Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Not Exactly the "Spring Break" I Had in Mind...

OK, yes...I said I wanted to adopt the "Spring Break" mentality and went so far as to joke about my "rolling Spring Break" as I travelled a little and got to visit with other legitimate spring breakers over the past few weeks. I usually love a good dose of irony...but this is too much even for me.

Saturday morning I was hanging out with one of my best friends from college, Julie, where she lives in Redondo Beach. We took a couple of her beach cruisers (pretty much the kind of bike I had when I was 10...complete with the basket and cute little horn on it) down to Hermosa Beach for breakfast. The round trip was 4-ish miles and we were almost back to her house when I had a little mishap.

I'm still not completely sure what happened. I will admit that I haven't been on a bike in ages and was a little unsteady from the start. But I thought I had finally gotten into the groove by the time we were in the home stretch. I think I was shifting around in my seat a little to get comfortable--the bike was too tall for me and after 4 miles I was definitely feeling the effects of that. While I was shifting someone surprised me and I lost my balance and started to fall, so I kicked out my right foot to catch myself. I was next to a curb, and in a freak occurrence that would only happen to me, my foot somehow caught the curb on the way down.

I didn't even completely fall over, just stumbled a bit into the bushes. But when I looked down I knew there was a problem. I'll spare you the graphic details and will just say that I knew as soon as I saw my foot that one or two toes were broken. I guess I should mention that I--like every other Southern Californian out there on a cruiser--was wearing flip flops. Don't even bother to lecture me on this point...I get it.

All of this happened an hour before I needed to hop in the car and drive back to the OC to catch my two flights home. Let's just say it was a VERY long travel day topped off with a trip to the ER when I got back to Texas. They confirmed that I broke both the 4th and 5th toes on my right foot (the one that "had none" and the one that cried "wee, wee, wee all the way home").

This morning I followed up with an orthopaedic foot specialist and fully expected that he would just tell me to keep buddy taping them and was pretty shocked when he told me that while he hasn't operated on a toe in more than two years, he wants to do surgery tomorrow as the 4th will likely need a pin. Sigh.

So yes...I'm still "that" girl. You might think that knowing that I have a condition that creates a severe balance deficiency would make me feel better, but it doesn't. Well, you might really think that knowing that I have a condition that creates a severe balance deficiency would keep me off a bike to begin with. But while I might be the most accident prone person on the planet I just refuse to not do the things I enjoy for fear of getting hurt. But it would certainly help me out if I wasn't allergic to pain meds. That part actually makes me more than a little grumpy.

Before my very literal "rolling spring break" I did have a really great time. Here are a few pics of the fun.

Sunset at Huntington Beach:

Hanging out with Clay & Shawna in Anaheim:

Laguna Beach:

Sunset at Redondo Beach:

With Julie at Hermosa Beach (just before the accident):

I'll spare you the picture of my foot.

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