Pain in the sprain

Dr. Ripple's first words to me yesterday were, " You did a number on my ankle." How would you take that?

What number did I do, doc? I didn't realize there was a numbered system. Am I looking at a two? A four? Three hundred and eighty two? My mind becomes a CSI camera - if you watch the television show then you know its the kind that speeds through a dudes nutsack and settles on his sperm factory to see the little guys playing poker and shooting pool (that's what they do when not 'working') - and it magnifies the ankle a bajillion times. Inside, the bones are snapped and beer is flooding the blood stream, which explains the constant buzz I've had for five days. Not too mention, those jagged edges must be poking the skin like sadistic acupuncturists because the pain has intensified ten fold. Someone could punch my left ball right now and I'd still wail about my left wheel.

But then Dr. Ripple (don't think I didn't notice his name rhymes with cripple) qualifies his statement. "We didn't see any fractures." And I jump up, chest bump Dr. cRip and proceed to breakdance on the tile. No break. He goes on to tell me how there are three ligaments that keep the ankle in place and that sprains stretch those ligaments. I've sprained mine enough that I'm sure I could take the slack, tie 'em up, and my ankles would be as good as new.

The doc drones on about the ligaments as if he was giving a lecture series about my purple foot, but like any class I took in school, I checked out about 90 seconds in. Thanks doc, but really, unless you're Salma Hayek wearing a sun dress on a breezy day, I don't need to hear that much about my ankle's ligaments. What the ankle does with its parts is no business of mind. Just as long as it does its job, that's all I care about. I'm a deligator, not a micro-manager. My glazed look doesn't exude the hint I'm throwing at Dr. cRip that after hearing no fracture he could stop tracing on my skin where the liggys go, what they do on their time and how if they weren't attached my ankle would flop around like it was dead mackrel.

Fourteen minutes later, Dr. cRip finishes his disertation on the three liggys and gets back on topic. "Some people get sprains and they can continue playing on it. Some are eight to 10 weeks. Yours looks about four weeks."

I've always been horribly average.

The first step, doc says, is to stabalize the extremity - I love it when they call the a body part an extremity, it makes my foot and ankle feel more important when described with big words - and there's a couple of options: the ski boot which eats half of your leg and feels like you're tugging an olympic bobsled with each step, or a stirrup brace that velcros around the calf. I don't know how much that last option cost (I was afraid if I declined either option Mike Tyson would jump out from one of the exam room cabinets and bite the hell out of my bad ankle), but my guess was cheaper than the boot, so that's what I chose. Of course, I'm starting to regret it as I lash the velcro straps together, envisioning a day in the not so distant future where the strap grabs more leg hair than velcro and I'm left with a six-inch-wide lane of hairlessness.

Another problem I foresee is that said brace will prohibit me from wearing my favorite article of clothing - no, not a black teddy, you pervs - shorts. The brace is hospital white and for fear of being mistaken for a short bus student, I must hide the safety harness under jeans. I could be more self confident and pull off the look of start white ankle stirrup and black shorts, but I'm not. More, I'm afraid the brace's whiteness will blind onlookers if the sun hits it just right, then the poor sap who looked into the light will sue the shit out of me and have to give away our cats. Hmmmm, then again...

The nice thing about Dr. cRip was that he didn't judge. He was explaining different athletic braces I could wear while pretending to be the LaDanian Tomlinson of Sweetwater Park, and I piped up with "I have a brace that laces up." Of course, the next question out of his mouth was, "Were you wearing it?" Car alarm chimes went off in my pea brain, and I though he was going to stand up and pistol whip me with the stirrup brace when I said, "well no. I hadn't had a problem..." Doc didn't let me finish the statement, instead he just waved off my feeble justification and went on again about the three liggys in the ankle. I guess that's his mental safety mechanism when he gets frustrated with a patient.

"No doc, I didn't get out of the way of the car because I did't think it would hurt when it rolled over my ankles."

"That's OK, did you know this ligament here connects the front of the ankle to the foot..."

"You don't say?"

I have a return visit scheduled in four weeks. I'm sure Dr. cRip will still be talking about those liggys after dealing with me again.