Sore Ankle

SO recently my ankle has been giving me a little bother and I thought I would explain why.

In the summer of 2000 at Muskoka Woods I was teaching a football (soccer) class and we were having a match to finish off the week. It was a corner to the other team and the ball was crossed in. Being the huge figure that I am or the fact the ball came to me I jumped and headed the ball away. On my return to the ground I also took the weight of the person next to me as he had his arm on my shoulder. Down to the ground I went and ‘snap’ the ankle was gone. This may gross you out but I can vividly remember the sound of the bone breaking. Luckily my good buddy Tim Jebb was also there at the time and off he ran. Not because he was a wimp but rather cause he ran to radio the nurse. Lying there in the heap that I had just formed I was rather calm. I told one kid to run and get my inhaler, one to get me a bottle of water, some to take off their shoes and create a little pile of shoes that I could rest my ankle on and the others I sent to the tuck shop to get rid of them. Eventually the nurse’s cart came and with a little help from Tim and some other folks I was lifted onto the back of the cart.

It was lying in the Health Care centre waiting for the doctor to arrive that it hit me that I had actually broken my leg. When the doctor arrived he insisted on examining me. He grabbed my ankle and boy did it hurt. It was then that I was extremely rude to him. It was then that he injected me with Demerol. He won! I was out of it.

Tim and Mark Wallace were the lucky victims to take me to the hospital. I can’t remember the trip as I was off my face on the drug but talking to them later apparently it was quite the funny journey.

I arrived at the hospital and they refused to see me because I had no way of paying to be examined. Incredible!! Mark had to run out of the hospital and cash his pay check, come back and pay for me to be seen. As if I was in any state to remember to bring my Visa card.

After my operation they decided that they would teach me how to use crutches. Even though I had been using crutches for 4 days before I actually got the operation they took me down to the physio room. I insisted that I didn’t need to be shown, but they insisted that I did, and seeing that they were in charge of my dosage of Morphine I went along with them. They parked my wheel chair and gave me the crutches. I stood up and placed them under my arm. And that my friends is all I can remember because I blacked out because of the pain and the next thing I new I was back lying in my hospital bed. I had fainted and fallen on the floor. Good one hospital staff.

Leaving the hospital was possibly the sorest of my whole experiences. I was in my wheel chair with my leg extended out in front of me. A lady came to wheel me to the car. Not sure whether it is relevant but she was about 75 and I guarantee she doesn’t have her driving licence. And she shouldn’t have been pushing me to the car. As she swung the corner to leave my room she decided to look behind her and see if I had everything. What she didn’t realise was that as she turned she also turned the wheelchair. And you can probably guess that the result of my leg being jammed into the side of the wall brought many tears to my eyes. No matter how many time she apologised on the way down it didn’t make up for it.

A big thank you to Tim Jebb for all his help and special thanks to Mark Wallace for going on every single hospital trip with me, for holding my hand as I fell asleep and for holding my thigh when I woke up . Hold on here. Mark what were you actually doing. Lol. For trying to fit your whole body in one of the nurses small lockers. For putting on the gown with the ass missing at the back so that I wasn’t the only one wearing one, for getting caught being in the locker and wearing the gown by the nurses, for playing with all the instruments when the doctors left the room and most of all for just being you.

With a end result of 12 hospital visits, 1 operation, 1 night in hospital, 3 plaster casts, lots of Morphine and nearly $4000.00 spent this just proves why you need to get medical insurance. And I did. Thank you Endsleigh Insurance.

And that is why my ankle hurts today.