(no subject)
And thus begins my six-week vacation in The Ahab Zone.
The x-ray guy I spoke to Wednesday night had me pretty spooked -- he was fun and affable enough, but he told me, as he handed me the x-rays, that it would be "really obvious" that I had a fracture and that I should be "really careful." I got spooked enough to take the whole day off work yesterday -- and the fact that my doctor got me an "urgent" referral to an orthopedist had me even more spooked that my foot was on the verge of collapsing into tiny pieces. The obsessive Googling about Jones fractures had me even more spooked.
Fortunately, the orthopedist I finally saw was refreshingly plainspoken and just the right kind of snarky; I find I do well with that kind of temperment. When I asked him "I live in a fourth-floor walkup; exactly how complicated is my life about to get?" He just gave me a wry look and said, "That depends how good you are at walking on your rear end."
But then he backed up and explained things, in a really great plain-talk way. I actually don't "quite" have a Jones fracture, he said -- close, but not quite. It's somewhere between that and an avulsion fracture (he didn't even use that word, I only know from my Googling). What happened was that the tendon attached to the end of that bone got stretched just too much and the bone cracked; what makes a "Jones Fracture" what it is, is where on the bone the break happens. There's another kind of fracture, an "avulsion," where the tendon actually snaps free and pulls a piece of bone along with it; in a Jones fracture, the bone snaps through above where the tendon is. I have something that's between the two.
In either case, the bones in question just need to be held absolutely immobile in order to heal properly -- because of where the break is, there's a lot of tendons and muscles that could pull on it and pull things out of whack. But the doctor told me, "if you feel any pain at the site of the break, that means that the bones are being pulled out of place. So whatever you're doing, if it causes pain at the site of the break, that's no good; but if you don't have pain in that spot, you're okay." So I've decided to use that as my guidepost for the next six weeks. I've even stopped using pain killers for the time being -- I want to feel the least bit of pain as soon as possible so I stop doing Bad Foot Things.
They put the big boot on me first, to see how I did with that. "You'll still have a few little twinges for a few days, because the fracture's so fresh," he said. "If you still have pain there with this on after a week, then we need to go to crutches. If you still have pain with the crutches, then we need to go with a cast." I then entertained the doctor and a few med techs by walking back and forth with the boot and a cane -- fortunately that seemed to be okay. There were a couple times where I stepped a bit too enthusiastically and felt a bit of a twinge, but not shooting awful pain; when I let them know I was feeling it, they waved it off. "That's what we meant about the twinges. That's just because this is a three-day-old break." I chalked it up to being a good future Early Warning for Bad Foot Things. Then they sent me on my way.
And...it's okay. I can get up and down stairs in the boot okay (if a bit slow) and I can get around in the apartment and at work okay. The only inconvenience is when I'm at rest. The doctor tried to talk me into sleeping with the boot on, but there was no way in HELL I'd be able to do that, so he said that "if you make sure you never get up in the middle of the night, then it's okay." So I can take it off before bed -- but when I'm just kicking back at home, I need to leave it on. And that kind of sucks at present. Also, it's going to be really hard to change out of work clothes when I get home -- I'm thinking I should start wearing skirts and dresses more often to facilitate that.
But interestingly, I ended up keeping my x-rays. The X-ray tech gave them to me to give to my own doctor -- but she said to give them to the orthopedist. However, the orthopedist was down the hall from where I got the x-rays so he got a copy straight from the source. So they just gave them back to me. So -- I now own x-rays of my left foot.
The x-ray guy I spoke to Wednesday night had me pretty spooked -- he was fun and affable enough, but he told me, as he handed me the x-rays, that it would be "really obvious" that I had a fracture and that I should be "really careful." I got spooked enough to take the whole day off work yesterday -- and the fact that my doctor got me an "urgent" referral to an orthopedist had me even more spooked that my foot was on the verge of collapsing into tiny pieces. The obsessive Googling about Jones fractures had me even more spooked.
Fortunately, the orthopedist I finally saw was refreshingly plainspoken and just the right kind of snarky; I find I do well with that kind of temperment. When I asked him "I live in a fourth-floor walkup; exactly how complicated is my life about to get?" He just gave me a wry look and said, "That depends how good you are at walking on your rear end."
But then he backed up and explained things, in a really great plain-talk way. I actually don't "quite" have a Jones fracture, he said -- close, but not quite. It's somewhere between that and an avulsion fracture (he didn't even use that word, I only know from my Googling). What happened was that the tendon attached to the end of that bone got stretched just too much and the bone cracked; what makes a "Jones Fracture" what it is, is where on the bone the break happens. There's another kind of fracture, an "avulsion," where the tendon actually snaps free and pulls a piece of bone along with it; in a Jones fracture, the bone snaps through above where the tendon is. I have something that's between the two.
In either case, the bones in question just need to be held absolutely immobile in order to heal properly -- because of where the break is, there's a lot of tendons and muscles that could pull on it and pull things out of whack. But the doctor told me, "if you feel any pain at the site of the break, that means that the bones are being pulled out of place. So whatever you're doing, if it causes pain at the site of the break, that's no good; but if you don't have pain in that spot, you're okay." So I've decided to use that as my guidepost for the next six weeks. I've even stopped using pain killers for the time being -- I want to feel the least bit of pain as soon as possible so I stop doing Bad Foot Things.
They put the big boot on me first, to see how I did with that. "You'll still have a few little twinges for a few days, because the fracture's so fresh," he said. "If you still have pain there with this on after a week, then we need to go to crutches. If you still have pain with the crutches, then we need to go with a cast." I then entertained the doctor and a few med techs by walking back and forth with the boot and a cane -- fortunately that seemed to be okay. There were a couple times where I stepped a bit too enthusiastically and felt a bit of a twinge, but not shooting awful pain; when I let them know I was feeling it, they waved it off. "That's what we meant about the twinges. That's just because this is a three-day-old break." I chalked it up to being a good future Early Warning for Bad Foot Things. Then they sent me on my way.
And...it's okay. I can get up and down stairs in the boot okay (if a bit slow) and I can get around in the apartment and at work okay. The only inconvenience is when I'm at rest. The doctor tried to talk me into sleeping with the boot on, but there was no way in HELL I'd be able to do that, so he said that "if you make sure you never get up in the middle of the night, then it's okay." So I can take it off before bed -- but when I'm just kicking back at home, I need to leave it on. And that kind of sucks at present. Also, it's going to be really hard to change out of work clothes when I get home -- I'm thinking I should start wearing skirts and dresses more often to facilitate that.
But interestingly, I ended up keeping my x-rays. The X-ray tech gave them to me to give to my own doctor -- but she said to give them to the orthopedist. However, the orthopedist was down the hall from where I got the x-rays so he got a copy straight from the source. So they just gave them back to me. So -- I now own x-rays of my left foot.