How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 23 - 38

The truth behind a broken ankle? There's not a whole lot you can do. Between the pain pills and the need to elevate your leg, it leaves you pretty immobile.

But a day comes, when you don't need as many pain pills and you can sit for a while without having your foot propped up and things start to look up. If you're lucky, your mom says, "As long as you don't feel drowsy after you take your pills, you can drive."

The possibilities seem endless. I can go outside, I can drive to parks, I'm free! And then the song "Born Free" starts running through your head and you get a full montage going of all the fun you'll have.

Boooorn freee. As free as the wiiind blows.

So the first thing I do? Crutch my way out to the car and check it out.

And then the worst happens. It doesn't start. In an instant, my freedom was stripped away.

I did what any normal human being would do at this point, I turned into a recluse. Some days, I refused to leave my room. I would just lay in bed and watch Arrested Development on Netflix.

 Thanks Shanée.

53 episodes later, I was at a loss of what to do next. I scoured Netflix for any else on instant play that would keep me entertained. I've watched movies, documentaries, and I've gotten myself hooked on Bones.  But the hours spent, when my brain turns to mush, follows a sequence of events similar to this:

Before I knew it, hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into years .... oh wait, wrong story.

Instead, I lost a day, I was constantly a day behind and I couldn't figure out why. Finally, I did some investigative work.

Detective in training.

I've been required to put a WARNING in now, so here goes. The information that follows may change your view about me and the type of character you always thought I had, so please, proceed with caution.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

After my investigative work, I found an unlabelled document on my computer. I had hoped this would help me figure out what happened to the day I can't seem to remember. I opened it and found:

Click it.

Then I got an image from the day I'd lost.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Amy!!

I blacked out after that. I woke up in a state of confusion. Did I dream all of that? What day was it now?

I decided I was no longer trustworthy. Everyone would be safer if I just stayed in this one spot.

I'll update when it's safe again.

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Day 22

For the few people who read this, I'm sure you've all been dying to know (what I've decided) the number one challenge with a broken ankle is. I've got two words for you: shower time.
Showers are a necessary evil when it comes to living on this planet. Mostly because if you smell funny, no one talks to you, and I don't want people to not talk to me.
In a previous adventure, I fractured my wrist and was left with a cast for about 2 months. This left me with false ideas of how simple showering with a broken ankle would be. Showering with a fractured wrist is similar to a cake walk at this point:

Showering with a broken ankle is much more like an obstacle course. They might as well have told me every night would be a replay of Legends of the Hidden Temple*.


Obstacle #1: Preparing to shower. (The Moat)
"First, you must remove the boot, then get undressed, and never put ANY WEIGHT on your broken ankle."
This is the relatively simple one, where as long as you stay balanced, you should be able to make it across the moat just fine. I usually look a lot like this:

This is one of the moat crossing challenges, not me practicing my dancing.

Obstacle #2: Getting in the shower. (The Steps of Knowledge)
This one requires some skill and knowledge about myself, the room, and where everything is placed. You would expect this to be simple, but sometimes, there are those slightly more difficult questions thrown in.

Just not that question.

Obstacle #3: Showering. (The Temple Games)
This is all about physical ability. When questions like: 'How long can I balance on one leg for? Can I hop around in water and not fall? Can I sit here and get back up later?' arise. I would compare it to this temple game:

If you do it fast enough without a lot of thought, it's simple ... maybe.

Obstacle #4: Getting out of the shower. (The Temple Run)
Imagine, this is the moment when you've got The Shrine of the Silver Monkey all assembled, the path has cleared and you just have to run out of the temple ... with 10 seconds to go. The anxiety level for this is probably the same, slippery floor, wet feet, and a hope that you don't face plant and break your other ankle on the way out.

Victory!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Legends of the Hidden Temple summary of showering with a broken ankle. *bows*


*credit due: Nick & my seester, Katie

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 19 - 21

After my last doctor's visit, I have been upgraded yet again. Now, I have moved out of the light cast to a lighter boot. It looks pretty cool. See?

I am Iron Man.

The cool thing about having a boot is that it's removable. That means that I can take semi-normal showers. But no perk is complete without a downside. Now that I have a removable boot, I have to do foot exercises. I even have a some super cool instructions to follow.

What? Were you expecting a video?

My foot exercises involve me attempting to spell the lower case alphabet with my foot and doing squats. I look pretty similar to this:

Yeah, it's real exciting stuff.

But what's better than foot exercises? The new addiction my friends Nick, Colin, Kevin, and Sarah got my hooked on. It's called Left 4 Dead 2.

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinssssss.

If you've never played Left 4 Dead 2, it involves a lot of shooting, a lot of zombies, and a lot of yelling at your friends. The current situation leaves us looking like this:

Shortly following this incident, I died.

Even with my lack of computer game playing skills, these kids continuously invite me back to play Left 4 Dead again and again. But I've finally started noticing the pattern. I'm the zombie bait. I can only wonder what would happen should a REAL zombie apocalypse come around.

Did I mention I have awesome friends?

These are the fears I fall asleep with.

