Pain is a Quitter

So, I probably should have posted this earlier, but I kept putting it off. You'll see why I say this post has come late soon. To start with, my Facebook status on Wednesday night was (Kalk) "may have to wear socks for the next couple days......in a row........I just had to try to get a running start and fly up those stairs. But at least it's awkwardly swollen." That might not make a whole lot of sense now, so I'll fill you in.

This past week (and the next two weeks), Salt was kicked out of the Blue Moose and into Third Base--aka The Fieldhouse--another bar owned by the same people, and in the same general area. The stage area in this bar was downstairs--this fact becomes important later in the story--and it has two bar serving areas there (so we even had one or two bartenders working at Salt--with the sound/tech booth in one of the bars). Anyway, the men's room was down a few stairs and a long hallway from where we were having Salt. About 7:50, I went to the men's room, and decided to get a running start at those stairs so I could go up them in a hurry. Big mistake. When I put my left foot on the first step, I didn't get far enough onto it, so when I put my full weight on that foot, it slipped off, twisting my ankle and banging my right knee on one of the higher steps. Being me, I didn't tell anyone and continued about my business through the worship, the message, and the closing worship.

Then came load-out. As you may recall from earlier in the post, the place we were having Salt was a floor below street level. This meant we had to haul everything upstairs to get it into the trailer. I was doing okay until the big case had to come upstairs--one that we had to have FOUR guys on. I was one of the upstairs guys, which means my job was help lift the wheels above the next step while the bottom guys shoved as hard as they could. Many times, it was hard for the upstairs guys to get our feet out of the way before the shove from below. Near the top, my grip slipped, and I dropped the case on my left foot. That stopped me. I paused for a bit to collect myself, then soldiered on until the case was upstairs. At that point, I bit down on my arm to muffle the scream.

I kept going, helping load everything into the trailer, then from the trailer into the storage unit. When I got home, I took off my shoes and socks (because I hate wearing them) and saw that my foot had a huge lump on it--which was in a fat line. Apparently, the slight compression from wearing socks helped a lot, because I couldn't stand the pain after taking off the socks, so I slept with socks on Wednesday night.

Thursday morning was bad, because you can't wear socks in the shower. Then I had a decision to make. Walk a total of five miles just to go to Spanish class, or miss the test review? I decided to go to class, but I took my acetaminophen just in case. It was hard. By the time I got there, I was thinking I might have to call my roommate for a ride home after class--his first class started two and a half hours after mine ended. However, the pain lessened as the class went on, and I went ahead and tried to walk home. There was no pain. I soon started joking that my foot had given up on trying to get pity from me, and walked faster. I got home and took off my socks. No pain, but still swollen.

As I write this, it's still swollen a little bit, but no pain. It only hurts when I put pressure on the swelling, or if I rotate it from normal. And that's the story of how pain is a quitter. Or maybe I'm just insanely stubborn. You decide. (There's a poll up, if you want to let me know your opinion on that.....or there's always comments)