|
Date: In March of 2004
It wasn’t a normal day; in fact it was better than a normal day! We were getting out of singing in Chorus class! A wonderful thing, as at least half of the girls couldn’t sing anyway, my ears where to be spared and we were going to have a party to celebrate our first performance of the year. There was no down side. Once the festivities where over everyone dispersed to their next classes, I had lunch next. Not that I was hungry, as I’d just been snacking all period, but I did get an idea. There was a ton of leftover food and no one wanted it. I volunteered to take it to lunch with me and give it out to friends. They wouldn’t have to buy lunch and we would have a grand feast! As I carried the four or five plastic bags, consisting of mostly liquids, I managed to wiggle my backpack on and toddle off to lunch. Lucky for me the lunch room wasn’t far off, just down the hallway and then down a flight of stairs that was in the cafeteria itself.
As I descended the staircase, something unexpected happened. I fell. Not only in spirit, but literally, fell down the stairs. I had placed my foot a bit too far ahead of me, slipping on the stair and sliding with that foot stuck out in front of me to cease falling and the other buckled under the weight of all the bags of heavy liquids and tins of food. My hands clutched at the bags tighter, unable to catch myself on the railing due to their weight. There was a loud crack, as I was sliding down, my left foot trying to catch one of the stairs. I stopped about four steps down, it all happened so fast, and I didn’t think about it too much, just embarrassed at first, as the staircase was open to the rest of the cafeteria, I felt like I was on some stage, as others openly watched my humility of tripping on the stairs.
Sure enough I had caught the whole cafeteria’s attention, especially when my eyes started to water and I found myself unable to move my right foot, which was still a few stairs back from where the rest of my body had stopped. I tugged my leg closer so it was at a more comfortable position, only to be met with excruciating pain. As I sat there a few of my friends came rushing over to see my displeasure and find out what was wrong. I handed them the bags and told them to take them to the table. My good friend was wise to my game, she saw my oddly angled foot and dashed off to the nurse, who was located right off the café. While I sat there eyes streaming from the pain, a dodgy boy, who must have been behind me when I had fallen, made his presence known. He wore a long black leather jacket and was a topic of discussion between my friends, as we wondered how often he showered. His greasy hair, glasses and pimple covered face was not exactly the first thing I wanted to see. He placed a meaty hand on my shoulder, which I immediately shrugged off. Not taken aback he spoke, “Wow, you handled this a lot better than I did when I broke my ankle.” I glared at him through my red eyes. He backed off.
I then turned to the side and saw two freshmen with their lunch trays up to their chins as they ate their fries watching me from the side, like I was some wounded animal, rage overtook the pain and I barked out at them in the most vicious tone I could muster through the chocked sobs, “Enjoying the show kids!” They nearly pissed their pants as they ran off to observe from a safer distance. The nurse arrived and my friend was off to find my mom, who worked at the school. Meanwhile my other friends watched while they opened up the soda and cookies at the table. All speaking quietly as I weakly growled at the nurse who was asking me to move my foot. She was clearly not the brightest women alive. As I had already expressed that I could not. They brought over a wheelchair so I wouldn’t put weight on the wounded right foot. I hopped into the chair with a grimace as my foot dangled uselessly.
Once in the nurse’s office and away from the prying eyes and greasy kids I was able to relax a little and control my emotions. The nurse took off my thick leather clog which had encased my right foot. This is when I lovingly referred to my foot as, ‘The Flop Master 3000!’ Though when we looked at the shoe, its thick one inch sole had been cracked clear in two, making it the object which had created the sound I had heard while falling. My mother arrived and the nurse called the local hospital, telling them I’d be there shortly.
My mom get the minivan around and we where off. It didn’t seem that bad, it didn’t even hurt, or I thought it didn’t, could have been in shock. Either way, I figured worst that could happen would be that I’d have to wear an Ace bandage or be on crutches for a week. It didn’t seem like a big deal as I went along in mom’s car, the same car I came and went to school in every day. When we got there I was carted off in a wheelchair again and they took x-rays. The doctors were stunned at how placid I was, not a peep or moan, just silently asking what they wanted me to do next, then doing it as needed. ‘Turn this way, could you move your foot so we could get it from that angel, take off your sock,’ simple stuff like that. The doctor looked over the x-ray and just saw a chip off my heel and maybe that my shin bones had been skewed away from each other, just a little. No broken bones, no big deal.
But then he told mom to take me out to the city to see another doctor so he could fix me up. Whatever that meant. I didn’t much care. I didn’t care anymore and just wanted it all to be over with, I couldn’t get the thought of all those kids at lunch out of head, I wanted to get back to school and show them I was fine and it wasn’t a big deal. We cruised along into the city and got some fast food on the way. I had made mom miss lunch and I was getting hungry too by now. So while we were in the emergency room, waiting to be seen we ate and talked about different things going on at school or in town. When we finally got in and gave the trainee my x-rays he asked all kinds of questions and looked at my foot and touched it, I hadn’t noticed much, as my mind was elsewhere, but now that he was touching it, it hurt again, and I asked them to stop, so they wrapped it back up, but this time more professionally then it had been before. When the doctor arrived the trainee filled him in and they said I would need surgery as soon as possible to get my foot ready to mend.
