Two days later

It hurts. not a sharp pain, just a dull ache all the time that becomes harder to bear when I am tired, or uncomfortable, which is almost all the time.

The outside bone (the fibula, I'm told) aches, and so does the inside of the ankle where the ligaments are all torn. But this is just the injury. By now, my left quad and hip flexor just can't take lifting the heavy cast anymore. My lats and back are killing from the crutches and from hobbling up and down stairs with people's support. 

I have been struggling to find a lesson in why this happened to me. To force me to sit down and write? To wrench me away from my family obligations once and for all so I can focus? Perhaps, but I felt like I was preparing to do that anyway...as soon as we got to the cottage, which of course I don't think I will get to now.

I had had foot problems earlier in the year, including some painful muscle cramps in the tendon around my ankle in June. When physio helped that pain go away, I was grateful. I already had the awareness that just being able to walk is a gift. I knew that. So now why do I have to have the ability taken away from me, more debilitatingly than ever before? So I can start from the beginning all over again? If so, why? Was I getting too proud? I don't feel like I was. I actually felt that for the first time, i was getting somewhere with my life and dreams. And now this...I will be in agony for weeks, hobbling around everywhere, and after that I'll need rehab and therapy just to get back to simple walking. I had been running about three miles daily and now 'll need to start from less than zero when it comes to running (assuming, that is, that i will ever run again). Finally, after having finally lost 30 pounds two years ago, I'm sure I'll gain back a ton of weight and will need to start a diet all over again as well. 

And it will cost money. We'll likely need help with the kids, as I'll be a useless lump that can't drive them, can't feed them, can't do anything but order them around. I will be a terrible role model. Perhaps one good thing is that they will be forced to become more self-sufficient.

So, universe, you're going to make me work for it, is that it? I guess things were looking too rosy and I hadn't quite suffered enough. OK then...put me through this hell. I will get through it, and get stronger in the process. And I'll hope to see the lesson at some point, though I sure as hell don't see it now.

How it happened

It was the dumbest thing. We were getting ready to leave one summer cottage to go to another. The family's bags were all packed and my husband had already taken a boat load over to the car. While the kids and I were waiting for him to get back, I decided for the first time in the week we had been staying there to join the kids on the backyard swing set.

I should have known by the strange grinding sound the swing's chains were making that something was amiss. As it got more noticeable, I remember thinking to myself that I should get off. My daughter, almost 8, urged me to jump. "I'm not going to jump," I said. "I could hurt myself."

I should have jumped.

A few seconds later, while my feet were under me and the swing was swinging backwards, the chain on the left side broke. I tried to grab onto the chains to break my fall, but the break was at the top of the chain near the frame. The chain went slack in my hands, and I went crashing to the ground.

I hit the ground and saw my foot out to the side, beside my leg. Instinctively I knew that a foot should not go that way, so I quickly lifted the leg and used the ground to pop the foot back into place. But it was too late- the damage was done.

And thus begins the story of my broken ankle.