Hi there! Well, it seems that I have broken my leg. Again. The first time was right in the immediate aftermath of my mother's long and torturous fight against cancer. I woke up in the early morning hours to go to the bathroom, but instead of moving forward, I moved down. And I was furious that I had broken my ankle. So I plopped my leg on a pillow and scooted over to the closet where I pulled down an outfit.
Dressed, I drug myself across the apartment, then the hallway to knock on the super’s door. I could hear her and her husband at the door. They were up at the peephole, and I was down at floor level. I knocked again. And they peeped again. And discussed. I knocked once more and shouted:
‘Gertrude! Open the door!’
And they discussed. Fortunately, they decided to open up and called an ambulance.
Somewhere between there and the medical center, I found out I had broken my leg, too. A spiral break to the tibia and fibula, the long bones in the lower leg. You can hum along to the spiritual Dem Bones written by civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson any time now.
I was in a teaching hospital, so a doctor and his flock of students came by for a teaching moment and asked me how it happened. Embarrassed, I told him from getting out of bed.
‘No, really you can tell us how it happened.’
‘No, really that’s how it happened.’
Later another doctor and his gaggle of students came by for another lesson in learning. He asked how it happened, and I told him. Son of a gun if he didn’t say:
‘No really, you can tell me how it happened.’
‘No really, getting out of bed.’
I wasn’t sure what these learned doctors wanted. Nighttime skiing? My sister said:
‘You should have told them you jumped out of a third-floor window and just forgot.’
I got a cool full-leg cast that a friend painted. And since the doctors couldn’t operate for fear of making things worse, I was up and running…okay walking in a mere six months.
So back to The Fall of 2022. I didn’t do anything nearly so dramatic. Somehow I managed to collapse the ball of my socket. And I broke a bone encapsulating the cartilage. Who knew there was even a bone there? I thought I broke my hip. But as it turns out, all that area is really part of the leg my longtime medical friend told me. I like that. It sounds much younger to break my leg instead of my hip.
Now I get why the pain never left. And why my walking never improved. Instead of trying to walk more, I accept walking less and feel better. In an odd way, understanding what damage had occurred made me feel better. too. From the beginning, I said it felt like a break. My bone doctor validated my feelings. We really do know our bodies best. And I did wonder why I passed out when I fell.
Then the bone doctor asked:
‘How did it happen?’
‘I was wrestling with my 100-pound dog.’
And he believed me. Good bone doctor.
Be safe, be well, you & yours!
Gloria
Gloria Christie is a political journalist for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Find her here on Facebook. Or at Three White Lions, her book written in her own unique style with a twist of humor on Amazon Kindle Vella and the Gloria Christie Three White Lions podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in progress).