Anyway I have five days left in the cast so now that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I can focus on the experience without getting super depressed. So here I go.
On the last night of February I had one too many LIITs (or perhaps a few more) and fell down the stairs getting out of the bar. Fiance had to carry me to the cab then up the stairs to our 3rd floor apartment. I'd sprained the ankle a few times before that so I didn't think it would be a huge deal. The next morning I woke up and still couldn't put any weight on it so we called our boss who showed up a half hour later to take me to the emergency room. Basically in Korea we don't know where anything is or how to get to it so we have to call the person responsible for bringing us into that situation, i.e. the man making money off of us. Well Mr. Kim brought us to the emergency room where my foot was (painfully) x-rayed and then I saw this:
I couldn't believe it. I saw the break immediately. Somewhere in the blur the ER doc said to Mr. Kim, I heard "수술 필요 할거예요." I have pretty basic Korean but I knew immediately that meant "will need surgery" and I then started crying inconsolably. Seth and I went home trying to digest the new reality that I had a broken bone in a foreign country and there was no way to call that magical doctor from Harry Potter who could make bones grow overnight to make it all go away. To make the weekend a little bit more pitiful, Mr. Kim said on the way out of the Emergency Room: "$12 for CRUTCHES? You don't need to pay that much. I can get you much cheaper ones. You're not going anywhere this weekend so we can just wait until Monday when I take you to the orthopedist." Maybe this was his Korean passive-aggressive way of punishing me for damaging his foreigner, although it was more likely his incredible Korean lack of logic in a situation where you really wish there was more logic involved. But it resulted in me scooting around the apartment on pillows all weekend. I reminded myself of one of those dogs who doesn't have hind legs and has to pull himself around with his body attached to wheels.
Anyway Monday arrived and Mr. Kim took me to the orthopedist (with very good English, I might add) who took another look at the x-ray and told me I wouldn't need surgery, but he would need to "manually reduce" the bone. Not so bad, right? Yeah he'll just move my bones back into place. Completely non-invasive, not to mention much cheaper than surgery since my insurance policy doesn't cover anything non-life-threatening. (Oh who knows what it covers; it's private and I was just informed the other day that I haven't actually been using it anyway. Thanks a lot Korea.) OK I thought -- See you later, when you do this vague procedure you're talking about at some point in the future that will solve my problem! "So I'll do it here, now." Oh... so you'll give me drugs, right? I ask. "No," said Dr. Moon. "In America, you would get a local anesthetic. But I don't want the anesthetic to get in between your bone fragments, as that might cause an infection." ... Does this mean I get some really cool Eastern medicine acupuncture so that my pain receptors don't work? :) "No," said Dr. Moon. "This is going to be... quite painful." WHAT. ... Can I at least take an Advil first? DAMNIT Korea no Advil. "It will be... very painful. But. You are young. So you can... overcome the pain.".
He was not joking.
I laid down on the xray bed with my boss next to me holding my hand (not awkward) and the doctor next to my foot. Then he did it. He pushed my bones back together with his thumbs. It's a miracle I did not yell obscenities at him. It really is -- I yelled "FUCK YOU!" to a volunteer at my first half marathon because I couldn't see the finish line around the corner and she was too fucking happy and I was too fucking exhausted from running for 2+ hours.
Anywho I took a total of *three* days off (I get *three* sick days per year in my contract, lucky me) and then it was back to teaching ten 40-minute classes per day!
So I've been going back to the doctor every Monday, getting really close to my boss since we now spend an hour more per week together than what we were previously used to, which was a cumulative sum of about 30 or 40 seconds. After week two I got upgraded from a fat white splint to a beautiful bright green cast which matches ALL my clothes perfectly. Not. However I still hadn't fattened up too much yet and it fit better into my jeggings than the splint, so the highlight of my week was changing out of the sweat pants. Yay. After week three, the doctor removed the top of the foot part on the cast, so I would be able to move my foot up and down and the tendons wouldn't get too tight, which was actually a really good idea in my opinion ("Not my idea," he said. "Textbook idea."). Then week four came and went, and I was allowed 30% weight bearing with one crutch, but not on stairs. Now I have finally completed week five, and I've got five days left of 50% weight bearing. In five days I get the cast off! Here's some photographic evidence of its beauty:
"But Patrice, aren't you going to have people sign it?? It's tradition." Shut up.
The bright sides of breaking my leg:
- It's not ulcerative colitis! Which I had and it really sucked and I DID need surgery for that. A lot. Think bloody diarrhea and unbearable constant stomach pain with no end in sight.
- It's not ulcerative colitis PLUS a broken leg which would be really bad with the non-stop half-awake emergency runs to the bathroom in the middle of the night! Actually just in general; not only at night. OK enough IBD.
- It's spring! Not too hot, not too cold, so my toesies aren't getting chilly and the cast doesn't stink with sweat TOO badly.
- I get to ride in a wheelchair from home to work to work to home every day with my fiance pushing me. We look ridiculously adorable. I can only assume anyway.
- All my students carry things for me and I get to ride around my classroom in a wheely chair my coworker has lent to me.
- Crutches are a great weapon to threaten children with.
- The really small children (like 2-year-olds) at school think I'm some kind of white monster with four legs so sometimes when they look scared of me in the elevator I make angry dog faces at them and growl and then they start to cry! It's hilarious!
In September Seth and I are going to NEPAL. And then Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. But before that we're going to Bali. And then after all of it we're getting MARRIED. Life is happening. Thanks, life.
