Micah's Broken Toe

Well, Monday was an interesting day.

I drove into Edmonton to visit someone at the Misericordia Hospital. When I arrived, I was told they had been discharged just two hours before I arrived. Not one to waste a trip into Edmonton, I headed from the west end of the city down to the river and the Cross Cancer Institute at the University of Alberta where another person from our church has been residing the past few months. Sure enough, when I arrived she was out with a family member (which I was grateful for, though still disappointed). So, on a holiday Monday, here I am, working, though nothing was working out.

So I came home. Faith was working on a few projects for our vacation, one of which we needed to test in the van. So the whole family stepped outside to see how one of these projects worked out. Micah was hopping from side to side trying to avoid the puddles from our most recent rain shower. I kept walking straight. Micah, not paying attention, leaps into my path and onto my foot. That's a significant amount of downward force coupled with my own forward momentum. I briefly shouted in pain and fell to my knees. I waited a few moments before answering the "Are you okay?"s because I really wasn't sure. I hobbled over to the van thinking I may be fine and watched the demonstration, and on my way back I noted a familiar sharp ache that could only mean one thing.

I waited another hour before I was confident that I should actually go to the hospital, yet unsure what good that would accomplish. After all, I was already icing it, elevating it, and was about to tape it once the swelling went down. But I thought I probably should just to be sure. I really wasn't too keen on going to the Stony Plain hospital since we are familiar with the wait times there, but thought it was worth a shot - we'd stop in and see how long the line was, grab a bite to eat, and if it was bad we would just go home.

So, for the third time that day I was at a hospital. I looked around the room and counted, then went to the desk to speak with the triage nurse. He confirmed my fears that it would be at least a 1 1/2 hour wait before someone saw me, so long as nothing more serious came in. He informed me that the drop-in clinic was just opening. I chose door number two. In under two hours I had seen the doctor (who saw ten patients before me), had an x-ray, and consulted with the doctor one final time before leaving. And yes, the toe was broken. I saw the pictures - er - films - er - whatever. The chunk is a triangular-shaped bone fragment just before the second knuckle of my second toe not on the growth plate. And the guy told me to use a tensor bandage on it. Seriously? on a toe? So I suggested buddy taping it and he concurred. And told me to do exactly what I was already doing, plus stay off of the foot, which I knew that I wouldn't do well at since on Sunday I'm headed to Saskatoon with some Jr. Highs to help pack and sort a warehouse full of medical supplies and then go on holidays where there is a lot of walking and hiking involved.

It is now Friday and the toe feels pretty good. I rewrapped it finally since the swelling is mostly down.

And really, I didn't break my toe. Micah did.