Tough Break
It was shaping up to be an uneventful Friday evening. I had finished work and was heading out to pick up some takeout. But it all took a turn for the worse when I reached the two stairs leading down to the driveway. It happened so fast that I’m not entirely sure what went wrong. I can only assume my foot didn’t fully catch the stair on my way down, and I stumbled a little. I rolled my left ankle a bit, but was determined to walk it off and continued on to my car.
It wasn’t until I was about halfway to the restaurant that I realized something was wrong. My ankle felt better, but my foot was now quite painful. I pulled over into a parking lot to evaluate, and saw that the middle of my foot had already swelled a lot. So rather than continuing to the restaurant, I took a detour instead to an urgent care center nearby.
I timed things fairly well, as the urgent care center was nearly empty and I arrived a half hour before they closed. I was seen right away by the doctor and the x-ray results came back immediately. I had an avulsion fracture at the base of my fifth metatarsal, which despite being an anatomical mouthful is apparently a rather common foot injury. They gave me a boot (which is fortunately removable), some crutches, and scheduled an orthopedist appointment for the following week. I broke various arm bones on three separate occasions when I was a kid, but after that managed to have a break-free streak of over 20 years until now.
Overall it hasn’t been that bad. The pain went away completely after the first day or two. I’ve gotten quite comfortable hopping around on the crutches. The most significant issue is that walking with crutches makes it very difficult to carry things around the house, whether it’s taking the trash out or doing some laundry. But I am managing with a little help from my wife and family, and it shouldn’t be too much longer now before my foot is back to normal.
The author of this article is Tom Lally, Wealth Manager Assistant at U.S. Wealth Management.
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