourselves (getting warmer and warmer, you know how us women like baths!), and I could then get tea done. So I called the small person looping round the house, and started trotting into the kitchen still thinking ‘This still hurts’. So I had a look at my foot and noticed my wee piggy had gone purple.
Darn it, says I. I have broken my toe. HOW!?! Umm, easy little things to break, the wee piggy’s, but not impressed anyway!
So I hobbled up and did the bath thing, tea was eaten, and plates washed up, then hubby helped me get my toe strapped up. This is known as ‘buddy’ strapping to give the broken toe a kind of real life splint, and in most cases, this works well for broken toes to give them support.
However, I didn’t take any painkillers at all, and boy did I pay for it.
Tuesday wasn’t so bad, I was up early on a visit, and drove for almost 5 hours total, but actually wasn’t in too much pain. However, that evening was awful. I didn’t sleep a wink the whole night. Now only getting 2-3 hours a night in one thing. That tends to catch up with you at some point and knock you out for a night to force some serious shut eye, but no sleep at all is just horrible, especially when you are in pain. I felt sick and weak and probably some kind of delayed shock perhaps because I was not happy at all!
So I was not all there Wednesday, and my foot was killing me, so I did the sensible thing and had some painkillers. Better to take something than suffer that. And I know, really, I should have kept it raised and iced for a few days, no weight on it etc, but this is the real world, where there is work, and home and small people to think about so it’s just not practical.
I did elevate it though on a chair during a meeting (trying hard to keep ones eyes open), and I was very sleepy last night. I slept OK I guess, usual I would say and much more comfortable in the toe department.
It will take a few weeks to heal but I can use my walking stick for longer walks. I’m hobbling round the office at the moment and it’s doable, as long as I take my time. Problem is of course is you compensate for a weakness don’t you with the stronger leg, arm etc. In my case, I am hobbling on a bad foot, compensating with a bad knee. Not great, and it’s causing a great deal of pain in my hips because of it.
So what I should do is use my stick to take the strain. I don’t mind doing this out and about I have to say. I was a bit conscious of it before, but I figure now if I need it, I will use it. I’m not out for sympathy, I’m doing what is best for my body and trying to take care of the things that don’t work so well. I’m 36 years old and have many issues, but actually, I want to just get on with it. One way of being able to do that is by having a stick to help keep the strain off my hips, knees and feet. If you compensate too much, it upsets things. But one thing I haven’t done is use it around the office. To be honest, it’s more trouble than it’s worth because I am always up and down the stairs, or in and out of rooms with cups or stuff, so not going to happen.
I had people saying ‘you should have gone to A&E and get it checked out properly, but then there is the thought of sitting there for hours waiting to be told what I already know, and how to treat it which I am already doing. If I thought it was a traumatic fracture, I’d go of course. I have to be a bit careful though, as with having OA, it means potentially now I could get it in that toe. It’s already in my neck, hands, knees, one toe and possibly my lower back, so there’s a good chance this toe will get it if I let it heal badly, but I’ll look after my little piggy, honest!
So that was toe tragedy done and dusted!
Oh and I started a group for people all with the same surname as me! I was talking with hubby about the fact that there were quite a few of us around and he suggested starting a club so they could all be friends and see where we all come from.
I started it on Monday and I have to say it’s been great already. I reckon if we all did our family tree’s we would find links to being related. But there have been people from the UK to Australia joining the group and it’s fab! I love the fact that today we can have the ability to be in touch with people like this. Opens up the world we would never know about otherwise! So I’m looking forward to seeing just how many we can group together make some new friendships from it!
So all in all, I’m doing OK. I’m really tired, but I’m trying to heal I think and my body is having a power save moment so I’m feeling all useless and slightly floppy like I could just nod off, but at the same time, better than I did, so you can’t complain at that can you!
