So you think you can Walk?

 April 30th. A day to remember or forget. I got up to get ready for SAMA training. Had to be off the night before, so had slept pretty well. Got up really early, or at least it felt that way, but my day was getting ready to start with a BANG. 

From time to time we keep the Grand-dog named Pepper who is a 65# black lab and we have our black Lab Layla 100# girl. So, I let them out at about 7 a.m. and go to fix their food. I have to leave by 7:30 to be hospital by 8 and I am already cutting it close. I hear thunder (no no no no no). I hear heavy raindrops...the floor of heaven literally opens up and the rec room is a caliopy of sound (metal roof)...is that hail I hear? I rush to let the dogs in...slide down the hall in my stocking feet, hit the step into the rec room....the edge of the step...like one inch of the step and come down hard on my left heel. All my weight...all of it fell on this heel...this heel that has had inflammation...SCHREECH! OMG....PAIN WORSE THAN NATURAL CHILDBIRTH.... cannot catch my breath....pick myself up. crawl to the rocking chair and get back on my feet and hobble to the door to let in two very soaked pups. It is literally raining cats and dogs. 

Dogs fed. I am still barely able to hobble. It is still raining. I have texted to check to see if the class has been cancelled, because it is raining so hard...nope class still on. Locate umbrella, get into car (a little wet, but ok.) Drive to the gate...and find it closed (dang it...forgot about that), get out...can't hold the umbrella when having to hold onto the car door to walk. SOAKED TO THE SKIN...AND IT IS A COLD RAIN! Finally get to hospital, the classes are downstairs...alllllll the way on the other side of the building.........wow. 

So after all that I did get x-rayed 3 days later, not broken, told it was a sprain. Pain persists. I am working on this ankle and it is not getting better. Go back to primary doc get scheduled for MRI. Still hurting, still working....still managing. Well guess what...it's a complete tendon rupture...torn...completely, tendon gone with 6 cm of retraction....sooooo

Surgery on 6/16. What I didn't know? That I would be on crutches for two weeks...two weeks...OMG. 

MEMORIES OF A 7 YEAR OLD (1965)

 In my head I am hearing Bobby Gentry singing "Ol to Billy Joe"... "It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy, dusty, delta dayyyyyyy", but actually it was the End of August and the first day of school in Idabel, OK. I was 7 ( almost 8) and President Kennedy had been murdered and buried the previous fall. Momma and Daddy had split up again and were embroiled in a divorce. Momma had moved us back to Oklahoma to live with Grandma and Grandpa while she got back up on her feet. Times were hard and jobs were scarce...but momma was trying.

It was hot and muggy that early late September morning. It had rained overnight, but now moisture just hung in the air in a fine mist.  We were ready for school waiting in our new clothes. Grandma had made me a pretty blue dress, decorated with rick rack and a big bow tie on the back. I had new shoes and white socks. It was so humid that you could literally taste the air. It had rained overnight and the Oklahoma red dirt road was a river of sticky mud. 

The  bus was late, but being kids we didn't worry. Since it was the first day of school, grandma was monitoring from the front window to be sure the bus stopped for us, since it was gonna be the first time we ever rode the bus. Of course , since my Great Uncle Sam lived next to the bus driver, Mr. Ayers, he was already alerted to the newest Williamson clan members that would be gracing his blue bird bus, so the it wasn't likely he would forget about us. 

Seven thirty came and went...school started at 8 am sharp. We were 13 miles from town, so the bus surely should have arrived to pick up it's newest riders. Suddenly we saw a scraggly group of High School students, followed by the grade school kids and even the littlest  kindergarden kids trailing behind, walking up the muddy hill to Grandpa's house.  One of the high school boys told grandpa that the bus had made the curve onto the wooden bridge, but because the wheels where lined with the sticky red dirt mud (clay) the back wheels had slid completely off the bridge. That particular county bridge did not have any guard-rails...not even a wooden barrier between the bridge and ten foot drop down to the muddy water. This nameless creek, had swollen to a small river overnight, and the bus was threatening to drop all the way into it's muddy depths. 

Grandpa to the rescue! Firing up his trusty rusty tractor...which by the way had no brakes, just a clutch to slow it down, and he was ready to roll. Teen-aged boys rode the fenders armed with chains and hooks to pull the bus out, and off  he went... not like today, when the "children" would be coddled together calling mommy or daddy on their cell phones, nope the older boys were excited to be able to help. 

While Grandpa was rescuing the bus, Grandma was rescuing the young ladies new shoes! She was drawing up well water and  bringing buckets out with rags so the girls could clean off their new shoes (white of course because it was summer) of the red Oklahoma clay. Some of the richer girls were complaining of the mud splatters on their nylons. I was just glad that I hadn't had to walk and ruin my new white socks...I was very proud of those beautiful white socks!

Grandpa and the Highschool boys got the bus back on the bridge and up the hill. I remember Mr. Ayers coming in to use the phone (we had a party line) to call the bus barn so that they would know the bus was o n it's way and not disabled in any fashion. 

So Grandpa saved the day...and I made my entrance into the 3rd grade late. From there on after I always tried to be fashionably late because  there is nothing like a grand entrance!