That sprain
I ever tell you bout when I sprained my ankle? I fell when rock climbing.
I love to say that. I think it sounds very… I don’t know, dashing. Do people still say “dashing”?
Full disclosure, I only fell about eighteen inches. Still, though.
I landed and felt a hot pain in my ankle, felt my stomach drop because I knew something had gone really wrong. I said something like “oh shit oh fuck oh fuck,” rolled onto my back, then my side, sat up, took the climbing shoe off right away and the ankle was already swelling. I stood up with help from one of my climbing partners, maybe both, I don’t remember. I put weight on both feet and the ankle gave away, I sat down hard. My friends were very nice about it. I don’t remember what they said. I felt embarrassed. I limped over to my regular shoes, said something like “you guys should keep climbing, we never have enough time to climb anyway, I’m going to head over to urgent care.”
I limped about a mile to the urgent care. By the time I got there I’d cried even though strangers were walking by and I knew I was really genuinely hurt. The two times I’ve broken bones were similar, me initially not really aware, not willing to let myself be aware, that I’d broken part of myself.
At urgent care they got me in quick, sent me out in a walking cast and crutches, and with a follow up appointment for a doctor, at my request. I’d specifically requested a sports medicine doctor. I called around to some friends until I found one (one who later became another climbing partner and, more importantly a very dear friend) who could drive me home. Another friend picked me up a few days later to take me to the doctor. As I hobbled down the stairs of my house on my crutches he’d said “well you’ve looked better!”
During my appointment the sports doctor had frowned, said “who put you in the cast and crutches?!”
“The other doctor I saw?”
“That’s going to delay your recovery.” He sent me home in an ankle brace and, at my request, an appointment with a physical therapist. Walking in the brace hurt but was less of a pain in the ass than the crutches.
A couple days later I saw the physical therapist, who said “who put you in that brace?”
“Uh, the doctor did.”
“Well, the way we treat injuries like this has changed. We want you to use it as much as you can. Walk around on it as long as it’s not painful to walk on it.”
This was around the time I’d gotten into running in what was for me a serious way, more than I’d ever done before. The physical therapist told me it would be probably six weeks before I could run again, and that I should start with just a 60 seconds of running, and if there was any pain at all I had to stop. That was hard to hear. He sent me home with a plan to stand on one foot for increasing amounts of time, to train the muscles in my ankle to do the work my ligaments wouldn’t do anymore. “When you can do it for 60 seconds, then do it with your eyes closed. When you can do that for 60 seconds, do it with your eyes closed while standing a pillow.” I did. It worked. I eventually got back to running and to climbing. And from all that standing on one foot I now have better balance on the side with the sprain.
About a tenth of a mile in the middle of the walk to urgent care was a bridge across the Mississippi river. I’d stopped repeatedly to hold onto the handrail, leaned on the side of the bridge. I’d hoped really hard not to run into anyone I knew. I felt embarrassed for the injury, felt incompetent and also vulnerable physically and emotionally. I don’t want help, I want to not need help. (I remembered my dad once at a chinese restaurant when I was seven or eight, the placemats with the chinese zodiac had said something about how I was good at working with others and was someone who needed people, he replied “people who need people are weak and vulnerable.” I’d nodded, “I’d like sweet and sour pork, and can I get an egg roll too?)
I used to cross that bridge a lot, and I’d always thought about jumping off. I have a similar version of that thought sometimes when I’m around train tracks or highways, or occasionally when I look down into the garbage disposal in my kitchen sink. “I could kill myself,” I would think. It would always send my mind to my mother when I was kid, “I should just slit my wrists,” always in the times when she was most overwhelmed, like during the annual consideration of whether or not to get a divorce, “I should just put a gun to my head,” or when my brothers and I had totally wrecked the house and my dad was due home soon and instead of helping pick up we’d fight, “I should just swallow a bottle of pills.” We’d cry, try to soothe, and we’d follow orders. Until the one time we didn’t, and I just said “you know, just go ahead. Do it. Or don’t. Either way. Just stop saying that all the time.” She’d exploded, but stopped saying it.
I always felt a bit dizzy looking down at the river off that bridge. The fall seemed worse than the drowning (I’m very afraid of heights, I feel tense if I stand on a chair to change a light bulb and my heart will start to pound if I’m near the top of a six foot ladder, it’s part why I loved rock climbing, the adrenaline but more than that the sense that I could be terrified and still operate. Hello terror, you still here? I’d stopped noticing. It’s why I’ve always loved Piglet from the Winnie the Pooh books.) I never had interest in jumping, I just was aware that it was in my power to do so. I remember finding that comforting as I limped over the bridge. I felt small, weak, foolish but when I looked at the river I’d thought “I could jump. I don’t.”
Dashing, like I said.