Siddity In The City

Because I absolutely refuse to run out of bloggable events.

Me, yesterday, twoish, crossing Amsterdam, singing to myself: Doobedoo, la la la, deck the halls with boughs of FUCK! (as foot lands awkwardly in pothole and bends violently inward to form an unnatural right angle). Sucks. But I recover my balance, give the ankle a lookieloo and a wiggle, all is well, I press on. Me, yesterday, sixish, rising from a chair: Doobedoo, lalaFORK! (There were munchkins present, and we don't swears around thems, does we? No.) Suddenly my whole ankle/foot area has locked up and hurts like a beesnatch. WTF? Is that allowed? Can there be a four hour time lapse between injury and hurtin' like a mofo? I didn't think so. But apparently there can. I limp home to elevate and ice. Of course, having missed out on four hours of good hurtin'-like-a-beesnatch-mofo time, my overachieving ass, er, foot, decides to be extra unpleasant, swell up, throb, and turn a weirdo shade of red. All of which I find increasingly alarming. I've sprained my ankle before, but usually the pain is in my ankle. This pain runs down the top/front of my damn foot. Unusual. I call my insurance on-call nurse line (because, a. I'm not some whiny pansy girl who will just run to the doctor at every sniffle or fracture; and b. I like surprises, but not the $10000 hospital bill because you didn't call your insurance first kind) to find out if I need treatment. They refer me to an urgent care facility a hunnid dabgum blocks away. It is the only one on this island, apparently. Or at least the only one my insurance will permit me to visit. I call first, to make sure they are open. They're not. Shite. I call my insurance on-call nurse again, and she tells me to take myself to the nearest ER for X-rays. Sounds simple enough. Except. See. It's raining. Hard. I have no cash. And my foot can no longer bear weight, at all. Me no limpy. Only hoppy. And I have no one to help me with any of this. But I hurt a lot. So I suit up for the rain and hoppy through my apartment, down the hall, and onto the elevator. Then I hoppy through the lobby and ask my doormen to hail me a cab, which, miraculously, they manage to do. One hurdle crossed. But I still have no cash. Cabs in this city take credit cards, right? Well, no, not all of 'em. So I have the cab drive me to the nearest ATM, where I get out at the corner and hoppy on one leg, through the rain, to the goddamn ATM booth and pray no one seduces my cabbie away. Then I hoppy back to the waiting cab (he wanted his money) and head for the nearest ER, Roosevelt, down on 59th. I get out and with the help of a good samaritan, I hoppy through the doors (which, despite the fact that it's a frigging ER and automatic sliding doors are kind of a good idea, do not open automatically. Those doors have been turned off, for some reason.) and across the room to the triage nurse's station. I sit and wait. Twenty minutes, maybe a half an hour later (not bad at all, I must say) the friendly triage nurse tells me to hoppy around to his booth for the routine workup--temperature, blood pressure, bitchfest. (Aside: I am so thankful for the practice I've gotten doing tree pose. Man, if I didn't have my balance tight, I'da been in trouble. Well, more, anyway.) Everything is normal there, except for my blood pressure, which is outrageously high. He's bewildered, decides that can't be right, takes it again. Still really high. Are you in a lot of pain, he asks. Why yes, yes I am, I reply (Hello, enough to bring me to the ER, alone, in the rain, at night.). Also, I suggest, it could be due to the fact that I have been hopping all over the goddamned Upper West Side, and was just forced to hop unassisted to his desk. Oh yes, that could do it, he says. Sigh. Finally, a wheelchair. A lovely, rolly, big-wheely wheelchair. Yippee! Then, X-rays. A quick consultation with a doctor, who tells me I have no broken bones, just a nasty sprain, but that my blood pressure is high, and have I seen anyone about it. I explain the hopping. Hmm, she says, still. And gets me a cane. But the cane is useless, as that involves actually using the injured foot. So I request crutches, instead. Another nurse takes my BP again. Your pressure is high, she says. You should see your doctor about it. Gaaaah! Gaaaaaah! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I'm not explaining it again. Also, do people usually come into the bloody emergency room cool as a cucumber? Hm? Hm? Could the possibly-broken-ankle situation and wondering how I'll handle my decidedly non-desk job for the next week when I've just been told it might take 3 weeks to recover be a wee bit upsetting? Yeesh. Two hours after I hop into the emergency room, I am ready to go. Unfortunately, I have to sit and wait for a seemingly well-off, older Italian man and his escort to finish refusing to pay for his ER treatment because they thought the price-tag was too high. Mm-hm. But it's the working poor who are the deadbeats and defaulters, right? Anyway. Two and a half hours after I hop in, I crutch-swing my way out and onto the nearest drag, which happens to be 10th. And I stand, in the rain, on my crutches, and watch as cab after cab zips by, occupied, I uncharitably imagine, by curly-haired women in heels who really don't need cabs at all. Pout. Sulk. Grumble. Wilt. After maybe ten minutes, a cab stops, but some people with suitcases beat me to it and speed off into the soggy night. Argh. Eventually, a livery cab stops, and though I know I shouldn't, I take it home. He charges me twice what it would normally cost, then looks pissy when I don't tip him on top of that. Screw that, livery man. But thanks for the ride. What. A. Shitty. Day. On the upside, I was wearing this $2-on-clearance knit winter cap from H&M that kept my head (and thus, my blowout) totally dry, in all of my umbrella-free rain slogging! Astounding. And I actually didn't have any co-pay for my ER visit, so the whole thing onlyt set me back $20. But I have learned my lesson. The rest of that money is being distributed among my pockets, bags and purses for future emergency (cab or whatever) use, dammit.

posted by Sid @ 12/10/2004 04:46:00 PM