Maybe I'll just stop walking altogether. Maybe I'll just start using a cane or walker or wheelchair...all the time. Maybe I'll just sit for the rest of my life, draw pictures, not go anywhere, eat at my drawing table, crawl into bed at night, and do no more than that! Maybe I'll just let the rest of the family do it all for me...
I had just gotten over my badly sprained R knee, and now this. Walking out to the car the other day and slipping on the ice ~ all I remember was feeling a "pop" and a sharp pain down the front of my lower leg.
At first, I screamed, thinking my R knee had gone out of joint ~ I've written about my trick knees here before ~ but almost at once I realized that it was not my knee, but my leg. My legs, especially my R one, have been a trial to bear all my life.
Being a strict Roman Catholic, however, has at least taught me the value of suffering, of offering it up for others, and using it as a help to my own soul...so I do know that suffering in this life is inevitable and can be very useful.
But that doesn't make me like it any more than anyone else!
As a matter of fact, that's the exact thing that makes it suffering to begin with...
I had just stepped off the front porch and warned our daughter Julia to be very careful ~ it was extremely slippery and to take small steps. The next thing I knew, she was trying to help me to get up! Unfortunately, as soon as I tried to use my leg to move over to a better position, I suddenly realized that my foot was no longer attached to my leg...and I told her to call "911" and go get her Dad.
As luck would have it, our neighbor Steve, across the street, was just getting his own car ready to go out with his wife, and heard me scream, saw me fall, and came rushing over.
When he saw my leg, he immediately knew that it was broken and said as much ~ and left me to lie back down until my husband came out to help. Then, our daughter Mary rushed in to get our son Stephen, and the three of them helped me over to the bench on the porch.
I could not move my leg at all without extreme pain, so I just sat there until a fire truck and an ambulance pulled up in front of the house.
The truck left right away, having made certain that they were not needed, and the EMTs splinted my leg and got me onto the stretcher for a fast ride.
When we arrived at the hospital, I was taken to the ER and left on a table for over an hour ~ apparently, a broken leg is not life-threatening ~ and as I watched, more and more people were rushed in, nearly all of them victims of the ice. One boy had fallen and hit his head. A small girl had fallen and apparently broken her wrist. An older woman was the victim of an automobile accident. Another woman had fallen, and her poor husband looked like a victim himself...neither of them appeared to be feeling too well.
By the time I was actually being seen by a doctor, we were told that at least 26-28 people (counting myself) had been admitted!
There is so much more to this story that I am afraid I might have to put off telling more of it until tomorrow...but suffice it to say that it has been one heck of a week so far, and it promises to become even more fun as the days progress...
For now, sitting here in my hospital room, I am thinking that to tell it all at once ~ when it might make for a better story if told longer ~ would make more sense.
So maybe I'll just wait to tell more tomorrow...maybe I'll just wait til I have my thoughts collected...and maybe, just maybe, I'll not be so full of pain meds that I will be able to think straight and write about it.
Maybe I'll just do that!
I had just gotten over my badly sprained R knee, and now this. Walking out to the car the other day and slipping on the ice ~ all I remember was feeling a "pop" and a sharp pain down the front of my lower leg.
At first, I screamed, thinking my R knee had gone out of joint ~ I've written about my trick knees here before ~ but almost at once I realized that it was not my knee, but my leg. My legs, especially my R one, have been a trial to bear all my life.
Being a strict Roman Catholic, however, has at least taught me the value of suffering, of offering it up for others, and using it as a help to my own soul...so I do know that suffering in this life is inevitable and can be very useful.
But that doesn't make me like it any more than anyone else!
As a matter of fact, that's the exact thing that makes it suffering to begin with...
I had just stepped off the front porch and warned our daughter Julia to be very careful ~ it was extremely slippery and to take small steps. The next thing I knew, she was trying to help me to get up! Unfortunately, as soon as I tried to use my leg to move over to a better position, I suddenly realized that my foot was no longer attached to my leg...and I told her to call "911" and go get her Dad.
As luck would have it, our neighbor Steve, across the street, was just getting his own car ready to go out with his wife, and heard me scream, saw me fall, and came rushing over.
When he saw my leg, he immediately knew that it was broken and said as much ~ and left me to lie back down until my husband came out to help. Then, our daughter Mary rushed in to get our son Stephen, and the three of them helped me over to the bench on the porch.
I could not move my leg at all without extreme pain, so I just sat there until a fire truck and an ambulance pulled up in front of the house.
The truck left right away, having made certain that they were not needed, and the EMTs splinted my leg and got me onto the stretcher for a fast ride.
When we arrived at the hospital, I was taken to the ER and left on a table for over an hour ~ apparently, a broken leg is not life-threatening ~ and as I watched, more and more people were rushed in, nearly all of them victims of the ice. One boy had fallen and hit his head. A small girl had fallen and apparently broken her wrist. An older woman was the victim of an automobile accident. Another woman had fallen, and her poor husband looked like a victim himself...neither of them appeared to be feeling too well.
By the time I was actually being seen by a doctor, we were told that at least 26-28 people (counting myself) had been admitted!
There is so much more to this story that I am afraid I might have to put off telling more of it until tomorrow...but suffice it to say that it has been one heck of a week so far, and it promises to become even more fun as the days progress...
For now, sitting here in my hospital room, I am thinking that to tell it all at once ~ when it might make for a better story if told longer ~ would make more sense.
So maybe I'll just wait to tell more tomorrow...maybe I'll just wait til I have my thoughts collected...and maybe, just maybe, I'll not be so full of pain meds that I will be able to think straight and write about it.
Maybe I'll just do that!
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