Two Left Feet, Part Deux

Injuring the left side of the body must run in my family. If you recall my Two Left Feet post from April 28th, I have a nasty habit of injuring my left foot and leg.

When eleven-year-old Curly Girl landed herself at the orthopedist today, she trumped all of my injuries and then some.


Over the weekend, Curly Girl banged and twisted her knee when she slipped in a river. She iced the joint, but it still swelled some. Thinking her knee was okay, her father and I wrapped her knee and let her go to soccer practice yesterday. Ten minutes into practice, Curly Girl's coach helped her as she limped to the car. While running, my daughter's kneecap turned all the way to the side, and her leg collapsed.

When we arrived home from practice, I iced her knee, elevated it, and iced and elevated it some more. When it was still swollen this morning, we ventured to the orthopedist. Apparently, Curly Girl tore one of the ligaments that holds her knee in place. If we don't give her knee time to heal properly now, her kneecap will keep dislocating and she will end up having knee surgery in the future.

To allow the ligament time to heal, Curly Girl has to wear a large brace that keeps her leg completely immobilized for six weeks. She obviously won't be playing soccer any time soon and is very upset that her injury eliminates competing in the summer swim season. We're hoping that she will at least be able to get in the pool to cool off because we will be at the pool a lot once it opens on Memorial Day.

Since Curly Girl was going to swim the water lap in a team triathlon that our family has entered, Patrick and I are looking for a new team member who can swim 300 meters. Anyone interested?

Two Left Feet

I seem to have an uncanny knack for injuring the extremities on my left side. A definite lack of grace and excess of klutziness have combined to create some rather embarrassing mishaps over the years.

It all began when I broke my left foot playing kickball on the blacktop in elementary school. Yes, I said blacktop. What school lets kids play kickball on a blacktop?? Of course, this was the same institution where we played many games of Red Rover, executed numerous wheelbarrow relay races, and threw the ball as hard as we could during not-so-nice dodgeball matchess. (I loved all those games, by the way, but the banning of traditional playground games could be an entirely other blog post.) After sliding on a blacktop (owwww!!!!) and injuring my foot, my parents didn't realize that my fifth metatarsal was broken until a week later. I'm not much of a sweller, so it was rather difficult to tell that anything was wrong. But, off I went to the doctor and came home with a brown, plether, orthopedic shoe (not exactly the height of fashion in the late '70s).

My next left-sided incident occurred when I was about fourteen and somehow (I don't quite remember what happened) twisted the ligaments in my left foot. I only recall having some funky leg wrap and being on crutches for a few weeks in the summer. Actually, I really remember crawling up and down the stairs at my house while dragging my crutches behind me- definitely not any fun.

I managed to stay left-side-injury free until last year, but, boy, was last summer a doozy. During a family Memorial Day cookout at our house, I fell down one step off our deck (Yes, the one lousy step in the picture!) and sprained my left foot. I was sooo embarrassed to trip off one step, especially when my 86-year-old grandmother had to help me get up off the ground. After my grandmother and mother helped me hobble into the house and ice my foot, I knew that something was wrong. I did agree to visit the doctor the following day and came home with a not-at-all-attractive orthopedic shoe. Let me tell you that sporting an orthopedic shoe for six weeks wreaked havoc with my summer flip-flop wardrobe. After finally trashing the shoe in Sarasota, Florida, beach sand over the Fourth of July, I trudged around in tennis shoes for the next few weeks before finally breaking out the flip-flops in August.


Now to my most recent, and possibly most ridiculous, injury: A week ago, I ran on a paved, wooded greenway while my children took classes at our local environmental center. I was having a great run until I stepped on a stick. Yes, I said a stick, not a limb, but a basic stick. As I stepped on one end of the stick, the other end popped up and scratched my shin. It was just a scratch that barely even bled. When I arrived at my cute and stylish convertible (okay, it's a minivan, but I pretend it's a convertible by rolling down the windows and cranking up the music), I cleaned out my superficial wound and even cleaned it again when I got home. All was well until Friday when my scratch started looking rather nasty. Not to gross you out, but it was puffy, red, and oozy. I debated about going to the doctor and felt rather ridiculous spending money on a doctor's visit for a stick's scratch. Of course, my dear, loving husband was of no assistance with his advice to open the wound and pour some hydrogen peroxide in it myself. I finally booked a doctor's appointment when Patrick threatened to give me some whiskey and something to bite down on before fixing it himself if I didn't stop obsessing about my leg (See what happens when you've been married fourteen years!).

So I sucked it up and visited the doc yesterday. Yes, it's infected. Yes, I have oral and topical meds. Yes, the wound had to be cultured to make sure I have not contracted MRSA or some other dread disease (Thankfully, I was assured that this was highly unlikely.) The worst part of the treatment, however, was the tetanus shot I had to get- you know, the tetanus shot that I have avoided for the past twenty years (See my April 9th Kentucky Bound post for more on my freakish fear of needles.). I really, really hate needles, and I only have to look at the dent in my right thigh which resulted from moving with a shot in my leg when I was one to remind me of my phobia. I did manage to get the shot without throwing a mommy meltdown, but darn my arm hurts today.

And am I getting any sympathy at home for this? Heck no, everyone just laughs at me probably like you are doing right now.