Time Warp, Ankle Anger, and Boulder Dreams

This week I got a little ahead of myself….on Wednesday, I thought it was Thursday. Thursday then seemed to be Friday, and Friday was Saturday. I was about to finish preparing my lesson for church the next day when Stephanie informed me that it was only FRIDAY, not Saturday, and I was utterly confused. I’d gone three whole days without knowing what day it was! But that was okay, since I ended up feeling like the recipient of some sort of Time Bonus, getting an entire extra day in the week to do whatever it is that I do.

That’s what happens when all of my friends are in clinical and I’m just chillin’ at home, still unable to walk on my cursed right foot without pretty bad pain. My patience is gone, but I’m still trying to provide my ankle with a bit of a rest so that the swelling subsides from my severe ankle sprain. Last night I woke up all in a sweat, worried out of my mind that my ankle wasn’t going to heal properly and my USAF plans, Regis course completions, and general activities would be drastically affected. I obviously did some serious damage to the ankle vasculature (probably due to the fact that I was so far away when I sprained it, resulting in a long time period between the incident and being able to rest, ice, compress, and elevate my ankle. Made for a heck of a lot more swelling), so I’ve still got pitting edema and a very swollen ankle even 10 days later. Luckily, no fractures, and the doctor thinks everything is at least partially intact. My question is this, though….tendons attach muscles to bone, right? And ligaments attach bones to bones, which means that by testing my ability to evert, invert, dorsiflex and plantar-flex my foot the doctor was actually only testing my tendons, not my ligaments. So now what happens? I suppose I wait another week and see if this swelling gets better and allows me to walk more easily. If not, I’m demanding an MRI and I’m getting a new doctor.

Okay, so after an hour of laying awake, I finally convinced my brain to allow for a bit of REM sleep. I ended up having a dream that in a ridiculous attempt to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I hauled a ginormous boulder up a mountain in our little Rav4 (this was definitely a dream, since the car practically rolls backward just trying to ascend small hills). Well, for some reason I left the car out of gear….next thing I knew, I was watching our most important possession careen down a cobblestone road (yes, it was cobblestone) and off the edge of a precipice. After the boulder smashed everything of the car’s interior, the engine suddenly erupted in a fiery explosion of gasoline, oil, and compressed pressure, and all I could think was “My cell phone!”

Moral of the story: don’t celebrate July 4th by hauling boulders up a mountain in your car. Rolling ‘em down the mountainside is over-rated. And cell phones are the devil.

Laaazy-butt

So, this week has been terribly exciting for me. My friend (his name is Right Foot) managed to try to get himself killed on some ridiculous sidewalk, leaving me on crutches for a while and some amazingly colorful bruises painted around my ankle and toes. Right Foot looks like he belongs to a blotchy-purple Shrek now, or maybe Barney, because he’s been quite swollen for a few days now.

Let’s see, now, what else has happened this week…..I found out this morning that I seem to have lost any ability of making finite movements with my left foot. You see, today was the first time I’ve been able to drive our stickshift (his name is Maxim Omar, a Toyota Rav4), and since Right Foot is still quite sore from his fight with the cement I decided to try braking with my left foot. That idea ended as soon as I realized that our car doesn’t have anti-lock brakes (you wouldn’t believe how suddenly I can stop the car if I use my left foot. There’s nothing in between a stop and a go, no “slowing down.”).

Well, Stephanie went to enjoy helping Braeden get his shots….hopefully she won’t realize that I wrote this while she was gone, since I promised to be studying dutifully throughout the afternoon. In reality, I just didn’t want Braeden to associate the pain of his injections with his father. Let’s face it: Moms have innumerable opportunities to make up to their children for putting them through so much misery. I didn’t bring him to get his shots because I wanted to preserve a budding relationship, it had nothing to do with being a lazy-butt.

Speaking of being a lazy-butt, I had a patient once who was as deaf as a post. His wife was deaf, too, and I would go through heck trying to communicate with those two. Anyway, every time I entered his room he would see my name-tag and in a drawling, extremely loud voice he told me “Ben? My son-in-law’s name is Ben. He’s a laaaazy-butt!” If you can imagine how many times I entered his room throughout the day (at least 20 times a day), then you’ll be able to figure out how many times I got to hear about his lazy-butt son-in-law. Also, he would tell me that his driveway was made of 8-inches of thick concrete. Yeah, I’m not sure he got out much….

Monster Squirrels

So, we now have a little cucumber and tomato plant (well, actually that would be two plants….I’m not sure they sell the hybrid version) growing in our old laundry bucket out back. I still need to poke holes in the bottom to prevent root rot, but I’m having trouble convincing myself that it is acceptable to destroy the water-holding capacity of such a nice, faithful bucket; it has served me and my car on many an occasion. Ahh, the sadness to see it go! It’s like neutering your dog….you know he’ll still be your dog, but some things may never be the same!

