Waiting. . .
I am sitting on a chair in the bay of Newport Beach waiting for my ankle to heal. I feel sorry for me. Milissa and I had this trip planned for a while. We came to Newport Beach to be with her father and his wife as her father faces surgery for prostate cancer. Cancer's not the best subject for me, so maybe that is why I had to throw a monkey-wrench into an already difficult situation.
We were scheduled to fly out on Thursday, Aug 16, 2007. On Tuesday, I received an email from Jared: "wanna ride blue hills tonight?" Thomas, one of my photography professors, and I have been riding almost daily in the Blue Hills during the work week, so, yeah, I wanted to ride. I texted Thomas (wow, I never thought I would have the occasion to use text as a verb) and invited him to join.
I think it was definitely Thomas's fault that we were running a bit late. And, then I could not find the lot where we were supposed to meet Jared. This was the first time that I had ridden with Jared. Jared was once my student. Now, he is coming to teach for me at the college. By the time we got to the meeting place, it was after 6 p.m. Off we went on a fast, fun, somewhat rocky ride with several annoying climbs. I still maintain, although I know it is not exactly possible, that there is more climbing than downhill at Blue Hills. Anyway, it was getting dark and both Thomas and I had to be at our respective homes by 7:30 p.m. His wife and friends were awaiting his arrival to cook them dinner; I had arranged for a co-worker to meet me at my house as she was going to house-sit during our absence.
We were running late still. I rolled over a somewhat technical area of a rock garden and Thomas shouted from behind, "hey, nice." (or something like that)
I turned back to nod proudly, hit a rock unexpectedly and lost control over the bike. As I toppled over, I put my right foot down to catch myself. Instead of hitting solid ground with that foot and stopping my fall, I caught the edge of a large rock with the inside of my right foot. This caused my foot to twist on the toe to heel axis all the way to the right. I heard a popping sound. Then I fell hard. I yowled. Thomas came upon me quickly to inquire as to my well-being. I think he may have been surprised that I was actually swearing with real live pain. I was intermittently yowling and laughing at the absurdity.
Thomas sat down beside me and began snapping various size twigs to inquire as to whether it sounded like the popping noise I had heard. He may have been mocking me.
We got out of the woods (me limping and rolling on the bike when possible) finally. We were all late. Thomas felt my accident would mitigate his tardiness. I knew it would exacerbate mine. Milissa was mad at me. She made me go to the ER, even though she already diagnosed it as ligament damage. They did the requisite x-rays and after about ten hours of waiting, I was informed that there are no broken bones, but that I had torn ligaments. They called in the crutches guy to "fit me" for crutches (I guess it's some kind of science) and the doctor, with the help of the nurse, put me in an air cast. Bleh.
Prior to this incident, Milissa had been complaining that someone who did not know me might think that I was being abused given the number and varying ages of all the bruises on my body. I have been crashing a lot lately on my bike. We laughed about it. Then, we get to the ER for the ankle and I am immediately asked if I am "safe." Yeah, just not from myself. Anyway, when we were in the treatment room, this older, gray-haired hospital worker started making her way to my room. You know the type: pink polyester pants and cardigan sweater with the hair-salon, hairspray curly head of hair, thick glasses and a kind face. Milissa and I did not even need to say anything to each other; we both felt deep panic as we thought she was the social worker on her way over to assess our perceived abusive relationship. We both sighed relief when she began helping the doctor with the air cast. We got out of the ER around midnight.
We had to put off our flight for one day.
I was all set to bring my bad boy to California for fun biking on the beach. Instead, I had to be wheel-chaired through the security checkpoint at the airport and subjected to a personal body search since I did not go through the metal detector. Now I can only watch the beautiful ocean and whine about my lack of mobility. Milissa's dad did offer me the use of his cane that is really a cleverly disguised sword. Good times.