Free Fall

If it didn’t hurt so bad, one might find humor in the continued plight of this person. Me. Guess I could call this an update but that would be too onerous. Tuesday, still having terrible fatigue with headaches from COVID, I crossed the room to open the slider for our blue heeler, who ended up being uninterested in the outdoors. It was a fake.

Just before this I’d been sitting crisscross applesauce (I taught kindergarten) for a little while, certainly no longer than 15 minutes. Why, you ask? Because the night before I thought that would be a good stretch and add something new. When I first stood, I was surprised how much my left knee hurt.

After opening the slider, I turned to go back to my nest, one step, and then second step, and I believe my knee was unstable, not holding up. I didn’t know this at the time; I’ve done a few postmortems on the mechanics of my fall. In the moment, though, what I experienced was seeing my arms go up in the air, in a kind of feathery way, and then I was in the midst of it. Trying to go with the momentum of the spin down to the floor did not improve the outcome. My ankle turned, I swear it was nearly 180 degrees, and I saw that it was not in its usual alignment with my leg. The left ankle. The left knee. And it hurt, oh it hurt. I yelled and pounded the floor, at first just out of sheer pain but then in an effort to get my son’s attention from the basement.

Luckily, my son had just awoken and heard me. When he asked what happened and I suggested I had strained my knee from the way I’d been sitting. His response, “Mom, you know you’re not good in that position, from a long time ago.” Oh, yes. I do remember quitting because afterward I could barely get up.

Ice, compression, and elevation. Add “feel like I’ve been in a car wreck” to my symptoms the next day. I already have major issues with fibro and not quite done with COVID this day. Combining chronic pain, coronavirus, and a badly twisted ankle is exhausting.

Too tired to proofread. Apologies.