So the other day I went to the gym. I’d been taking some time away from running because I twisted my knee a bit when I fell down a flight of stairs and I was playing it safe.
I got there early and thought, hey, I should do a little running. And gosh darn it I ran a mile faster and better than I have in a long time. I wasn’t even breathing hard and I felt fantastic about it and was super excited to get back running again especially since I was signed up to do Hood to Coast this August. My knee also felt awesome.
(Yes yes, I fell down a flight of stairs. It sucked and I can’t recommend it.)
And if you’re the squeamish sort, skip to the end.
So I met up with my trainer and we’d decided it was leg day. I did three sets of squats with weight added and that went pretty well. Then we went to the machine that allows me to bench press large amounts of weight with my legs. I went to grab the 45 lb plate weight off the storage bar to move it to the useable bar thing and some douche canoe had put too many on. I went to slip my fingers between them and get a good grip on the weight but it slipped.
And landed edge-first on my big toe.
I didn’t cry, or yell, or cuss. I just froze for a moment and looked at my trainer. “Yeah, that’s broken.” I said.
“Ohmigod are you okay?!”
“No. This is probably not good. I should sit down.”
I walked 30 feet to a bench and sat then took a look at my shoe and saw a quarter size bit of blood on it. I sighed and stripped off my sock and shoe. A gym patron nearby looks over in horror and asks if I need him to track down some first aid materials and I assured him my trainer was doing just that.
She returned with a couple of ice packs and some band aids and apologized profusely: the first aid kits had no gauze or pain killers or anything other than what she brought. I sighed and said that was probably fine. Somewhere in there I used the paper towels to keep it from dripping all over the gym and squished the ice packs to my toes.
Another gym patron asked if it hurt or if I’d gone into shock. I laughed and said, “yes, this does indeed hurt. I would love a little shock about now.”
Apparently when I horribly injure myself I get dry and witty because I spent the rest of the evening making jokes about it.
Several gym employees came by to make sure I was okay and to take curious looks at my toe. I can empathize, it’s the sort of horrible thing you don’t want to see but you don’t get many chances to so there you go.
They offered to take me to urgent care and I said no, my carpool was going to take me.
My trainer got my stuff out of my locker and brought it to the front for me, and filled out an incident report.
I texted my carpool buddy and said simply, “I just broke my toe, can you guys take me to urgent care on your way out?”
To which Kacey replied with the expected omgwtfbbq comments that one should normally reserve for such situations. They came and got me, and Emily came in and grabbed my stuff and helped me out to the car. Angela found directions to urgent care and they broke land speed records to get me there. I joked some more and made them laugh at the horror of it all.
Emily walked me in and took paperwork and insurance cards back and forth to the counter and made sure I was all settled with the necessary stuff before they left.
I told Steve and my mom what I’d done while I waited and somewhere in the back of my brain I was worried about two things that I wasn’t letting myself acknowledge. First, that I wouldn’t be able to do the race I wanted to do in August, or be able to run ever again at that rate, and second that I may have crushed or shattered the bones in my toe and might lose it.
I got x-rayed after a long wait and got to do a few clever yoga positions to get the pictures they needed and then zombie-walked back to my room to wait for Steve.
Nearly three hours after squashing my toe I had an answer (but still no pain drugs or ice packs): I managed to snap off the very top of the end bone in my big toe. While I did cut it open I managed to do so in the skin that wouldn’t accept stitches, and I also had a vertical crack that went through the joint.
They think it’ll heal alright though but I’m going to see a podiatrist to be sure. In the mean time I have Vicodin. That I didn’t get till four hours after the crushing.
And Steve has been wonderful and taking great care of me. He even gave me his cool peg leg thing which is challenging to walk with but kind of fun.
Thankfully my brain in its infinite capacity for defense has managed to forget how it felt to have my toe broken this time and has quit replaying the incident. I finally emailed my team and told them I was out, though I suspect my spot is cursed. I got in the team because the previous guy had his foot run over by a moped.
TL;DR I broke my toe and now have two months of down time to get art and prints ready for rose city comic con, at which Steve and I will be sharing a table. I’ll have originals of the Red Panda Project as well as prints and Steve will have prints of his things as well as a peek at the comic he’s working on. We’ve never had a table at a con before so this will be a new and interesting experience. Hopefully Steve will find it inspiring.
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