Give me something for the pain

Monday, I did something absolutely stupid. I was at Petco, buying a new litter box and some cat litter. Paid for my purchases, and headed out of the store. I put the buggy up and grabbed my items out and turned around to head to my car. So far so good.

The “something stupid” came when I misjudged exactly where I was. I thought I was standing at the top of the handicap ramp. However, I wasn’t. I was standing at the top of the curb…with @ a 3-4 inch drop down. See where this is going? I stepped out, expecting my foot to hit concrete immediately. But, since I wasn’t where I thought I was — I stepped out, and the foot kept going down and twisted slightly before hitting the road below. After some kind of twisting and tumbling and falling, I found myself splayed out on the road in front of Petco, the litter box in front of me, the cat litter exploded all over the handicap ramp, and all the employees rushing out of the store to see if I was okay.

And if you’ll remember, I have very bad knees. It’s incredibly difficult for me to get up if I’m on the ground since I can’t put pressure on my knees. Luckily for me, one of the employees who came out was very nice and ran to get me a VERY thick and nicely padded dog bed when I explained to her about my knees. Getting up wasn’t graceful at all, but that cushion helped considerably and that part of the whole ordeal didn’t do any more damage to my knees.

Before I could leave, I had to fill out an accident report and all that, and they also gave me a new container of cat litter since the first one had exploded (which was very nice of them). My right leg was killing me where I landed on it, but there was no blood, and nothing felt broken or twisted, so I didn’t bother with the clinic. I finally got to leave, went to the Chick-Fil-A drive thru to get lunch and then headed home. Once I got home, I hunted out all the ACE bandages I could find, then headed upstairs with them and an ice pack. Used the bandages to secure the ice pack to my leg. At this point, my leg was VERY swollen, but no bruising yet. I stayed off the leg as much as I could the rest of the day, keeping it slightly elevated.

Tuesday morning, the swelling had gone down considerably, but I was still in a good amount of pain. Very faint blue bruising was starting to show up on the leg. The last couple of days the bruising has gotten slightly darker, but it’s still considerably lighter than I’d expect it to be. I’m sure it’ll get much darker though.

However… something about the injury just doesn’t feel “right”. I’ve had many falls in my time, with loads of injuries and bruises. But this doesn’t feel “normal” for an injury. You know the sensation of blood slowly running down your skin from an open wound? I keep getting a sensation like that, have been since the injury occurred. However — no cuts, no open wounds. The feeling is inside the leg. Sometimes it also feels like trying to move with an uncovered open wound – that pain of the cut skin moving/pulling. But, again, there’s no external cuts, and the sensation is completely inside the leg. It’s absolutely beyond sensitive and painful, but I expect that part. The bruise starts a little more than an inch beneath my knee, but it’s somewhat affecting my knee and how I walk.

Sigh. I hate being accident prone. If this leg keeps feeling extra strange like this, I might end up going into the clinic after all.