Stupid is as stupid does

Stupid is as stupid does

My morning walk is usually fairly uneventful.  I always run into some of the same people every day and we exchange some kind of pleasantry as societal rules dictate.  A friendly “Good morning!!!” or a “Wow, it’s a little cold today!” usually suffices.  Don’t get me wrong; I like those random encounters.  It breaks up the walk and gives me a feeling of being part of something that is bigger and greater than myself.  And, wow, the people around here are friendly.  I wouldn’t want to disappoint them by ignoring their glances or pretending that they don’t exist.  Hey, we’re humans.  We love to interact.

The community center area which I pass through has a walking or jogging track around the periphery of the property.  It also has exercise spots where one can do x number of pushups or pull ups and garner some cardio advantages over the normal couch potato waltz in which most of us indulge.   Since I’m located in the rolling hills area of the eastern U.S. piedmont, there aren’t many truly level areas.  If you’re outside, you are on one side of a hill or another.  So, the track is not level all the way around.  It is somewhat circular on the horizontal plane and quite undulating on the vertical plane.

So, I walk around the track to get my cardio but skip all of the exercise stations along the way.  This particular morning, there were some spots of snow and ice on the track surface.  I had walked over and around those types of trouble areas many times before without incident.  I assumed that today’s adventure would be like the other thousand slogs of the past:  Enjoyable but uneventful.  Boy, I was wrong on that one.

As I approached one particular trouble spot, I made some internal calculations, based on air temperature, snow depth and wind conditions, and concluded that I could make it over this particular snowy stretch without any problem.  I casually took a few steps on the snow without a problem.  I did notice that what looked like snow from a distance was actually ice which had been created overnight from the raw temperatures.  But, still, it was only a twenty foot stretch and didn’t seem to be of any consequence.  In fact, my mind began to wander as I walked, so I was day dreaming about the upcoming golf season as I nonchalantly meandered over the ice.  I was thinking about the idea of aggressively rotating my forearms through impact on my golf downswing, when all of a sudden, I felt myself falling.  My legs didn’t fly out from under me as I would have expected, however.  Instead, my right leg gave out from under me and I collapsed on it.  I lay there for a second trying to assess the damage.  I felt a little pain, but not to an excess.

My first inclination was to attempt to get back on my feet and then walk back toward the track area that was dry.  I attempted to get my right foot under me and push up, but the ice was too slippery.  My foot would just slide out from under me.  So, I decided to crawl back to the dry area.  I mean, come on, it was only ten or so feet back.  It wasn’t like I was climbing Mt. Everest here.  So, within a minute, I had crawled back to dry land, and, with some effort, I must admit, I got myself upright again.  Wow, that was a good feeling, because in this part of the community center property, there doesn’t tend to be any foot traffic.  And, on a cold day like today, there won’t tend to be any for the foreseeable future.   So, the Calvary wasn’t going to happen by to help.

My next thought was to call my wife on my cell phone.  But, I just couldn’t get myself to do it.  I’m not a macho kind of guy…but, I do have my pride.  I just couldn’t get myself to give in and ask for help.  I decided to try to walk home without assistance, if I could.  It was only a mile and a half.  I thought that I could make it.  Of course, there was the issue of some heavy pain in my ankle.  But, I’ve had ankle sprains before and was always able to walk through the pain.

I decided to get on the grassy area of the property and walk back to the road.  I took some initial steps and quickly discovered that I couldn’t walk in a normal fashion.  I couldn’t push off with my ankle joint.  So, I just walked stiff legged without rotating my ankle in any manner. 

After some effort, I was able to finally arrive at the community center parking lot and begin my walk home via the regular roadways.  I was slow, but steady, and was not experiencing too much pain at all.  However, I certainly wouldn’t have minded if one of the drivers in those cars flying by me would have stopped and offered me some assistance.  I wasn’t going to ask for help but I would have accepted it if someone had asked.  But, nobody did.

Long story short, I did make it home and eventually went to the doctor the next day.  After taking some X-rays, Doc casually informed me that I had indeed broken my ankle and would need to wear a brace for six weeks.  I told him that I didn’t want to hear that, but he disregarded my desire to ignore the reality of the situation and focused on arranging to get me fitted with a brace and starting the healing process.

As always, my wife stepped in and took over the situation.  I’m sure that she will give a superhuman effort to get me back on my feet so that I can continue to take my daily morning walks and, eventually, get back out on the golf course.  But, I feel bad about the situation.  I should have handled those series of life events in a better manner.  I hurt myself because I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings.  Then, I exacerbated the problem by not seeking help when I truly needed it.  And, now, my wife will need to take over almost all of the family responsibilities for at least six weeks.

I wish that I could say that I learned a good life lesson and won’t repeat those same mistakes again.  However, that’s not going to happen.  For me, personally, pride and stubbornness will always win over logical pragmatism.   Every time.  That’s just the way it is, unfortunately.

But, I’ll still feel bad about the way I handled the situation.  Does that count for anything?