Booby Traps and Boxes Aplenty

Photo courtesy of Gratisography

Friday, May 15th, 2026

Three days ago, I was playing fetch with Willow and one of her grossest piggies, and I rolled my ankle in the front yard. I suspected immediately that it wasn’t one of those stumbles that I could just walk off. We all went in the house, I took an aleve and sat down for a bit to let the pain subside, elevating my foot on the rudimentary amount of furniture that I currently have in position.

After a few minutes, I concluded that this was an urgent care situation.

I attempted to take the dogs for a quick afternoon walk in the grass across the street, hobbling pathetically for those very few steps. Wally is no dummy and knew something was very wrong. He very gently laid down in the grass and refused to go any further. He only got up to go back towards the house. 

I put us all into the car instead. After some panicking about what to do, I called the dog walker to see if they could help me out. They were on their way to a massage appointment nearby and would have about 15 minutes to spare.

When they arrived, they asked how to let them back in the house. I said I would wait because I don’t have another way to get them in there.

I think that was when they realized I really had a problem.

I took the time while they were walking to figure out which urgent care took my insurance. Fifteen minutes later, they were back, all pooped and ready to go home. What a lifesaver! 

I got back home, flipped on my hazards, got the pups inside as quickly as possible, and headed off to urgent care. I knew what garage to park in, but had to drive around a bit to figure out where the spots closest to the elevator were. It was a tight squeeze to fit between the next car and a pillar - but I channeled my bad-assery from a couple nights before where I did a reverse angle park job at the spur of the moment, under pressure, like it was nothing. Maybe I’m not so bad at parking after all…

I was the only one in the waiting room and the X-Ray tech was gone for the day. The doctor didn’t think it was broken, but it was clearly a struggle for me to walk. They told me to come back the next morning when the X-ray tech was there, gave me a boot and some crutches and sent me on my way.

The day before, I drove Cole to the airport. He was flying out to Portugal on a family vacation. After dropping him off, I swung by IKEA for the third time in two weeks to pick up some bookshelves. One of the workers asked if I needed help getting the smaller ones on the cart. I appreciated the help and then asked if they would assist me with the larger one I had already attempted and quickly realized was out of my league. He helped me again and then told me to ask at the register for someone to assist with getting them in my car.

I had already measured the inside of the car and knew they would fit, but only if the back seats were folded down, and the front passenger seat was reclined all the way and all the headrests were removed. Seeing the three boxes of shelves stacked on top of each other on top of the passenger seat just screamed “sudden stop, broken windshield”. I drove about 100 feet before the passenger seat belt warning sound started going off and I realized I was going to have to buckle the belt. I stopped the car to do that and took a minute to shift the boxes a bit so they were less likely to both turn into missiles through the windshield as well as come sliding towards my face, crushing me if I had to take a sudden turn. 

After a long, slow, highways-avoided drive, we arrived at the house safely and with a small amount of effort, I was able to unload them by myself into the garage. My plan was to put them together tomorrow, and then I could unload all my boxes and start putting things where they would live. 

Well, that plan went out the window as soon as my ankle twisted.

Cole was barely gone for more than 24 hours and I had never needed him more. 

I had parked at the top of the alley and was fumbling through my pockets looking for my keys, holding my crutches, my work bag, and my overfilled purse, balancing on one leg trying to lock the car. I can see down the alley the neighbors, about to head out on their evening walk. I offer a one-handed wave and they wave back, confused as to why I’m just standing there like a flamingo. I finally find the keys, push the button to lock the car, situate the crutches and start my hobble down the alley. Identifying my plight, they hurry to meet me. I tell them what happened and they offer me cocktails and I assure them I have a cider in the house waiting for me. I appreciate their concerns about the important things.

Upon getting in the house, I take a photo of my new boot and crutches and send it out on the APB. I conscripted the dog walker to pick up the pups the next day for all day walking. I sign them up for the Pawty Bus for Thursday and Friday as well. I can’t walk them right now. Maybe one at a time, but definitely not both of them together — that would just be a sitcom.

I have food in the house for dinner, but I will eventually need to go to the store. I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to handle that, but I’ll figure it out. Right now, my plan is a backpack worn open on the front to work as a satchel to carry things in. Now I just need to find the backpack before I starve to death.

This is my first big injury as an adult, so naturally, I called off work the next day.

I need to go back to urgent care in the morning for X-rays and I’d like to see if I can get into an Orthopedist for an appointment sooner than next week. 

I make sure I take the dogs out to the yard for their last potty break later than usual in hopes that they won’t scratch at the door. They did, twice. The first time seemingly within an hour of going to bed. The second was some time later. I ignored both of them. I’m not waking up, putting on a boot, walking down two flights of stairs, on crutches, in the dark - or the light - to send them out to pee. They will deal, and/or, I will clean it up in the morning. Luckily, all was well. They didn’t have to go that bad.

I tried to keep my foot elevated on a pillow while I slept. It kept slipping off, but I think I did ok.

The XRays went fine the next morning. As of this writing, I’m still waiting on results. I will need to get copies of them to bring to my appointment next week. I’m really hoping this is just a soft tissue issue. The bulk of the pain is in the back and underneath the major ankle bone on my left side. It seems a lot like the same pain I had on my right side after doing all my yoga teacher training. 

I’m really hoping I can get rid of these crutches sooner than later. The only time I ever saw someone on crutches walking a dog was in New York by Washington Square Park. There was an older man on crutches, holding a leash attached to a Golden. That Golden was holding another leash in their mouth, attached to a puppy. And that puppy was pissing that Golden off! You could see the irritation on its face every time the puppy stopped to sniff something new, and the Golden would just yank its head, pulling the leash and dragging the puppy along. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, the irritation on that dog’s face.

So I’m broken. And it’s very inconveniently timed.

While I’m lucky that I have two different houses to choose from, both are littered with booby traps and boxes aplenty. Which feels like the story of my life right now. I have a thousand “tabs” open and I’ve only been focusing on the ones I can see right in front of me, causing me the most spin. In the back of my mind, there are whispers of unread emails about paying my credit card bills, setting up auto pay on my mortgage, gathering info for a meeting with my financial advisor and scheduling annual medical appointments. 

All I can do is focus on getting better - or at least not worse, and everything else will fall into place. Now, because I can’t really do much moving about, I’m getting the opportunity to catch up on everything else. Funny the way that works. 

Stay Gritty