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 14 - 18

There are some great talents I have gained since I returned home from the hospital. Obviously, since the doctor's orders are "Non-weight bearing on left ankle at all times," that means I have some super awesome crutches. And for the record, crutches are not as fun as you would like to imagine. I had pictured time spent on my crutches would be really similar to when I was younger and my parents would each have one of my hands and then they would swing me.

Looks like fun, right?

Instead, I'm stuck with something much more along the lines of this:

The good news is that with these wretched devices, I have created my very own dance move. I call it, the crutch shuffle.

I'm proud to say I came up with this myself.

But, the best thing about being on crutches I can sum up in two words. Handicap parking. I used to be one of those people that always thought handicap spots were frustrating. Not anymore. I am a new, proud owner of a handicap placard and it allows me more parking privileges than just parking in the blue spaces. I can park in metered spots and not fill the meter. I can park in 10 minute only spots and be there for 3 hours too. Why am I so fortunate? Because I'm broken, and they figure that if you're broken the closer you are to the sidewalk, the easier things are for you. I have found this to be true. Using crutches to get everywhere, if done improperly, hurts your arms a lot. Another bonus? The blue handicap spots are actually wider and have more space between your car and the next car, which means that if I felt like it, I could park like this:

Like a boss.

This blog is dedicated to my old neighbors Nick, Colin, & Kevin. The ones who managed to make me a whole day late with posting.

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 5 - 13

After only a day and a half of being home, I got physical proof of being turned into a cyborg.

There's a total of 9 pieces of metal in my ankle.

Other than that shocking revelation, nothing really exciting can happen when you have to keep your foot elevated to stop the throbbing in your ankle. So, to keep myself busy, I got a fort. It looked kind of like this:

Then, on the 7th day, I got a cast! It was purple to match my hair. The cast completely upgraded my fort so now it looked like this:

can you see the difference?

Although, the guy, Ken (like Barbie and Ken) who put my cast on was really funny. He told me about how he broke himself when he fell three stories in college. He would fix people's roofs to pay for college. His motivation for me was "if he could do it, I could do it." He was a total BAMF. He finished high school and college on crutches. I can only hope one day I can be as awesome as him. I imagine it would look a little like this:

I would expect my hair to be orange to match the awesome-ness.

(dedicated to Kevin Mathew)

Until next time.

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Days 2 - 4

Wake up, it's 4 AM. But I don't know that until I ask the nurse. "Is it AM or PM? What day is it?"
The nurse chuckles and pats me on the head, "It's the 17th and it's 4 AM."
Keep in mind, I broke my ankle on the 15th, so my reaction went a lot like this:

Then the nurse said, "Oh sorry, I meant the 16th."

Crisis: averted. Back to a safe slumber.

The hospital was filled with lots of boring stuff. Constant temperature check-ups, as well as blood pressure and oxygen level checks. My first nurse, Nurse Kathy, was one of the coolest nurses ever. She gave me rubber bands for when I would finally shower. Also, she said that I looked like her best friend and showed me pictures to prove it. And told everyone else in the hospital so I had visitors who continuously came in saying "Oh yeah, Kathy's right. You can tell with the eyebrows. And the hair style." Speaking of visitors, the best visitor I had during my stay was a visit from Surgeon Unicorn. (oooohs and aaaaahs are appropriate at this point).

"Unicorn loves you, do you love Unicorn?"

Surgeon Unicorn came to visit the second night I was in the hospital, a night I was much more conscious for. Surgeon Unicorn also comes with three other catch phrases to help release his unicorn powers. "Please don't be sad, it will make me cry." "Come prance with me!" And, the best one "Weeeeee! Unicorn power!!"

Surgeon Unicorn was also kind enough to bring my sister and her boyfriend with him for a special visit that night. Our hangout looked kind of like this:

Days later, just before being release from the hospital, I learned that Surgeon Unicorn turned me into:

*dramatic music* *fade out*

How to Properly Break Your Ankle: Day One

I'm Amy. One day, I thought it would be great to go on an adventure with some friends. Our adventure of the day was bouldering! It looks kind of like this:

This is my friend, she's really good at it.

When it was my turn to go, I wasn't that pro. I was much more along the lines of:

Me. Struggling.

Then, I missed my hand hold and I fell. I hung out on the crash pad with my friend. Our hang out looked a lot like this:

I'm the one on the ground, t-shirt over my head, holding my leg.
(Please note, the red dots are supposed to signify blood)

Then the paramedics arrived to take me away in an ambulance and the theme of the day turned out to be "Who can get Amy's age wrong the most?" It started with a paramedic who continued to say that I was 23. And every time he said that I corrected him, loudly, with a "21!" It took him three times. Then an uneventful ambulance ride to the ER where they got my age wrong again. This time, I was born in 84 and I was old enough to be 25. Finally in the ER, I got to see my ankle, and it looked like this:

My real life ankle. Not on straight. Photo thanks to mom.

Then a lot of tiredness followed, I had a fear of falling asleep because I thought they would think I lost consciousness. They took some x-rays and eventually wheeled me off for surgery. And that just about ends day 1 for me.

Day 2: Cyborg Amy.