Someday my feet will look like this again…I hope.

Just when everything was perfect…tragedy strikes.

Okay, a little dramatic, but it feels a little dramatic in this city.

Friday night, I had my soccer game. We were getting our trash kicked. Total blowout. There were about two minutes left in the game. I was exhausted because we had no female subs. The team we were playing was just a lot better than us…and had total attitude about it. Nothing like cocky winners to make a frustrating game even more painful. So there we were, two minutes left in the game, the other team had the ball by our goal again and I was not going to let it get past me. So, I charged the ball and the girl dribbling the ball, and we collided. And POP went my ankle. Not like a little ankle roll, but a serious pop.

I’m not really one to give into physical pain. My tolerance is high and I like to be “tough”. So, I just “walked it off” then hobbled to the bar with my teammates and hung out for a couple of hours. I still had my shin guards and socks on…I was too nervous to take them off. When we got done at the bar, I could barely walk, so I took a cab. What you need to know is that I almost never take cabs. Like, really. Especially not from 23rd Street all the way to my apartment on the upper Upper West Side. And then I got home and took off my shin guards and my socks and this is what I saw.

So, I text my sister (the doctor) this picture and she told me I needed x-rays. And that is where the real adventure began. I realized that since I left home at the ripe young age of 17, I’ve always had either the health center at my university or my sister (the doctor) to take care of me. And when I’ve needed urgent care or some other emergency something, I’ve had a car and I’ve known exactly where to go.

In this city of 8 million people and no car, what once seemed like no big deal was a very big deal. With all of these hospitals and emergency rooms and no car, the whole idea of getting x-rays was just not super exciting. I waited until Saturday morning and headed to the urgent care that looked the least scary from my online search and that took my insurance and that had x-rays onsite. Of course, it was all the way down on 13th Street and the subway was not going to work, so a $20 cab ride later, I was there only to find out their x-ray machine was down.

That said, I stayed (I couldn’t stomach another cab ride or internet search). The doctor came and looked at it. After poking and prodding she concluded that it was just a sprain. Then she wrapped it up and I was on my way. Thank goodness for good insurance and no co-pay because there was another $20 cab ride to get home.

And then I got home, only to realize that I had no food in my house. So, it was order in time. That is the one thing that is easier here than anywhere I’ve ever lived. Every place delivers and it’s amazing. I missed my soccer game on Saturday (I really thought I might have been able to play before I got home Friday night). And since then I’ve basically been on my couch for three days running. There’s no running out to get something because “running out” requires a lot of walking, as opposed to just getting in a car. And I still hate paying for cabs, so I’m stuck.

And the overall swelling has caught up with the ankle – I call it elephant foot.

Thankfully I’ve had some nice visitors come to see me (in all my injured glory) and Felicity has been keeping me company, so it could be worse. I missed my soccer game, the Primary program at church (I was so excited to be up there with my kidlets) and a fun dinner party, but that’s it. Oh, and laundry didn’t happen because there’s no way I could carry my 20 lbs bad of clothes two blocks to the laundromat. So, kind of crappy and it also made me think about just how difficult (and expensive) it would be to be disabled in this city. And just how lucky I am that this is just and injury and not a way of life for me. And maybe it made me miss suburbia just a little bit, and my car, and my family.