Who ever said crutches were cool?

The Emergency Room is a funny place. And I'm glad that I haven't spent much time there over the course of my life. Minimal frequency is a statistic welcome, indeed, (and desired far into the future).

However, today I marred my record and stopped by my local ER for an x-ray. It's been about a week and a half since I started limping after a particularly hard run; to stress fracture city, I've wondered? On top of that, it's been about a week that I've been trying to schedule a doctor's appointment in the regular fashion (and in a timely manner - one not offered in 2008). The winter holidays is a darned time to hurt yourself.

So, against my intellectual instinct (but catering to my less-pain-is-better instinct), I slowly made my way over to the hospital at the end of the street, St. Mary's Medical Center. Luckily, the place was just about empty and they saw me as soon as I arrived. In total, the whole deal took about 3 hours as different medical people would cycle in and take care of different parts of the diagnosis/treatment; I thought ahead and brought a book, so the time went quickly.

The good news is that nothing is broken (yeah!); the pain be in my ligaments and other soft infrastructure. The bad news is that foot injuries of any stripe take forever to heal. But Santa bestowed a set of silver crutches into my possession, which will allow me to take the weight off my injured foot while I go about my daily business. Also, painkillers. Looks like Christmas was extended an extra day this year!

In any case, that was that; and I'm glad that I got myself looked at. You see, I now feel like I'm on the path to getting better (and getting back onto the bike, getting back into the climbing gym.. and getting back to the dance floor with TWO solid legs). I have felt a shadow of myself lately.. and with so many friends out of town, it's been easy to get a little stir crazy in the house, especially with Larry David as my main company. Baking walnut bread in your new cast-iron dutch oven only gets you so far from a mental health point of view. haha.

Still, I felt a little awkward being at the ER at all, especially as it started to fill up with folks suffering from some downright wicked afflictions. And given the tight quarters, you hear all the gory details; in fact, you hear and you see and you smell all the gory details. It's a place that puts a few things in perspective, and you thank your lucky stars that, ultimately, you are whole and well, regardless of any little bumps in the road; life is pretty good.