Elisa's Journal

I can't believe it. Last night I slipped on the last couple of steps of my staircase (running downstairs to finish making a vocabulary test for my homeschooled kids during a commercial break from Sarah, Plain and Tall) And I not only twisted my ankle, I shattered the bones in my right foot! My driving foot, people! Here I am, lying down flat on my back, sweating profusely, screaming for someone to jusst shoot me and get it over with. Now that DID get a response. Whoa. Rune offered to pick me up and flop me into the back seat of the car, but the very thought of my legs swingling like the pendulum in a grandfather clock, banging into doorjams and catching on car doors made me want to vomit. SUppressing all fantasies to rip his jugulars out with my teeth, I yelled out for himn to call a friggin ambulance---like yesterday, please. Poor guy. Shades of childbirth. Actually, this pain was worse than childbirth. Worse than giving birth to a Mack Truck double wide, in fact. So the ambulance arrived, neighbors all came out to see who had died, and off we went--poor shocks and all, the the ER.

Thw local ER confirmed my suspicions. It was bad enough that they wouldn't touch it--sent me to a orthopedic doc the next day. That doc said it was too bad for hinm to deal with (and this was the doc that took care of Kerry Scruggs!) so he sent me to an orthopedic doc specializing in feet. To make a long story short, I have surgery scheduled for 6:00 AM tomorrow. Pins, plates, and all. My birthday is the following day. My thoughts--Well, I am getting expensive jewelry, it just happens to be on the inside rather than the outside. During all this, my husband was truly attentive. He even carried my purse all over the place, plast throngs of injured biker dudes, no less. Poor guy. Now that's courage.

SOme weird things happened before all this. First, Annika found a pair of Michelle's old crutches in the attic and started playing with them the day this happened. Second, that morning when I was about to wake up, I kept dreaming I was trying out to be place kicker for the Rice University women's football team--kicking over and over and over with that same foot. I shudder to rewind that dream in my mind now. Plus, I didn't make the cut and that sucked. Hell, I don't even KNOW ANYTHING about football.

The worst part is not being able to drive for several weeks--I have five kids, a list of errands that would put a Chinese menu to shame, and a book tour coming up in the next two weeks for Hearing is Believing. Sucky, eh? The very worst part: handing Rune the grocery list and hoping against hope that he comes home with more than a bushel of banana chips and a gallon of pickled igs fee. We can dream, right?

Wish me luck tomorrow, ya'll!