Fall, Glimmer, Sparkle and Fade

:: Saturday, September 11, 2004 ::

Into the Fire
--Bruce Springsteen--

The sky was falling and streaked with blood
I heard you calling me, then you disappeared into the dust
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire

May your strength give us strength
May you faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

May your strength give us strength
May you faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

You gave your love to see, in fields of red and autumn brown
You gave your love to me and lay your young body down
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need you near, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Someplace up the stairs, into the fire

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us hope

May your strength give us strength
May you faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

May your strength give us strength
May you faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

It was dark, too dark to see
You held me in the light you gave
You lay your hand on me
Then walked into the darkness of your smoky grave
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love bring us love...
May your love bring us love

:: Ryan 10:10 PM [+] ::
...

Certainly Not Worth The Wait

After roughly two months without a post, here is what you've all (yes, both of you) been waiting for:
What is the worst injury or sickness you ever had? Or if that's really boring, you can say your most interesting injury/sickness, or the stupidest thing you've ever done that has caused you injury/sickness :P

I really thought this site was going to die a slow, horrible death. But somehow there are still roughly 15 people that visit here daily. You've actually read what I post about, right? Well, if you have and you're still here, I thank you for your time.

For this one, I opted (after some convincing) to go with the single "stupidest thing you've ever done that caused an injury" mixed in with a bit of the "most interesting injury" as opposed to a full list. Besides the fact that people find it to be fairly amusing I don't have many battles with illness to tell you about. So you get what has been commonly been known as "the stair incident"(SI).

1) Lets take a trip back in time...
To a post from Wednesday, May 1, 2002:
See the reason I wasn't overly concerned after I realized it wasn't broken is because I did the exact same thing to my ankle in October of Soph. year, except I was sober this time around. See, people don't always do dumb things because they are drunk, they do dumb things because they are dumb. Wait a minute...

Now I could just copy and past that whole post, but there are two reasons why I won't: A) Both of you -- my dedicated readers -- have not waited two months to read something straight out of the archive. B) It's simply not as interesting (not that this is, but still). The paragraph above, really sums up the whole 'incident'. Nothing else to write home about. I fell, it hurt, I yelped, that's it.

Hmm, the SI was a lot like that, but slightly more interesting. Anyways, lets go over this.

Like many college students, I was enjoying a few adult beverages (despite being far from an adult) on a Friday evening. The problem wasn't so much the beverages, but where I was drinking them. I was on the second floor. Big deal you say? Ha! Now when I got there, I was sober, thus getting up the stairs was obviously no challenge. But after a few hours, I had trouble getting off the couch. Getting down those stairs doesn't seem like such an easy task now, does it?! Okay, maybe it should've been anyways. Oh well, that's where my problem was.

I decided I needed to go see Deirdre, who's dorm room was on the first floor. Meaning if I was to follow through with this decision, I was going to have to operate the steps. Several people advised against it, but why? I figured "I got UP the steps, I can certainly get DOWN the steps."

Oh, I got down the steps alright.

I'm walking down the hall, get to the steps and start walking down fairly quickly. As most of you can contest to, when you're drunk, you might do things quicker, but you obviously don't have the same coordination. And since I little coordination to begin with, this was a disaster waiting to happen. Now picture this setup: the steps lead down to the dorm entrance right in front of you and you have to turn either corner to get to the rooms. D's room was directly to the right of the stairs.

So I shuffle my way down the steps. Get ready to quickly turn the corner and in my haste missed something very important. The final step (or two). So I turn the corner and where I think my left food is supposed hit the ground, it gets nothing but air and all my weight goes on that leg as it goes right past the final step (or two). I finally reach the floor and land on my left leg, but not quite the way I had hoped.

To get another visual, let your feet hang down from the chair you're sitting in. Make sure both legs are straight. Now slowly move the bottom of your left foot to the right so the soles of your shoe are facing your right ankle. Now hold that pose. That is how I landed on my ankle. I considered it a super-ankle turn. I've turned an ankle before, but never with all my weight on it after basically falling the height of three steps. I'm not a huge kid, but you try dropping roughly 200 pounds on your ankle and see how it feels.

