I broke it.

I am a stubborn sod. Ten days ago, I slipped in the ground floor lift foyer at work, twisting my right ankle and wrenched my foot. I can’t walk on it. I spent a large portion of that evening sitting with my foot elevated, sporting a bag of peas while stubbornly thinking “It will be better in the morning”. It wasn’t so I went to A&E in morning. It turns out that I have a footballer’s injury – I have an avulsion fracture of the fifth tarsal (basically my foot muscles pulled a chip off the ankle end of the long bone on the outside of the foot).

The thing is: I knew that I'd broken something within about a minute but I didn't want to admit it. The Thursday  was meant to be a day working in London followed by the T20 cricket at the Oval, and I didn't want to miss that. I was on my way out to dinner with a really good friend who I don't see often enough and didn't want to waste a precious evening in the Royal Berks. (Also, where would I park?). I kept telling myself that it'd wear off; it was only when I put weight on it that it hurt. It didn't hurt to drive; it didn't hurt when I was sitting; surely it would wear off? 

Only it didn't. I knew I wouldn't get to the cricket before I left Reading. Walking from my parked car to the house nearly had me in tears - the deciding vote for A&E. I left it until the morning only because I have worked in A&E and know that mornings are quiet, so you get seen relatively quickly.

While it doesn't hurt much unless I lose my balance and stand on it, the past ten days have been exercises in frustration.  I have crutches but am about as manoeuvrable as a lump of coal with them.   I can’t use them and carry anything.  This turns everything into a production number, when I’m home alone.  Every step has to be thought out.  For example, to make a cup of coffee I have to hop with my crutches to the kitchen cupboard to get a coffee cup, propping one crutch up nearby to free up one hand;  stretch to put it down on the kitchen table; hop with crutches to the other side of the table, where I can reach the kettle without stretching and the coffee;  reach over to get the cup so that I can pour in the water, etc;  push it back to the other side of the kitchen table then hop back round to reach the fridge to get the milk, etc.  All the while, trying to balance on one foot and one crutch because I’ve had to put the other down so that I can hold whatever-it-is while in transit before I can put it on the table.

I'm lucky that a) I have a  portable office (laptop) and can work from home, and b) that I managed to break my foot just at the start of the Euro2016 football championships.  Both have helped me stay sane!  I would die of boredom if my days were just me and the television, waiting for Gerald to get home.  Beyond "Homes Under the Hammer", there is nothing worth watching on daytime TV.  (I have a few things stashed on the DVR but not enough to last me.)  

My ears shut off when i concentrate, so there's no point having anything on in the background while I'm working but when I'm not and there's no football, I'm mainly listening to podcasts from the BBC:  Moneybox; Kermode and Mayo's Film Review; Costing the Earth; Ramblings; Open Book; WS More or Less (who are doing a fascinating series on how statistics are used and abused during the Euro Referendum).  The knitting podcasts I'm listening to include:  Knitmore Girls; Knit British; Caithness Craft Collective; iMake (back-episodes only since she's stopped recording); Shineybees; Stash and Burn; CogKnitive.

I have a fracture clinic appointment on Wednesday.  Hopefully, they will give me some idea how much longer this will go on.