I read on an extremely good website (ehow.com) that tomatoes need 6-8 hours of sunlight per day to maintain optimal growth, and I think that I must be a distant relative of the tomato plant. I mean, I actually think that I need closer to 10 hours of sunlight per day to maintain optimal-ness, but unfortunately I spend most of my time squeezed into a desk, trying to prevent the uncomfortable feeling of having the circulation in my legs cut off right above the knee for hours at a time. If I die of a blood clot, it was because whoever designed the seats at Regis University must have grown up attending a school that drove him insane with its terrible seating. This designer is now sitting in a LaZ-Boy somewhere, heaving great guffaws about how miserable he has made the lives of thousands of over-studied, over-charged, and over-SAT students at Regis. I hope his LaZ-Boy makes him morbidly obese and that he dies of complications related to GERD (I have GERD).

Anyway, I’m watching the sunrise and this monster squirrel is climbing the fencepost outside of our house. Colorado does not grow normal squirrels; these are mutant killer squirrels. I am constantly being startled by their violent jabbering on campus, and I swear the other day one JUMPED at me from his tree! They’re like those rabbits in Monte Python, you know the ones that are huge and end up eating the knights and killing them by biting their jugular veins? These squirrels are going to do the same thing. Where are all of the predatory animals when you need them? HELLO, WE HAVE A SQUIRREL PROBLEM!

So, in lieu of something constructive, I leave you to ponder the meaning of life, especially since we know that at any moment the squirrels could unite, attack, and leave us gasping for air as our jugular veins bleed. In the end, we’ll be lying on our backs in an acorn-chip-strewn field, staring up as the evil squirrels gather ‘round and gaze their monstrous faces into our eyes.

P.S. Don’t come to Colorado. Run for your lives.

Skylights

Not too long ago, I was driving into the mountain roads north-west of Denver. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the temperature was—well, perfect. And, of course, I was in the perfect mood….especially after jamming down to the Eli Young band singing “Always the Love Songs” in my little Rav4.
A lot of days have been like that one over the past couple of months; I find myself sitting at home or riding my road bike, all the while experiencing some sort of emotional high while I gulp in the sensations of watching Braeden throw a blanket over his face to “hide” and then throwing it down to his tummy with an enormous, mouth-open-wide grin on his face, or observing a heron’s body slowly raise itself straight up and down to slow its flight before breaking the smooth surface of Clear Creek.
Today was interesting, probably because a man working on our roof accidentally fell through our bathroom ceiling. Yes, that’s what I said. I was taking a nap with Braeden when Stephanie came in the room and told me that she had just watched a man’s leg smash straight through our bathroom ceiling, releasing a veritable deluge of moldy-looking insulation, pain chips, and sheetrock all over the bathroom and into the hallway. They eventually cleaned up most of the mess, and I drilled a big piece of pressboard to the ceiling to seal our new skylight against any overly-interesting roof critters.
I’m working on my application to join the United States Air Force. I am so excited! I figure this type of opportunity only comes when you’re young, so I’m going for it with all I’ve got. I’ve been running and biking every day for the last week or so, preparing for the medical exam for which I’ve got to lose three or four pounds to meet the qualifications. I’ve got huge blisters on both feet from a bad arch in my shoes, but they’ll go away eventually.
Any other interesting things going on around here...nope

Break's Up

Glenwood, Utah sits in a tiny valley surrounded by low mountains that rise quickly to cut into the blue sky with their brown ridges. Beyond those hills is a massive giant known as Cove Mountain, and last Tuesday it loomed particularly large while I trudged along a dirt trail leading to the Glenwood Fish Hatchery. Cove Mountain seemed to taunt my instincts as I walked, and I contemplated the possibility of someday climbing to its peak. As I continued, I decided that the opportunity probably wouldn’t come again for several years. I had an apple, an orange, and a liter of water in my black German medic shoulder bag, which seemed to be sufficient as long as I made it to the snow line where I could melt some snow for water.
The first thing to fail was the shirt on my back. It is a black, long-sleeved sports shirt that wicks away the sweat and is made for temperatures of below 60 degrees Farenheit. Today was much warmer than that, probably closer to 80 degrees, so I stowed my shirt and decided to hurry so that I didn’t get too sunburned as I went up the mountain.
Four hours later, I stared at the enormous expanse of southern-Utah valleys, encased on the opposite side by cliffs painted red and yellow by thousands of nature’s years. I hadn’t reached the summit, but if I didn’t turn back soon then I was sure that my good friend Dehydration would eventually catch up to me. I jogged back to the house and this hike turned out to be the best and only hike I have done so far this year….
On another note, my last day of “break” was spent in a rather “creatively planned” clinical (meaning the hospital couldn’t give us enough hours) that involved babysitting developmentally disabled children for 9 hours. It was a growing experience, but I did manage to get half of my head literally drenched in saliva from one of the participants….I can’t block the memory of the shirt-staining drool oozing down the left side of my head and onto my ear.
Back to school, now!