Monday, September 14, 2009

Only me... Or anyone else with EDS...

I went out on Friday night.

I wore high heels.

I drank some alcohol.

Now picture someone with really loose joints going down some stairs. Now imagine this person has little to no balance at the best of times. Plus alcohol, and high heels.

I put my left foot on the top stair, lifted my right foot, and by the time all of my weight was on my left foot... BAM! Dislocated my ankle.

Usually I'm pretty good at catching myself when I randomly dislocate something and start to fall over, but not when I'm slightly intoxicated, and wearing high heels. My right heel caught on the second stair, so my right ankle collapsed, I landed on my knees a few stairs further down, and all of my weight was then transferred to my left foot, which in retrospect, most likely caused it to dislocate either further, or in a different direction.

Luckily for me, being intoxicated helped to put me to sleep that night.

I was convinced that I had broken my ankle, but I wasn't going to go to the hospital at 3am, especially when I know it's not an "emergency" and then you have to wait for a ridiculous amount of time because it's Friday night/Saturday morning.

When I woke up in the morning I checked it out, and it looked fine, no swelling, only mild bruising on the top of my foot. But being me, and having sustained various injuries, I didn't think it felt like a dislocation, or a sprain, or a pulled muscle, or tendons or ligaments. It felt like bone, and it felt like broken.

Went to the hospital... got there at 7:30 Saturday evening. They triaged me, sent me for x-rays, had the x-rays done, looked at, and sent a doctor man to talk to me, explain there was nothing broken, and set me up with a follow-up appointment with ortho at the cast clinic. I was out of there at 9:30pm. It was the fastest door-to-discharge I've ever had in my entire life.

So at the hospital, I've noticed they're really good at telling you what's NOT wrong. "Your ankle is NOT broken, you're being discharged, have a nice day!"

I'm the kind of person where I think I would rather pull out one of my toenails with a rusty pair of pliers than go to the hospital. I don't go there unless something is wrong. I would like to know what IS wrong, not just what's NOT wrong.

Am I too demanding?

Oh, and my favorite part...

"HOW did you injure your ankle? You fell down the stairs? Oh, you dislocated it FIRST? And THEN you fell down the stairs? Which caused you to injure it AGAIN?"

Pretty much the conversation I had with every single person at the hospital.

2 comments:

Achelois said...

You are not the only one to have these type of conversations at A&E, you, me, my daughter makes three! i think the worst thing is somedays us lot with EDS just want to go out, get drunk, party, wake up with a hangover and do it again when we feel like it. I am sorry you hurt, I hope you feel better soon.

BubbleGirl said...

Thanks for the concern! I'm slowly getting better. My ankle responds well to being in the brace, but it puts odd-directional pressure on my heel, and it feels like it wants to twist. When I take off the brace, it feels REALLY bad, especially if I move it (which it's really hard not to do). I may go back to the hospital, and see if I can convince them to cast it.

Oh, and it was FINALLY my night to drink. Usually I'm the designated driver, so I make sure I am wearing sensible shoes to drive in, then I can change into pretty shoes for going out, then change back into my sensible shoes for driving home. For some reason, it didn't occur to me that the 7 stairs I need to walk down to get into my house would be a problem (DUH) and I thus forgot my sensible shoes. I didn't wake up with a hangover though, which is surprising, considering how much I drank.