There’s no cool way to sprain your ankle. A few years ago I did it playing street hockey. Really nasty sprain. I was on crutches for a week and out of the hockey business for almost a year. At least I was doing something…manly.
Last Friday night I was with some friends in Mountain Home to tackle the treacherous Smith’s Crack, an underground adventure similar to a cave except more vertical. Lots of climbing. Ok, it is a cave. Whatever. In any case, I’d like to skip ahead and tell you that the net result of Friday evening was a re-sprain of that hockey ankle. That way you could assume I once again achieved injury through acts of manliness. But alas, I must be truthful and admit that the sprain happened as I was jogging across the field to take a picture of the cave opening. That’s right, laugh it up chuckleheads. There was no rock to trip over, no hidden hole to catch my wayward foot, no obstacle or hindrance of any kind. Just me, tripping over nothing.
As I lay there on the cold Mountain Home dirt, wiggling like a drowning earthworm and squealing like an angry toddler, it occurred to me that this development might somewhat hinder my ability to navigate the cave. But just then the second car full of eager would-be spelunkers arrived cheerily honking their horn and waving. Uh oh. Brandon brought his girlfriend and her sister. That’s right, a couple of teenage girls were about to brave the cave while I sat in the car nursing my little boo-boo.
So now I have a dilemma. Should I play it smart and take care of my injury, or be a man and do the most idiotic thing imaginable by attempting the cave with a badly sprained ankle? Are you kidding? Have you met me? You really think I’d do the smart thing? I was going into that cave if it killed me! Now where did I put that bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol…
There are few pains 2000 mg of Extra-Strength Tylenol can’t cure. With my combination of a near-deadly dose of acetaminophen and a very tightly knotted pair of climbing boots, I put all my tough-guy acting skills in action and began picking my way down the first few drops.
Fast forward about an hour, and we had reached the turn-around point. It didn’t used to be the turn-around point. A few years and 35 pounds ago, it was just a tight spot to crawl through. Now it’s a turn-around point. Any obstacle nicknamed the “birth canal” is an obstacle not meant for those approaching or in excess of 30 years of age. A few of the under-100-pound club decided to try squeezing through before starting the climb back up. They made it, and wondered why we fat old men made it sound so hard.
With my first overdose of Tylenol wearing off and my second and incredibly more dangerous overdose beginning to take effect, I bid farewell to the group and started the return climb alone. As luck would have it, once separated by about 30 feet of rock I was acoustically isolated from the rest of the group. That meant I couldn’t hear them, no matter how loud they yelled. That also meant they couldn’t hear me. Not that I had any reason to yell. I was simply conversing with the cave. I was telling the cave how angry I was with it, you know, a sort of scream-fest for the solo climber. After all, the cave was inflicting a great deal of pain on my ankle, so I figured the cave had it coming.
Aside from the predictable overreactions from both wife and mother, my ankle is already well on its way to once again supporting my weight. I will spare you all periodic wellness updates because, well, I’m quite positive nobody cares. But I’ll be sure to let you know the next time I do something incredibly stupid. Should be any time now…
Last Friday night I was with some friends in Mountain Home to tackle the treacherous Smith’s Crack, an underground adventure similar to a cave except more vertical. Lots of climbing. Ok, it is a cave. Whatever. In any case, I’d like to skip ahead and tell you that the net result of Friday evening was a re-sprain of that hockey ankle. That way you could assume I once again achieved injury through acts of manliness. But alas, I must be truthful and admit that the sprain happened as I was jogging across the field to take a picture of the cave opening. That’s right, laugh it up chuckleheads. There was no rock to trip over, no hidden hole to catch my wayward foot, no obstacle or hindrance of any kind. Just me, tripping over nothing.
As I lay there on the cold Mountain Home dirt, wiggling like a drowning earthworm and squealing like an angry toddler, it occurred to me that this development might somewhat hinder my ability to navigate the cave. But just then the second car full of eager would-be spelunkers arrived cheerily honking their horn and waving. Uh oh. Brandon brought his girlfriend and her sister. That’s right, a couple of teenage girls were about to brave the cave while I sat in the car nursing my little boo-boo.
So now I have a dilemma. Should I play it smart and take care of my injury, or be a man and do the most idiotic thing imaginable by attempting the cave with a badly sprained ankle? Are you kidding? Have you met me? You really think I’d do the smart thing? I was going into that cave if it killed me! Now where did I put that bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol…
There are few pains 2000 mg of Extra-Strength Tylenol can’t cure. With my combination of a near-deadly dose of acetaminophen and a very tightly knotted pair of climbing boots, I put all my tough-guy acting skills in action and began picking my way down the first few drops.
Fast forward about an hour, and we had reached the turn-around point. It didn’t used to be the turn-around point. A few years and 35 pounds ago, it was just a tight spot to crawl through. Now it’s a turn-around point. Any obstacle nicknamed the “birth canal” is an obstacle not meant for those approaching or in excess of 30 years of age. A few of the under-100-pound club decided to try squeezing through before starting the climb back up. They made it, and wondered why we fat old men made it sound so hard.
With my first overdose of Tylenol wearing off and my second and incredibly more dangerous overdose beginning to take effect, I bid farewell to the group and started the return climb alone. As luck would have it, once separated by about 30 feet of rock I was acoustically isolated from the rest of the group. That meant I couldn’t hear them, no matter how loud they yelled. That also meant they couldn’t hear me. Not that I had any reason to yell. I was simply conversing with the cave. I was telling the cave how angry I was with it, you know, a sort of scream-fest for the solo climber. After all, the cave was inflicting a great deal of pain on my ankle, so I figured the cave had it coming.
Aside from the predictable overreactions from both wife and mother, my ankle is already well on its way to once again supporting my weight. I will spare you all periodic wellness updates because, well, I’m quite positive nobody cares. But I’ll be sure to let you know the next time I do something incredibly stupid. Should be any time now…
5 comments:
I don't think I overreacted! You're a crazy man. :)
Ummm, no overacting wife or mother there! I have taken xrays of many legs lookin' like that which turn out to have broken bones inside. :)
Thank you Andrea!
My foot is starting to look like those feet you see on Crossing Jordan. You know, the ones hanging over the edge of a metal bed with tags on them? If my foot dies, do I have to cut it off?
At least you didn't break your "funny" bone!
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