If you had just destroyed a perfectly good ankle in a back yard accident, based wholly on your own folly, how would you spend the rest of your afternoon? Many of you would take this golden opportunity and milk it for all of the chore evasion it was worth. Other, lesser mortals would seek medical attention. But I’m willing to wager that I am one of a select few that would go right out (after two Motrin) and play soccer with the kids.

It’s this kind of tendency towards rash action that led me to take the stairs at work this morning. You see, soccer wasn’t damaging enough. I had to find something that would really hurt. (Who would have thought that a hypochondriac could also be a closet sadomasochist?) Running up the stairs? Are you kidding me? That’s for sissies. Plummeting down the stairs on a bad ankle is where we separate the men from the just plain stupid.

Maybe now I’ll finally take my doctor’s advice and stay off it for two weeks; unless of course, something better comes up. It’s been a while since I’ve done any tree climbing,

“There are signs all over, you just have to know how to read them.” That was a line in a movie I saw once. I have no idea which movie it was, who was in it, or how long ago I saw it. Come to think of it, I don’t really know if it fits this entry. Let’s find out together, shall we?

If you’ve done any reading on this site in the last twenty-four hours, you know that I did a number on my ankle this weekend. Well an interesting thing happened on my way to get an x-ray. “Dude, it looks like your toes are turning purple.” That was the crack observation by the x-ray tech at the hospital. I bent over and took a look for myself. Sure enough, there were a few of the aforementioned angry bruises on my toes. Funny thing, those bruises, to a lay medical person they have surprisingly little in common with my ankle, when you consider the specifics of my injury. Let’s add two plus two and see what we get. I turn my ankle, in what had to be the most painful lower body experience since the time a medical professional tried to give me a shot of some kind of pain preventer between my toes (prior to a toenail extraction). Twenty-four hours later I get what looks like a purple stain along the bottom of my foot, only it won’t wash off in the shower. Then, forty-eight hours later the x-ray tech sees my toes turned partially purple. I turn my ankle and my toes get bruised? I’m sure it makes perfect sense to someone, but it’s just the kind of thing a would be hypochondriac would find maddening. Do you know anyone who would fit the bill?

Let’s Google “strange purple spots” and see what we get. I’ll bet that would be a lot of fun. Well, on second thought, it may be better to save that kind of entertainment for a weekend. I’d hate for the week to peak on a Monday.

I can’t wait to hear the results of the x-ray tomorrow. I plan to tell the staff at my doctor’s office the same thing tomorrow morning.

Find the nearest, most convenient cement slab in your backyard. Place a basketball pole and goal at one end, a table in the middle, and a basketball at the other end. Pick up the basketball and take a shot. When you miss, practice following your shot (with your body, not just with your eyes). The table in the middle serves as an obstacle, much like other people do when you are actually playing ball.

Unless you’re looking to throw a little cash towards a cash strapped orthopedist you know, read no further. Or better yet, just write the guy (or gal) a check.

Medical training or not, we are all familiar with the intended use of certain joints. The ankle, for example, is no more intended for lateral movement than the side of your foot is made for bearing weight. With this in mind, imagine that the side of your foot was unexpectedly called on to not only bear your weight, but to halt its acceleration (at a rate of 9.8 meters per second-squared)? Now imagine that in addition to bearing your weight and ceasing your body’s downward acceleration (at a rate of 9.8 meters per second-squared), the rest of your leg was engaged in the process of applying sufficient force to launch your body back into the air. Try and try as you might, you won’t find this one in the owner’s manual.

Why would an ankle find itself in this situation in the first place? Take yourself back to the cement slab and table. Picture yourself running around the table. You see that the ball is about to come your way, having bounced off of the rim like a red brick bouncing off of a light post. In one graceful movement you attempt a running stop off of one foot, intending to re-launch yourself into the air towards the ball, but your foot unexpectedly finds the leading edge of the cement slab. Unfortunately for your ankle, foot and lower leg, the edge of the slab finds the wrong side of a pivot point, and your foot rolls over the edge. Now picture your ankle swelling to three times its normal size. Imagine finding bruising on your foot, leg and toes. Not merely mortal bruising, mind you; but angry, purple bruising.

I sit here at work, my foot elevated, awaiting x-ray results.