A Tale of An Ankle; A Tale of Woe

I had this sudden epiphany. It involved moving bookcases from my room to the basement, along with the new toy box, then taking the storage cubes and shelves from the basement to the girls' rooms which would TOTALLY REVOLUTIONIZE the storage in their closets, NAY, their entire ROOMS!

I had this epiphany roughly twenty minutes after I stepped off our stoop funny and twisted my ankle so badly I eventually had to call Jeremy in tears and tell him I couldn't walk and what on earth were we going to do? Horrible memories of bedrest during my pregnancy with Genevieve plagued me and I may have had a slight breakdown.

Perhaps.

Yes, I usually do have major epiphanies when I am most useless to carry them out. It's one of my best qualities.

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I'm not gonna sugar coat it. My ankles, and my right ankle in particular, are unaware that they are, in fact ankles. WHY YOU NO KNOW HOW ANKLES WORK, ANKLE? I shout, which, oddly enough, never helps.

It all began in the year 2000 (scene fades into squiggly lines and we reappear in Ann Arbor, Michigan). I was getting ready to go to a party -- tee hee, I mean a small gathering of my study group, mom -- my freshman year, and emboldened by being a freshman hanging out with my much older friend from back home and all his older friends, bragged that I was so strong that I could carry one of the housemates (Ben) from their house to the party next door (Why? Who knows.). I heaved him onto my back and walked across the yard. If only I had known there was a small hole in the yard. Not seeing it up ahead in the dark, I stepped in it and rolled my ankle, the combined weight of my own frame and Ben's crashing me to the ground. 

My friend Tom picked me up and carried me back to his house, where I was set up on the couch with my ankle plopped into the ice on top of the empty keg that had been dragged over from the party I didn't get a chance to attend. Woe. WOE.

In the meantime, one of the neighbors/party hosts came to see how I was and ended up staying the whole night talking with me. Tres romantique, no? Well I thought it was a plot line straight from a bestselling rom com, and then we began dating.

University Health Services said it was a terrible sprain and I should put an Ace bandage on it and try to keep off of it for a few weeks. Have you BEEN to the University of Michigan's campus? That did not happen. My ankle never healed properly and a few years later a podiatrist said I had so much scar tissue and damage there was not much point of surgery to repair it because so many areas would need work that there would be just as much scar tissue when they were done.

And I went on two dates with that guy and after the second one, I walked into my dorm room and my roommate asked, "So?" with raised eyebrows, to which I replied "Meh," and that was it for him.

John. I think his name was John. 

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We next found my ankle collapsing for no good reason on my honeymoon. That's right, my g-d HONEYMOON. We had gotten all fancy to go to one of the three restaurants in our all-inclusive resort, and as I walked all poised and pleased and flushed with love for my new husband, I stepped forward and BLAMMO. On the ground. 

This feels familiar, I thought, as I watched in horror as my ankle started to swell before my very eyes. I refused to let the night be ruined, so I hobbled down to the restaurant, biting my knuckles from time to time to avoid screaming, as I was, of course wearing heels. After dinner Jeremy went down to the front desk to see if they had an Ace bandage. They asked "bandage?" over and over, but then nervously asking "ACE bandage?" Apparently there were many hushed conversations in Spanish and a bandaid was procured. When Jeremy switched tactics and asked for medical tape, the same nervous questioning and hushed conversations in Spanish ended with them proudly offering Jeremy a roll of scotch tape. 

About an hour later Jeremy came back with masking tape and I wrapped my ankle in toilet paper then topped it with masking tape. We spent the next nine days with me hobbling around with masking tape on my ankle. It was magical, I tell you. 

At least since we were on vacation in a warm paradise, I was planning in sitting around a lot anyway. I just got a bunch of towels to prop up my foot and sat by the pool or the ocean and read my book and talked and napped. The only issue was the fact that we had lovely people dedicated to bringing us any food or drinks we desired all the time, 24 hours a day, and this necessitated many hobbling trips to the bathroom. 

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A few months later we had left the best little hole-in-the-wall place in all of Lansing, The Green Door, which was only a few blocks from our first home. We had walked down on a beautiful spring evening to enjoy some delicious pizza and were about to enjoy a nice walk home (after leaving through the back door -- which is how you know you're a regular, according to Jeremy), when SPLAT. No reason. Walking on a flat surface. Ankle sprained. Jeremy actually had to run home, get the car, and come get me. 

This is when I really started to wonder if my body was turning against me. 

For months after that, I would have forgotten about this flaw in my system when I would be running upstairs and suddenly be brought to my knees as I felt a TEAR in that godforsaken ankle. It hasn't been the same ever since.

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This time I was sitting upstairs, listening to Netflix as I tried to get a few work hours in while the girls napped and I heard a gentle scratch scratch scratch. I tried to ignore it, then went to the window to see if a tree branch was scraping the house, then slowly realized the scratching and rustling was coming from my CEILING. A varmit. In my house. Oh, hell no. 

I called Jeremy, who responded with a long sigh and the clicking of his keyboard to look up a pest service. He found a place called Can Catch Varmit Control, which I deemed unacceptable based on the name alone and offered to call my dad to see if he had any ideas.

My dad said to run out and make sure there wasn't a squirrel at the vent trying to get in because I could shoo him away. I slipped on a pair of flats, ran out the door, calling for my dog to join me, and ... stepped wrong, twisted my ankle with a horrifying POP and knew I was in trouble.

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It's ridiculous, is what it is. Thirteen years of the ligaments and tendons that help me STAND and WALK not working correctly. It's better than say, my heart deciding it doesn't want to work anymore, but still.

And that, my friends, might be the longest story any idiot has ever written about her ankle.

A tale of woe. A tale of woe indeed.