He’d make me laugh just to comfort me

Friday (April 6) marked 5 years since my dad’s death. Sometimes it still feels so recent, others it feels like he’s been gone for decades. Mom and I drove out to Marshall on Saturday to put flowers on his grave. We probably should have stopped to visit with family, but we got to town a lot later than usual, and we were both injured and just wanted to go there and back. (Ma tripped over one of the dogs on Friday night and landed on her right knee that she had already injured just @ 2 weeks before.)

Mom talked to Grandma the other night, and we’re going out to dinner with her this weekend. According to Grandma, my aunt Cookie is working on alienating her daughters. The strokes she had last year have made her very paranoid, and she keeps accusing my cousins of being after her money. My cousins held power of attorney for her, but she has been so paranoid about them stealing her money that she ended up taking it away from them and giving it to her step-son. I’m not so sure that’s a good choice. I don’t know her step-son at all, and he might very well be a good person; but then again he might not be. All I know about him is that he and his father have been estranged for a very long time, but as Ken’s Alzheimer’s has progressed, the son has come back around and made friendly again. Could be because he genuinely cares about his dad or it could be because he knows his dad is loaded and has one foot in the grave. Again, who knows – certainly not me, since I’ve never met him. But, my point in here is that the son now has Cookie’s power of attorney, and he’s only been in her life a couple of years. We can only hope for the best there. I’m sure we’ll get more details on all the family gossip when we go out to eat w/Grandma.

My leg is getting better, somewhat. Swelling has gone down considerably, but it still has a ways to go. My nerves are still going crazy from being stretched, but hopefully that should return to normal soon. The bruising is already starting to fade, so that’s a plus. It’s still HIGHLY sensitive, though.

Snap back, retract, collapse into laugh tracks

The annoyance and pain of the strange sensations sent me to the clinic after work. (And may I just say that I LOVE Care Now, and how you can register online and they call you when they’re almost ready for you?) I figured it was more than likely nothing, but because it feels odd, I should be safe and get it checked.

So, yes, went to the clinic, and they did X-Rays. Not only did they X-Ray the leg, they also X-Rayed my left wrist. When I fell, I hit it on the palm pretty hard, but I’ve been having pains on the back side of the hand since then. So they figured they might as well do the wrist too, since they were doing the leg. Ha.

Everything came out ok. No broken bones, yay! Granted, I didn’t think there were, but since it felt so weird I wanted to be safe. The doctor said that these really weird feelings in the leg might be due to stretched nerves. The swelling was considerable the first day, and that could’ve stretched them out. It’s still swollen now, so the nerves are still going a little crazy. As the swelling goes down, the screwy sensations should go away.

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.