My Trip to the Vet

One of my favorite subjects to tell/write stories about are my personal experiences that I find entertaining. I pretty much live in a consistent state of awkwardness so there are many opportunities for a good laugh at my expense. This is the story of how I broke my fourth toe on my left foot:

Dad grew up in Union City, Tennessee, where he met his best friends Bill Dickerson and Britt Barkley. Dr. Bill lives in our hometown and him and his wife, Mrs. Liz, live out in the country. They own several horses and when I was younger we would often spend Sunday afternoons and evenings out at their house riding horses, eating delicious dishes, and laughing around a bonfire. This particular Sunday we were planning on riding horses at their farm and I was excited. I love riding horses and being outside. All through church I was looking forward to our visit.

Church let out and we headed home to change. My parents were yelling that we had better hurry up if we wanted to ride with them (we had no choice seeing as none of us drove or owned a car). Dad is a very patient man (hahahahahaha) and he gave one last call and yelled through the house that they were leaving at that moment and anyone not in the car wasn't going with them. (At the time I assumed he meant to the Dickersons, I later found out that he was only going to Walmart and we still had 3 hours before they headed out to the farm)

I threw my church clothes off and scampered into my casual jeans and t-shirt attire. I was in my parent's bathroom because it was on the first floor and I was too lazy to scale my flight of stairs. As I heard the last call I frantically sprinted from their bedroom, but I miscalculated the berth the doorframe required. As I attempted to run through my toe caught the frame and instantly broke.

My fourth toe on my left foot was the victim of my carelessness and dangled to the left in an almost 90 degree angle. I instantly screamed, "S#!*," and remembered I was in my parent's house and changed my further cries to, "Shoot." I cannot describe how excrutiating the pain was and I can only imagine how much breaking a large bone must hurt.

I yelled for Mom to come assist me in my injured state She casually walked back to her room and asked what happened. I immediately explained my diagnosis of broken toe. She asked to see my foot and do you know what my usually caring and compassionate mother said to her suffering eldest daughter? She responded with, "Your toe is NOT broken, you are just holding it funny." Seriously?!?

After I spent several minutes letting her confirm that I was not having a bit of fun and faking my injury (you tell me how to hold your toe in a 90 degree angle without it being broken because I don't think it's possible) she went and got my Dad, the doctor. They were asking me why I was running and I told them I didn't want to be stuck at the house while the whole family went to the Dickerson's farm. They told me then that they were just going to Walmart and that we weren't going to the Dickerson's until 3pm. That just added insult to injury. So basically I broke my toe for no reason and neither of them really believed it was broken.

Dad said that he would need to x-ray my foot to make sure that my toe was really broken. But, he didn't feel like having to take me to the hospital because it would take a few minutes (another example of his patience) and instead decided to have Dr. Bill (the local veternarian) meet us at his office for my x-rays. So I got to ride over to the vet and get up on the dog/cat x-ray table and elicit proof that my toe was broken. I know, your jealous, right?!?

Finally, I had solidifying evidence that my toe was broken. Dad then drove me over to his office to fix my injury. The shot to numb my toe felt like a needle was being stabbed through my toe and then wiggled around in my veins. Then Dad snapped my bone back into place (which kudos to him because the only thing that grosses my father out more than a broken bone is a wiggly tooth) and taped it to my other toe to keep it straight.

Now the exciting trip to ride horses became the exciting trip of sitting in a chair while everyone else rode horses. And it was a lucky day for my family because that same afternoon, HB went to pet a horse named Easter and was kicked so hard in her thigh that she still has an indention there to this day. And, my fourth toe still curves to the left just a little bit.

I learned several important lessons that day:
1. Mom wasn't kidding when she told us not to run inside the house
2. My parents trust me a lot to tell the truth and never doubt me (there's a pebble in nose story that reiterates this)
3. Animals have really great x-ray equipment

Don't worry when I needed to have follow-up x-rays to see how my bone was healing Dad splurged on an extra 10 minutes of time and took me to the people hospital.