I feel like I should explain why I haven't updated this thing in two years. The best I can come up with is, I didn't have time and I didn't feel like it.

I do have an excuse for more recent neglect. I broke my leg in October. Luckily I did this on my way to the Emergency Room for a thing that turned out to be nothing so at least I didn't waste the trip.

It started on Saturday night, when I couldn't, um, go. Or rather I was going a lot and producing very little. But I was drinking a lot of water. Since this means a UTI (look it up) or kidney stones, off I went to the local E.R.

Once I got there, they put me in a room. The place looked pretty quiet, but I waited for about an hour and a half before the resident came in to tell me that, according to my sample, they had been able to determine that I was not pregnant.

Because apparently the prophecies indicated there might have been a chance in hell of that happening.

And then I waited another two hours for the attending to show up. By 11:00 p.m. I was kind of tired of waiting, and seeing as how I didn't have a nurse call button, I put on my pants and my shoes and stood in the doorway to get someone to discharge me. Much the same way you might put on your coat and hat to signal to a waiter that you've been ready for the check for the last, oh, TWO HOURS.

And so THEN the attending comes in. He doesn't look like Patrick Dempsey. His hair is not a National Treasure. His hair is more like, um, Bilbo Baggins. And I only comment on his appearance because of what happened next, so don't judge me for being shallow. I'll only add this. You're a doctor in a major urban medical center. You're probably making pretty good bank. Buy some pants that fit.

So he tells me they need another sample from me. I say I don't have one to give, on account of I've been in a room with nothing to drink for a little over three hours.

He says the sample I gave them was too dilute. "Why were you drinking so much water?" he asks. His tone suggests that he expects me to say, "Why, to flush out the cocaine, of course."

"Because that's what you're supposed to do when you have a kidney problem," I tell him. He doesn't seem to believe me.

I should mention here that I am fully insured, and it's a pretty good policy.

So then I tell him that he hasn't been able to find anything, that I've been in this little room for three hours by myself and am getting a little buggy, and that I have a mountain of work waiting for me at home, so I really don't have another three hours to give him.

And he tells me that I've actually had a pretty short visit to the E.R. and that if I'm so concerned about work, I should be sure to bring plenty to keep me occupied. And if my condition got worse, I'd be unlikely to get all that work done anyway.

Check please.

They let me go home, but told me to come back if my symptoms got worse.
I call my mother on the way home. My mother, who is a nurse married to an E.R. doctor tells me that this is not how things are supposed to be done, and that the guy was out of line. Later she will call the hospital president's office and tell his staff the same thing.

But I go home, and I go to bed. And the next morning, it's worse. I can't go at all. So I pack a bag with plenty to do-- about 20 pounds worth of things to do-- and go downstairs to my car. I step into the hole in the sidewalk where a tree went down on somebody's car last summer and the 20 pound bag takes me down.

I hear the pop. I think to myself, "I can't pass out on the sidewalk on Sunday morning."
I hop across the street to my car and think about calling an ambulance, but I don't know how to tell them how to find me. So I put my head down and wait for the passing out feeling to go away. Then I drive myself back to the E.R.

When I get there, they wheel me right back. I tell the doctor the story of the previous night and how I shouldn't have left and how dumb I feel while a nurse hooks up a saline drip and takes blood samples to check my kidney function. The doctor says, "Okay, but that's enough with the self-flaggelation."

I am happy that I have a doctor who feels confident that I will understand multi-syllable words.
I was there for four hours. They did x-rays on my foot, put me in a splint, taught me to walk on crutches, cat-scanned my kidneys, and gave me a turkey sandwich. By the time the saline drip had finished, my kidneys were a-ok and they couldn't find anything wrong with them. It might have been a small stone. Not a big childbirth stone like Dr. Hobbit tried to scare me with.

But now I had a broken ankle because Dr. Hobbit told me to bring enough work to do.

The worst thing about the broken ankle hasn't been the crutches, or the wheelchair, or the pain in my arms from using both. And I live on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. I couldn't sleep in the cast, so that wasn't fun, but it wasn't the worst part. The worst part wasn't the nausea from the painkillers they gave me. Or the part where I had to live on cereal and lean cuisine because I couldn't cook for myself.

The worst part is all the people saying "How's the leg?" "How's the foot?" And so on. I'm not talking about friends who ask out of genuine concern.

I'm talking about that guy I barely know who has to ask about my leg every freakin' morning. "How's the foot?"

"It's fine, thanks" I say. What I really want to say is, it's still broken. Just like it was yesterday. And the day before that. It will still be broken tomorrow, so how's about you just stop asking me because the bad energy of my anger is probably slowing the healing process!

I got the cast off two weeks ago. This morning, just like every morning for the last two weeks, "How's the foot?"