Wanted: Sympathy, Comic Books

If my 40s are anything like my 30s, I'll be dead before my 50s.

Let me explain what happened to me today. I had a nice lunch at Panera Bread and got a large coffee and lemon poppyseed mini-bundt cake to take with me to work. The guys in charge of such things did a remarkable job of clearing the snow out of the parking lot. Considering the slippery state of the roads in general, this was one clear parking lot.

I was thinking this as I walked to the building. I got to the sidewalk and noticed that they weren't quite so clear — mostly just snow that had blown across from beside the sidewalk. It was a little slippery, but a little slip doesn't didn't scare me. I got to the little dip in the sidewalk for wheelchair access — a little slope down to the lot — and I remember thinking that, if I were going to fall, it would be here on this little incline. But I made it across fine. But then,

The first step I took after the handicap ramp was a disaster. Most of my body slipped down to my right to the sidewalk. My right foot decided not to follow suit.

I hobbled into the building, inconvenienced about a dozen people going to and from lunch, nearly passed out, nearly vomited, and answered a bunch of questions from the woman in charge of the facilities. Then the ambulance showed up.

If you've ever been to the emergency room with non-life-threatening injuries, you know what I mean when I say that it's really just an expensive waiting room. I think I waited for over an hour before I could get my leg x-rayed. The IV they gave me in the ambulance emptied itself into my arm and hung there useless for maybe two hours.

In the end, I learned that I had cracked the bottom of, I believe, my fibula. Not a complete break, but a (painful) fracture all the same. They gave me a temporary cast, some pain meds, and the number of an orthopedist.

Now I'm finally home, laying on the couch. My ankle is throbbing. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to work out the rest of the weekend, and the remainder of the month. I can't drive (it's my drivin' foot). I suppose I could try to drive with my left foot, but that might not be such a good idea. Especially in this snowy weather.

I am thankful, though, that I bought the WiFi router, so I don't have to sit in front of my desktop to do stuff.

When my brother was laid up in the hospital for a few weeks at the beginning of the sixth grade, people brought him all sorts of comic books to read while he was there. I still remember being jealous. One of them was Peter Porker as Spiderham. Since then, I've always equated hospital stays or general medic down-times with comic books.

But I don't have any comic books. :( Maybe I'll go online and read the Heroes comix.