I was taken aback! Surgery! On what, the chip off my heel? He explained that I had snapped all the tendons that where holding my foot together apart, thus the two bones that attach to the ankle became skewed. They would have to screw the bones into place until the ligaments healed. This was not openly inviting news. They would have taken me in right then and there, but I had just eaten so they had to wait 24 hours, and I wasn’t allowed to eat. With was fine, I would just drink a lot.
I went in for day surgery, they put me in the little kid’s room because I had come early in the morning, so it was open. The walls stared at my with bright smiles and beat up broken hospital kids held hands as they subjected their sick bodies to hopping around on the playground. In short I found it unrealistic, and disgusting. They put in the IV, and wheeled me off to the waiting room. The drug guy and my dad joked around before they injected anesthetic into the IV. I was knocked out cold before we even reached the surgery room.
When I awoke, I remember being very bored. There was a throbbing in my ankle and I couldn’t stand just laying there in the sick room while nurses hustled to and fro. I couldn’t move, just watch. When I tried to talk my throat was too dry and scratchy from where they must have put a breathing tube. I couldn’t speak, I kept trying until my throat was alright and then began singing stupid songs from chorus which I had to memorize anyway, and that I had been fond of before the fall. Then the nurses paid attention o me, they were astonished and laughed to each other. It’s what got them to get my nervous parents into the room. My parents laughed when the nurses told them what I was doing. I couldn’t help it! I was bored out of my skull and I couldn’t move! Not to mention, the old guy next to me, who was still drooling on his pillow, wasn’t much company. We left there about mid day, I puked on the ride back, I suppose I really wasn’t ready to go home, but I didn’t care, I didn’t want to be in that hospital a second longer.
As I was at home lying on the couch, the pain med.s which where flowing through my veins started to wear off. I could feel again, and my head was as clear as it had ever been. The first thing that came to me was the heart stopping, gut ripping pain which attacked my ankle and shot through my leg and then tangled itself across the rest of my body. Pain so horrid that I twisted in my seat and pounded my head against the side table to distract myself. Pain that ripped at my body with such force I thought that it would be a better thing to have just cut off the damn foot then to continue living like this. I grunted and moaned, and the weak medication they had given me did nothing, I was immuned to it, it had never effected me, it was not the vikadin I needed but the equivalent of children’s Tylenol. I raked my fingers through my hair repeatedly, bite my lip and waited for the next wave of pain to grip my body with its iron clad fist. The simple two screws and metal plate they had screwed into my bones was clearly not something my body appreciated having inside of it.
Sweat poured from my brow as I attempted to think of anything but the pain, to try and distract myself, to ignore it. That lasted a while, as the city is far away and my parents have work. My father yelled through the phone at doctors until they gave him the go ahead to come and pick up some more medicine. It took him a good long while to get it, for at first I had been good about ignoring it, but something’s must be solved and I am not as impervious to pain as I wish I was. With the happiest of medications my by side I was able to ignore, mostly the pain that resulted from the surgery. I spent the week out of school and bored alone on the couch of my living room. I couldn’t make it up the stairs to my room for fear of falling down, with the huge boot they had fixed onto my leg. When I went back to school I wasn’t allowed to put weight on my foot, ever. Meaning, unlike most kids, I was stuck to a wheelchair instead of crutches for my injury.
It was nothing like breaking a bone. I spent the next three months in a wheelchair, and I got dang good at racing. The other kids in wheel chairs at school would often try to beat me with their motorized vehicle but nothing can beat good old arms. One of my favorite torments was handicapped jousting, when myself and the car accident girl hoisted our injured legs up sticking out and played chicken until one or the other pulled away before the crash. That’s why they really let the handicapped kids out of class before everyone else so they can all meet up and have brief Olympic ceremonies before dashing off to their next class or hiding away in the elevator.
Though the worst thing about being handicapped, would be the pity. There is nothing worst then pity. It’s hard to gain respect while you sit at half the height of everyone else. Then when they pass you they asked, “Aww, can I do anything for you?” Or, “Do you need help?” The answer is always, no. Because half the time I wasn’t even doing anything, and I soon figured out how to open door from my disadvantage point. In the end I think learned a lot from it. I know I’ll never be the same, physically, but I grew mentally as well, I matured so much. It’s like the pain and the pity drove me to see beyond the way a usual being would view things. I see that appearance means nothing, and that you can’t judge someone, just because they look like they’re physically limited. Those people will do ten times more than the average person, every day and just keep rollin’ along. It’s funny, as I listen to people complain about their daily lives, I realize they have nothing to complain about! Can’t people just see how good they have it! After going through all that, each day should be celebrated, not criticized and scrutinized just because you heard something from someone about so and so. It doesn’t matter. Just keep rollin’ because in the end, it really won’t make a difference. It’s your choices which will impact your life, and you can either choose to stay down or get up when you fall.
 Brittlebear · Fri Sep 21, 2007 @ 04:58am · 2 Comments |
