Sprained, Again

We were supposed to go back to Arizona on Thursday.  Instead, I sprained my ankle.  I was walking down to meet my mom when she got off work, pushing the Berrykin in his new umbrella stroller.  The stroller is about an inch too short for me to be comfortable while pushing it, but it's SO much better than carrying a 32-pound toddler up and down the abundant hills here.  It was about sunset, so it was still easy to see but the ground was cloaked in shadow.  I was having a good day.  We stopped to say hi to my uncle, who'd just gotten home from work, and headed down the hill.  At the bottom, a gentleman in a pickup let us a cross a small side-street ahead of him.  Whether it's a normal response others feel or it's my social anxiety, I always worry about taking too long.  I usually wave cars through first so I don't have to walk ahead of them while they watch (THAT is social anxiety).  He waved me ahead again, so I went.  Couldn't see the road.  Anxiety levels rose a little, and I walked a little faster.  Right smack in the middle, I rolled my right ankle.  It popped.  Instantaneous pain.  Had I not had the stroller in front of me, I'd have face-planted.  No doubt it kept me from having knees scraped up with bits of broken asphalt embedded in the angry wounds.  So that was a plus.  I limped my way a few feet farther - I couldn't really put weight on that side, but I managed.  By that point, I was pretty sure I was going to need to throw up, and I think that scared me more.  I NEVER throw up.  I had a seat in a cafe chair to let myself feel crappy for a minute and regroup.  I thought I might have to call my mom and have her walk home, get the car, and come pick us up.  After a few minutes, though, the nausea dissipated somewhat and I found I could gingerly hold my own weight.  Still.  It HURT.  There was no way I was getting back up the way we'd come down, so I ended up walking the long way home.  By the time we got here, my ankle felt better.  Using it didn't hurt nearly so much.  I grabbed some ice, sat down and elevated it, and waited for the nausea to go away.

Of course, once home and out of the stroller, Berrykin ran rampant.  I couldn't chase him.  Couldn't stop him.  He pulled all kinds of food out of the fridge.  At one point, he walked into the room with a shriveled old apple and a butter knife.  When I told him to bring them to me, and then to put them down when he wouldn't do that, he threw them across the room.  Thankfully, he didn't throw them AT me, because Berrykin has killer aim.  Seriously.  Most of us practice for years to be as accurate as he is at two.  It was humorous, and it would have made me feel better had I not been worried about his safety.  (Sure, he might still not talk very well, I might only be able to understand him 1% of the time, but he makes up for it physically.  Including the growth.  He's had two growth spurts in the last month!)

My ankle swelled up pretty badly.  It was bad the first night, but the second day was worse.  Looked like I was smuggling an egg in my sock!  And my foot swelled, too.  I think it would have gone done more quickly, except I had a TON of freelance work to get done, and my computer battery doesn't last very long.  My mom's house is old enough that half of the electrical outlets only have two holes, so I can't plug it in in the living room.  I had to sit in the dining room, since it's the only room from which I could keep an eye on the Berrykin at the same time.  It astounds me that I hurt it this badly.  I roll my ankles all the time, probably once or twice a month.  It has NEVER done this.  Usually it hurts, my foot bones crunch pretty audibly, and after a couple of minutes it's like nothing happened.  I've never sprained it before.  It irritates me that A) I did it while walking at no great speed, and B) it's the other ankle.  My left one STILL hurts from the overuse sprain I gave it in February.  Now I have no good side, and walking is generally a bad idea.  :(  But!  The swelling is now mostly gone, and I feel confident that it shouldn't hurt too badly to drive for half a day straight.  Especially if I wrap it.

We haven't done our Christmas shopping yet.  We don't have money to buy much, and we're only buying for each other and Berrykin, but we decided this year we get to spend a little (as opposed to the two Christmases since Berrykin's birth, when we counted him as our present and only bought him a little something).  I'm really not looking forward to shopping on Christmas Eve, but we wanted to go together.  So here we are...  If I don't post in two weeks, I've perished beneath the onslaught of last-minute Christmas horde.