You might be a redneck if . . .

. . . you've ever used vet-wrap to keep an ice pack in place. Yep. That's my foot with an ice pack vet-wrapped around it.

You might be a middle-aged woman if  you pulled ligaments in your foot by . . . get ready for this . . . it's crazy wild . . .

 . . . standing up.

In keeping with my long history of getting hurt in odd ways (vacuum cleaner handle in the eye, bungee cord to the face, etc.), I have once again found a totally ridiculous way to get hurt without trying.

It happened at the school program I did with Phoenix on Thursday. We were almost done. The kids were petting Phoenix and I was crouching on the balls of my feet, giving him treats, which was totally stupid because A) Phoenix adores kids and B) crouching like that is really hard on my knees. It was about to be really hard on something else, too.

I stood up and something in my left foot went POP! Ouch! WTF??? SOB!!! The pain was incredible. Like someone had driven a truck over my big toe. I seriously could have thrown up. But image is everything. We finished the program, with me balancing on one wobbly leg. Then I limped out to the van, took Phoenix home and went back to work. My foot hurt so bad I called the local clinic.

"There's not much we can do for toe injuries," the nurse said, her tone of voice clearly indicating that unless it was hanging by a flap of skin or had a bone poking out of it, I should just hang up and get on with my life.

It FELT like a bone was poking out of it. It felt like red hot nails were poking into it. She asked how it happened and I tried to explain that one minute I was fine, then I stood up and well, that was that.

"Sounds like you've hyper-extended your big toe," the nurse told me. Apparently this happens when you have a sudden shift of weight or balance and your toes end up trying to compensate for your whole body. It's fairly common in athletes.

Yeah. Ha-ha. How common is it in middle aged women giving dog obedience programs in the library?

"You've probably pulled or torn some ligaments," the nurse continued helpfully. "There's really nothing to do but put ice on it, elevate it and take an anti-inflammatory. And stay off it. It will take a week or two to heal."

A week or TWO? Stay OFF it? Yeah, sure. 

Oh, and I was supposed to keep flexing it so it didn't stiffen up.

Flex it? I wanted to cut it off!

TG the Granger agility trials aren't THIS weekend or I'd be hiring a rent-a-handler. Let's see . . . two runs a day times three days . . . Michele, Rilda, Tammy, Marsha, Paula and Tracy . . . that comes out nicely. If the boys want to play, Jeff, Terry and Bill could take a turn.

As it turns out, I THINK I'll be okay to run my own dog next weekend. The last 48 hours have been pretty crappy but my foot feels a lot better today. Do you know how hard it is to ice and elevate a foot? You can elevate a foot or you can ice a foot but doing both at once is not easy. Hence the vet wrap idea (thanks, Renee!). 

The part of my foot that hurts most is the right half, top and bottom. That part was so swollen by Thursday night my toes couldn't even touch the floor. It's bad when you can't touch your toes. It's even worse when your toes can't touch the floor.

Thanks to gimping around at work Thursday and Friday, my entire foot ached by the end of the day. The right side hurt from the pulled ligaments. The left side hurt from me walking on it funny. My left knee hurt from the awkward way I had my foot propped up on my desk at work (finally, an excuse to put my feet on the desk!). And the right side of my body was complaining because the left side was out of kilter and it was being asked to over-compensate.

Seriously, if you had told me when I was 20 that life after 40 was going to be like this . . .