The Initial Diagnosis

After the race, we went home, and my husband helped me out of the car, up the steps to our garage and into our house.  I crawled awkwardly through the kitchen to the bathroom, leaving a trail of mud behind me.  I needed to go to the ER, but I also needed to clean off the gallon of mud that had started to cake on my skin.  I flopped into the bathtub somehow, and laid down to shower, completely exhausted.  I managed to get myself dressed and somewhat presentable for an ER visit.

With the help of my husband again, we drove down the street to the Riverton Hospital Emergency Room.  Just my luck, they were extremely busy, and I waited over 2 hours to see a doctor.  They x-rayed my foot in a various number of positions.  My foot was numb; I couldn't flex or wiggle my toes.  I had a tough time complying with the radiologists requests so that they could get all the pictures they needed of my little piggy bones.  The radiologist noticed my husband wearing his Spartan Finisher shirt, and asked if we had done the race.  To which he replied, "Yep.... that's kind of why we are here."

Eventually, I saw the doctor.  She examined my foot for the obvious injuries, and up my leg to find any that may have been missed in the x-rays.  The doctor then sent a PA in, who fitted me for a splint and a dose of ibuprofen.  He said the doctor would be by soon to answer any questions and I'd soon be on my way home.  I'd never broken a bone in my life, I had no idea what it felt like, but it couldn't be that bad of an injury if they were sending me home with a splint and a couple advil.  Nate and I watched the World Cup and joked about Canadian food while we were waiting for her to return.    I wasn't really worried about anything at all at this point, and just wanted to get home to my cats and my sweet dog.

Then the doctor came back to crush all of my dreams.  She casually mentioned that I had a few broken bones in my foot.  And there was one that was shattered into several different pieces.  Oh, and I'd need surgery next week, and she given me the name of an orthopedic surgeon that I needed to contact on Monday.  Recovery would be more like months, not weeks.  She wasn't a specialist, so she'd called the on-call Foot and Ankle surgeon, and mentioned something about fixing a LisFranc injury.  What?  I was given strict instructions to not bear ANY weight at all on my right foot until I saw the surgeon.  She then handed me some Lortab and told me I'd need something much stronger than Advil.

Wait.  What?