A Cracking Start to May

This story starts with my "new employee packet" from OU. I wasn't very happy to see that because I am here on a visa, I'm required to have a TB skin test before being employed at OU (despite living here for almost ten years). I am not a fan of needles, it's not that injections hurt a lot (not that much anyway), it's just a mental thing and I'm pretty much guaranteed to pass out.

Anyhow, I made an appointment at the Department of Health for a test on Monday 5th May and tried not to think about it. I failed at not thinking about it and an hour before the test I was thinking about it while walking down the stairs at work. I'm not exactly sure what happened but one second I was walking near the bottom and the next I was falling on the side of my foot and landed flat on the floor. Now, everyone has those moments when they twist their ankle and after walking for a few minutes the pain goes away so that is what I tried.

Walking made it worse and by the time I got back to my office I couldn't even touch my foot to the ground without a whole lot of pain. Due to my passing out nature, Matt was coming to take me to my test so I hopped out to his car and went downtown.

The nurse at the DOH was so nice, got me an ice pack for my foot and then stabbed me with a needle. It didn't hurt really but I still almost passed out and she had to get another ice pack for my head and Matt dragged me onto the bed.

Anyway, as my foot was so painful still Matt dropped me off at Urgent care before heading back to work (he'd already taken more than an hour for lunch). I waited around a while before seeing the doctor and getting X-rays to be told my foot was actually fractured! Now I didn't real quite as wimpy for complaining so much.

I broke the base of the 5th metatarsal, which is a pretty common injury for football players (real football of course) apparently - no world cup selection for me!

Anatomy Lesson: It is a proximal fifth metatarsal fracture - look for the purple!

They strapped it up at urgent care and the next day it was off to the orthopedic doctor for a better look and a nice walking air cast. I'm headed back next week to see the healing progress and hopefully find out a timeline. I can't drive either so that is getting frustrating.

Broken foot temporary cast...

… and the giant air cast with nike air style pump!

Pay attention on the stairs everyone!!