You don’t know pain until you stick your foot in a bucket of ice

I’m sitting with my right foot in a bucket of ice. A gallon of cold water with many cups full of ice. It is not pleasant or refreshing. It’s painful. Ice prickling painful. Sharp jolts of ice coldness shooting all over my feet. Waves of cold circulate around my foot. Having your foot in a bucket of ice is worse than those last few minutes or distance when you’re running. It’s brutal.

I’m in this situation because I twisted my foot. I was stepping up into the car and didn’t know it was parked in front of a drainage system. My left foot was planted on the ground, I opened the car door, and then stepped with my right. Except it didn’t hit solid ground. It snapped into the drain. Here’s what it looked like 10 minutes after the “incident.”

You can tell exactly where I fell because of the giant knot. Interesting enough, my ankle hasn’t really swelled. I immediately iced and elevated it. We cancelled our plans and our friends gave us instructions on how to properly take care of a sprain. That’s why I keep painfully plunging my foot into a bucket of ice. And then I wrap it and swing the chair back up. {Image: 14 hours in}  

Thankfully the pain subsided after the first four hours, but every time there was blood flow to my foot it began pulsating. Pain was shooting down to my last two toes, my heel, and around to my other ankle. I tried moving to my bed at midnight and overly propped my foot up. I think I did such a good job that my foot got too numb from lack of blood flow. Finally at 2:30 I couldn’t take it anymore. The pain was back and I couldn’t decide which was worse – pain from blood flow or pain from numbness due to lack of blood flow. Bryan carried me back out to the living room and we camped out for the night. We watched some random Sundance film until almost 4 a.m. and finally fell asleep for a few hours. After the first compression wrap, the swelling decreased a lot and the knot pretty much disappeared.

Now I’m stuck in a weird place. I’ve been able to put a tiny amount of pressure on it and can wiggle my toes a little when they aren’t numb. I’ve been using crutches to get myself to and from the bathroom because Bryan can’t spend all day carrying me and Maximus. I’m no where near being able to walk unassisted, but the look alone is way better than last night. The bruising concerns me a little because it keeps creeping towards my toes. But, I don’t know if that means anything bad. When my blood has had a chance to flow through my foot, the last two toes get real tender and hurt. I’m probably going to have to go into the doctor and get some x-rays so I know what to expect during this healing process. I can’t spend a week icing, elevating, and wrapping my foot. Well, I guess I can if that is the doctor’s orders, but at some point I need to get off the couch and help take care of my family.  And THAT’S how I spent my weekend. I hope you did something much more enjoyable!