Ah, for the love of sprained ankles!!

For the love of sprained ankles!?!?

If yesterday was about a kidney stone, then today has to be about a sprained ankle.

I was just about to leave for school and I was in a hurry--as I frequently am, and I mis-stepped on the last step of the stairs.  My left foot landed exactly half on and half off the step as I was turning right off the stairs--making the turn while still on the stairs--yeah, hurrying too quickly.  Of course, that meant that my left foot, instead of running perpendicular to the step, ran parallel, and then all my weight slid on the left side of the left foot as it slid off the step and then all of my weight bore down on my foot now turned ninety degrees (as in outer edge of foot solidly on the floor, my heal facing the vertical face of the stair) and I could hear and feel the sprain happening immediately.  As you might have come to guess, I am pretty familiar with this sensation, having done it many times earlier in my live, and I even posted about it before.

If there is a good side to this it is that, having gone through this all-too-many-times, I knew not to try to regain my balance, but to just let the fall happen and try to roll off the foot and away from the stair as fast as possible to avoid any further damage to my ankle.  But of course I howled/groaned/Grrr'd.  My wife pretty much already knew what happened and got the elastic wrap and crutch--we just have them.  And I hobbled off to school a little embarrassed but with a good story.

Actually, while I should be embarrassed, I thought I would just laugh about it and sort of be proud of it--yet another experience and exercise in the unexpected.



Eric

Dear Eric,

I am wondering if the urgent care around you may institute a 'free visit after 10 visits' punch card to take advantage of your frequent trips (pun not intended).

Best wishes to stay on the mend and not have another incident!

Hi Timothy!

Oh, I have thought about the get-a-free-visit punch-card system many, many times before!

I had a positive thought about my sprained ankle just now when I was trying to use the bathroom on a crutch and having difficulty--from awkward balance this time, not from the kidney stone.  Maybe I can galvanize my students from gossip today.  I will be the sacrificial piece of gossip material and students can gossip about me instead about each other.  

Whadayathink?  Could it possibly work?



Eric

Hi Eric,

You approach a good point. Learning how to fall is a required homesteader skill.  I need to add that identifying potential falls and identifying how to respond if things go sideways is also a needed skill.

John, you are definitely right about the deliberate fall as opposed to intentional, harmful regain of balance.

I don't know when I learned to just take the fall and roll with it as opposed to stumbling and worsening the existing injury.  Actually my ankle is not all that bad at the moment.   It certainly isn't perfect and will have a healing time, but it does not feel terribly swollen and the pain is minimal--0.5 on the 1-10 scale.





Eric

Sorry to hear about the ankle.  The saying Haste makes Waste might be appropriate.

Quick thinking on your wife part.  Are you the one whose wife is a doctor/pa?

I doubt that the students will gossip about you rather than others.  That is just the nature of the beast.  Now they will gossip about you and others.

Hi Anne--Correct on all accounts!!

My wife is a Doctor

She acted quickly--she is used to me doing things like this and had elastic wrap stored in bulk!  She was right!

My haste definitely made waste!  But it also gives me a reason to laugh at myself!

Who knows what the gossip will be.  But when I entered the room and see me with a crutch, they ask if that's the reason that I was gone yesterday (Thursday).  I say:


NO, I sprained my ankle this morning (Friday)

BUT my battery died yesterday and could not start my car (Thursday)

AND I started passing a kidney stone during class and it finally finished around 8:00pm (Wednesday)

Any other questions?


But one exception:

Haste definitely made waste, but it also made a reason to laugh--and for that I am happy!!



Eric

I have bad knees due to a skating accident when teaching our daughter how to skate.  Last time I put on a pair of skates.

I injured those knees again when I was jogging to the mailbox.  That is the last time I jogged.

My point is that we learn from our accidents.

Yess!! Anne!! Learning from accidents!!

The greatest teacher I have ever had is failure.  Failing drives home the point of what NOT to do and how to do better at the next go around.

I never experienced academic failure, which oddly set me up for different failure.  But other failures were spectacular learning experiences—if I chose to let them.

Anne, you learned how to change your step to protect your ankles.  GOOD!!

I have a whole bevy of failures—none of them academic which made them harder to spot—but those failures went on to become springboards for success.

As a teacher, I learned early on that students—for me this meant seniors—who were taking U.S. History because they failed it the previous year were actually pretty good students—this time they took it seriously!!  Their previous failure was in not taking seriously their unserious actions.  And I sometimes question programs at school that are meant to help a student regain past credit in expedited time—it either means they get a watered down version of the course or they get coddled and therefore never learn the sting—and purpose—of failure.

Anne, you sparked a latent interest in me as I long took this post of topic from your reply, but yes, learning from an injury (and any failure) is a good thing.



Eric