THIS BOOT IS MADE FOR LIMPING

A DOG, A FALL AND A BREAK

The Guilty Party — The Day After (above)

What more can go wrong? Let me start by saying I’m mostly fine. I have a broken foot, and an exotic injury that connects me in spirit to Napoleon’s cavalry, serving as a warning that I need a few weeks off. More on that coming. My goal here, as I’m laid up in bed with an ugly plastic cast on my left leg and foot — is to reassure you that my coming absence is temporary and was contemplated long before my rescue dog lunged at a larger one, twisting me and my foot, smashing me to the ground face first in front of my building. I missed, by only inches, a face-plant in the poo she had just finished. Awful. The owner of the other dog was very kind and worried but I fled into our building — trying to get back home, safe. Not sure how I did it, either. In shock, I think.

I was queasy, sweaty and kept flashing on a feeling I had when falling that something terrible was happening at the midpoint of my arch. An unnatural bend under my full body weight. Oddly, the foot itself didn’t look too bad but I couldn’t put any weight on it at all. How the hell did I make it back to the apartment?

I did what we do now — avoided a trip to emergency at all costs. My husband got me a rented wheelchair, some ice packs and pain killers but by the next day, Easter Sunday, I realized we had to go in. Pain was off the charts and imaging was needed.

I’ll spare you a rant but let’s just say emerg in at least one major Toronto hospital is still in full pandemic mode. The injured patient enters a hostile environment of mask demands, social distancing warnings, exclusion of loved ones — and non-medical staff operating inside plexiglass barriers, not unlike what we see in prison movies when an inmate speaks to a visitor through a little black phone. The fear performance is clearly back for a lifetime run on stage at this theatre of New Normal manipulation. Security guards outnumber help staff and multiple signs warn us that bad behaviour means a call to police. No one offers to push my heavy wheelchair. No one offers a kind word of comfort. I was just left to wait at what felt like the ramparts of an enemy nation.

When the care finally came, the people were mostly great, albeit obviously rushed. The x-ray showed nothing but soft tissue damage and on another day with a less curious doctor, that might have been the end of it. But she had the good sense to do a proper exam and when she discovered I really couldn’t put any weight on my foot without excruciating pain, a CT scan was ordered and a nuclear-level painkiller delivered. I had pulled off my mask off in the examining suite and the tears and grimacing likely twigged her to the hard-to-diagnose but very serious problem with my left foot.

What the scan found makes me grateful for that very kind doctor. Of course, I can’t just sprain my foot like other people. I have to go to the max and pull off an injury with a connection to Napoleon’s military surgeon. It is called a Lisfranc fracture — hard to diagnose, tricky to fix and with a history of being misdiagnosed as just a sprain. The injury is named after French military surgeon Dr. Jacques Lisfranc St.Martin, who discovered it in cavalry soldiers who died on horseback, falling forward with their feet still in the stirrups. Ugh.

So it’s an ugly boot, immobile foot and a second opinion on the best course of treatment. The ortho doc in the fracture clinic did not engender confidence.

I’m hopped up on painkillers so there is that. I will keep working away at all the lovely comments and emails about our mental health post-Covid. You will see me there for a short time each day. And do post your thoughts on emergency medicine, Lisfranc injuries if you’ve had one and anything else that springs to mind. Your comments and emails are the best part of this gig and I am grateful every day for all of them. Podcast is on hiatus for a few weeks but will be back and I hope you will be waiting.

This must have been God’s way of ensuring I slow down….at least for a minute.

Stay critical.

#truthovertribe