why i have to give myself shots in the tummy
right after sxsw, i dragged gemma to a roller derby. besides it being the total texas americana experience, it's sheer rock n roller entertainment (and if i were still living in austin i would sooo be among the likes of punky bruiser and veruca assault). so anyway, fun was had and the whole thing got me all nostalgic about my junior high days in ft. irwin, california when i went to the base's gym-turned-rollerrink every friday and my best friend krista (who even competed as a figure(roller)skater) taught me tricks. back then i could do a 180 jump. not much i admit, but my crowning achievement (besides the two of us winning the team speed races) was being able to spin on one foot. so instead of taking gemma out for mini-golf or bowling, i got it into my big head that i had to take her freakin roller skating at playland on their adult night.
i was seriously in roller heaven. they even played this old school 90s song they used to play all the time in ft. irwin ("don't do me over" or something like that). and the only other thing i really wanted from the night was to get some cool rollergirl photos. unfortunately, gemma isn't much better at photography than she is at skating (bless her heart), so the early attempts didn't turn out at all. it wasn't until closing time that we had a chance to try some more. we were some of the last people left in the rink, and before they threw us out i tried to drag gemma away from this guy trying to pick her up into the bathroom (where the purple walls matched my outfit) to take some quick pictures. one down, a few more poses to go. and in my anxious haste i leaned against the wall and lifted one foot to lean it against one of the stalls (without taking any precautions to stabilize myself). so then my other foot slid out from underneath me and clitter! clatter! bang! bang! i was down. i felt the instantaneous pain expand through my ankle along with the swelling.
i actually had to laugh when i called my parents to tell them i hurt myself at the skating rink and they had to come pick me up. a continuation of the whole night's nostalgia (with a bit more deja vu effect), it was just like in the 5th and 7th grade when i had to call my parents from the rollerrink because i had broken my arm. how peinlich. when they picked me up, my dad even said he wouldn't have let me out of the house that night if he had known i was going rollerskating (oops). little did he know that i'd love to open up a rollerdisko of my own in berlin someday (we'll keep that one a secret for now).
didn't have travel insurance, so i ended up going to my dad's chiropractor to get it checked out. nothing noticeable on the x-rays, looked like a class 3 sprain. so i hopped and hobbled around on crutches for a week and then started walking (quite zombie-like. think mj's "thriller" video) the last few days. i even extended my stay in austin so i could get off the crutches before flying and have a few more days to spend with my parents.
flew back fri and arrived in berlin on sat (2 stopovers and an elefantitiously huge foot later. but thank god for wheelchair service). rested saturday/sunday. then monday morning on my way to work, i stopped by the doctor to have him check out my ankle (was still a bit swollen). and as luck would have it, i never made it to the agency because new x-rays revealed that i had actually broken my ankle (gasp!) so i was almost immediately whisked away to the hospital where i had a screw and a metal plate inserted the very next day. but wait, it gets better...
my first two nights in the hospital after the surgery were horrrrrible. at first, all i could think about was helpless uma in kill bill being preyed on by buck who was there to fuck. my only consolation was remembering the french soft porn that was on tv just that sunday in which a nurse seduced some guy in his hospital bed and they continued the affair after his release from the hospital. and then the pain regained control of my senses/consciousness. and all i could think of (in hopes of finally falling asleep and thus temporarily relieving the pain) was the ramones song "i wanna be sedated". so i just kept singing "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba i wanna be sedated" to myself, hoping it would have a similar effect of counting sheep.
and it just keeps getting better...so first my sprain turns out to be a broken ankle. then i find out after i leave the hospital it won't just take one more week of rest before i can go back to work/life but another FIVE!!!! eeeekkkkk...and then to top it all off. while i'm still bed-resting at home, i have to self-inject myself with shots to prevent thrombosis (blood clumping).
and then, one bad outweighed the good, i guess. got a split cast and even got to choose the color. i opted for red, of course (not quite the perfect red shoe i'm always in search of but at least it'll match the others!) downside: once i got back to my floor, i was relocated to another room. i knew i was going to be with a 14 year old, which i had come to terms with. but what i wasn't expecting was the k'maro poster on the wall and rnb music blazing from a radio when i was brought into the room. good thing she left the next day because i would not have been able to handle another minute of her presence. i mean, she and her friend (also in the hospital and on crutches, hhhmmmm) spent like ages doing their makeup to hang out in the hospital lobby (whatever!). and one time she left for about 2+ hours without turning off her radio (which was turned up full blast). i mean, c'moooon! so anyway. my next and thankfully last roommate turned out to be almost as bad but in a quite different way. she was nice but talked on and on and on. even after she got back from her surgery. i was hoping she'd still be a little wonky from the anasthesia but she was all bright and bushytailed and just kept on gabbing and gabbing. luckily my friend astrid came to pick me up not even a half an hour later. saved!
