Lauren Goes to the ER

See this ID tag? It has my name on it. It has my date of birth. And, in case someone can't do the math on their feet, it has my age: 31.

31 years. That's how long it took for me to take my first trip to the Emergency Room.

What was it that dissolved my resolve to never set foot inside of the place?

A little thing called "a-foot-that-doesn't-work".

Here's the situation: Yesterday I was merrily walking along, enjoying the sunshine. Suddenly my shoe decided it had had enough of walking on it's bottom, and wanted to walk on it's side. My foot apparently does not have a spine, and went along with it. This was a bad decision. (My foot and I are still working out our feelings about this moment...)

Progressively throughout the day I found myself unable to bend said foot in order to pick it up and take a step. I refused to believe that this was a problem. My foot, however, chose this time to suddenly gain some backbone, and made it very clear that it was just not having my attempts at walking like a normal person. It refused to allow me to move at a pace faster than a snail.

It was awkward. It was incovenient. I was in denial. I swore it would be better in the morning.

It wasn't. Hence, the ER.

They were very nice to me. They offered me a wheelchair. I refused it. I said "oh, it's not that bad", and subsequently felt like an idiot trying to keep up on the walk to the x-ray room.

They diagnosed it: Sprain. No fracture. Wrap it, boot it, you're on your way.

Then a very pleasant guy came in and measured my foot. He said "I'll be right back, I don't think we have anything to fit you." (This was the first of many comments he made about my size.)

He came back with these crutches. I said "I don't really need crutches, do I?". He said "You do if you don't want to be back here next week!" I shut up. He tried to find the appropriate height, saying with awe "How tall are you?"
(I suspect he was jealous of my height, since he mentioned it approximately 12 times in the 3 minutes he was with me. The fact that he also mentioned that I can't play basketball for awhile only served to bolster my suspicions...)

And so, here I sit, my foot up, my bag of frozen vegetables near by. All in all my first visit to the ER was a breeze--let's hope it was my last ;-)