I've always been a huge sports fan and always scoffed when athletes would say how they "heard a pop" as soon as an injury happens. I always though "C'mon, you blow a ligament in your knee and you can hear it? Please." Well, guess what folks, you certainly do hear a pop.

So as soon as I land I quickly shift my weight to my right leg and hold onto the post at the bottom of the stairs for support. I feel this weird warm rush around my ankle and I know that I've done something very bad too it. But I'm out of my damn mind, so I start laughing. I don't feel much pain, I just know that if I put any weight on my left leg, I'll fall over. Good times.

I'm standing on one leg at the bottom of the stairs, alternating between "Ow" and "haha" and start hopping the three feet to D's door. I don't remember if I knocked or just opened the door but I do know that as soon as I walked in everyone who lived in the room was there, except D.

"Hey Ryan, Deirdre isn't here, she's.... are you okay?"
"Um... She's not... I think I broke my ankle, can I sit down?"

Obviously I didn't wait for a response. Now maybe D can correct me, but at least two of these girls were PT majors. So after I stumble through my explanation they have me elevate my leg, ask exactly what the pain feels like and all that good stuff.

After a while I figured I should go back to where I came from. But those damned steps were in my way again. But, hey, I can handle them. So I hop out the door to the steps and then slowly hop up each step. One by one. "Ow, haha, ow, haha, ow, haha". Somehow, this was all still fairly amusing. Then an equally not sober person is leaning against the railing above me and poses a brilliant question:

"You okay, man?"
"Oh yea, I'm great, thanks for noticing."
"Coooooool."

I'm pretty sure the trip, which should take a minute and a half to walk, took roughly 10 minutes. And when I finally got back, there were a couple more PT students waiting. More elevating, questions about the pain, some icing, etc.

As I start to sober up, I start to realize just how much pain I'm going to be in. Everyone says I should go to the health center, but forget that. I figure I'll stay there (you think I'm hopping home?) and see how it feels in the morning. Well, the morning came a little quicker than I anticipated.

Around 5am, the fire alarm starts going off. It's at this point that I start thinking that I pissed someone off upstairs, because this is just piling it on now. Okay, time to get up and go outside. To give you another visual, place a golf ball in the left side of your sock. Yea, that's what I woke up to.
So that means more hopping. You can't make this shit up. Once we get downstairs, security says we should all go find a friend's room to sleep in, because it'll take them a while to clear the building. Mind you, there was NO fire, but someone pulled the alarm and they can't let people in until they get everyone out and check every single room. Great. So at this point, I'm convinced that the health center is a good idea mainly because they have heat.

The nurse doesn't really do much. She tells me I hurt it (thanks for the tip) and that I should see a doctor. I get it wrapped, pick up some crutches and we all go on our merry way. As we pass by security, one of the officers (are they considered officers?) offers to drive me up to my dorm, since I lived on top of a very steep hill. On the way up he asks how I hurt my ankle. I left out most of the details.

"I missed a step on my way down the stairs."
"Man, I've told those bastards they need to make the stairs and the floors different colors."
"Yea, definitely."

Hmm. Apparently, this security guard thought I didn't see the final two steps because they blended into the ground since they were both the same color. Have you ever heard of something like that? I hadn't, but he said I was the fourth person that semester that busted my ankle up that way. I realize that's not why I hurt myself, but I wasn't about to mess with his version of what happened for two reasons: A) I try to avoid telling security guards about my non-sober adventures and B) He seemed very excited that I had fulfilled his theory for needing to have the stairs be a different color than the floor. Who am I to ruin a man's dream of having multi-colored flooring?

That's really all there is to the story. But let me leave you with some quick notes:
A) After using the crutches for about two days, I only returned them the day before the end of the semester because the health center sent me a letter threatening to charge me a fee for extended use. I shit you not.
B) I never saw a doctor about my ankle. Despite not being able to move freely for two or three months.
C) Roughly six months later, I went to see my doctor for a sore throat or something. And while I was there I mentioned I might have hurt my ankle a while back. He takes a look and with a straight face says "You should have had it looked at, that much is obvious. But at this point any damage you did has healed itself... maybe not correctly, but it's healed." Oh, those zany doctors.

The End.

:: Ryan 4:01 AM [+] ::
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