i was seriously in roller heaven. they even played this old school 90s song they used to play all the time in ft. irwin ("don't do me over" or something like that). and the only other thing i really wanted from the night was to get some cool rollergirl photos. unfortunately, gemma isn't much better at photography than she is at skating (bless her heart), so the early attempts didn't turn out at all. it wasn't until closing time that we had a chance to try some more. we were some of the last people left in the rink, and before they threw us out i tried to drag gemma away from this guy trying to pick her up into the bathroom (where the purple walls matched my outfit) to take some quick pictures. one down, a few more poses to go. and in my anxious haste i leaned against the wall and lifted one foot to lean it against one of the stalls (without taking any precautions to stabilize myself). so then my other foot slid out from underneath me and clitter! clatter! bang! bang! i was down. i felt the instantaneous pain expand through my ankle along with the swelling.
i actually had to laugh when i called my parents to tell them i hurt myself at the skating rink and they had to come pick me up. a continuation of the whole night's nostalgia (with a bit more deja vu effect), it was just like in the 5th and 7th grade when i had to call my parents from the rollerrink because i had broken my arm. how peinlich. when they picked me up, my dad even said he wouldn't have let me out of the house that night if he had known i was going rollerskating (oops). little did he know that i'd love to open up a rollerdisko of my own in berlin someday (we'll keep that one a secret for now).
didn't have travel insurance, so i ended up going to my dad's chiropractor to get it checked out. nothing noticeable on the x-rays, looked like a class 3 sprain. so i hopped and hobbled around on crutches for a week and then started walking (quite zombie-like. think mj's "thriller" video) the last few days. i even extended my stay in austin so i could get off the crutches before flying and have a few more days to spend with my parents.
flew back fri and arrived in berlin on sat (2 stopovers and an elefantitiously huge foot later. but thank god for wheelchair service). rested saturday/sunday. then monday morning on my way to work, i stopped by the doctor to have him check out my ankle (was still a bit swollen). and as luck would have it, i never made it to the agency because new x-rays revealed that i had actually broken my ankle (gasp!) so i was almost immediately whisked away to the hospital where i had a screw and a metal plate inserted the very next day. but wait, it gets better...
my first two nights in the hospital after the surgery were horrrrrible. at first, all i could think about was helpless uma in kill bill being preyed on by buck who was there to fuck. my only consolation was remembering the french soft porn that was on tv just that sunday in which a nurse seduced some guy in his hospital bed and they continued the affair after his release from the hospital. and then the pain regained control of my senses/consciousness. and all i could think of (in hopes of finally falling asleep and thus temporarily relieving the pain) was the ramones song "i wanna be sedated". so i just kept singing "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba i wanna be sedated" to myself, hoping it would have a similar effect of counting sheep.
and it just keeps getting better...so first my sprain turns out to be a broken ankle. then i find out after i leave the hospital it won't just take one more week of rest before i can go back to work/life but another FIVE!!!! eeeekkkkk...and then to top it all off. while i'm still bed-resting at home, i have to self-inject myself with shots to prevent thrombosis (blood clumping).
and then, one bad outweighed the good, i guess. got a split cast and even got to choose the color. i opted for red, of course (not quite the perfect red shoe i'm always in search of but at least it'll match the others!) downside: once i got back to my floor, i was relocated to another room. i knew i was going to be with a 14 year old, which i had come to terms with. but what i wasn't expecting was the k'maro poster on the wall and rnb music blazing from a radio when i was brought into the room. good thing she left the next day because i would not have been able to handle another minute of her presence. i mean, she and her friend (also in the hospital and on crutches, hhhmmmm) spent like ages doing their makeup to hang out in the hospital lobby (whatever!). and one time she left for about 2+ hours without turning off her radio (which was turned up full blast). i mean, c'moooon! so anyway. my next and thankfully last roommate turned out to be almost as bad but in a quite different way. she was nice but talked on and on and on. even after she got back from her surgery. i was hoping she'd still be a little wonky from the anasthesia but she was all bright and bushytailed and just kept on gabbing and gabbing. luckily my friend astrid came to pick me up not even a half an hour later. saved!