Monday, February 8, 2010

Oyster Dome trail and Ankle Sprain.


This last Sunday I went for my weekly run of the Oyster Dome. The whole things was going great until the very end of the run (when I say "end of the run" I mean I was literally 20 seconds away from my car after being on the trail for an hour and a half). As I was descending the last switch back to the start of the trail my ankle rolled accompanied by a very audible "SNAP". I immediately drop in a heap of dust and profanities. The pain wasn't to bad, but the whole joint swelled up to the size of a grapefruit within seconds.
Some locals were nice enough to help me limp to my car. I never did get their names, but they were a man and a women (thanks!). The man seemed worried that I was going to pass out because he kept asking me, "Are you going to be alright? Your not going to pass out, right?". I assured him that, no i would not pass out, and that i just needed to get back to town.
I drove as fast as I could without being a menace. My car is a manual transmission, and my ankle was starting to freeze in place, so I wanted to get somewhere before i no longer had the ability to shift. I called a friend who was nice enough to pick me up and take me to the ER. It was funny, I was the first of three people with ankle sprains to come into the hospital in a matter of minutes.
one bag of ice, one x-ray, and 5 hours later I was out of the Hospital. Nothing was broken, and they couldn't tell if any ligaments or tendons were damaged (an MRI would have been worthless with all of the swelling). They just told me to rest, ice it, eat copious amounts of NSAID's and schedule an appointment to see my GP.
One big lesson learned during all of this, don't go to the hospital for a sprain. Looking back I wanted to make sure that I didn't break anything. I think my ankle would have hurt a whole hell of a lot more if I broke it, and the swelling would have been purple and red from a hematoma forming.
Now I don't know if I will be able to compete in the stair climb (suck!), on the other hand I have lots of time to devote to school. Also, I managed to beat my previous PR on the Oyster Dome with a time of 38:38 (take that sprained ankle!).

1 comment:

  1. I am pretty certain the whole 5 hour wait, followed by an x-ray is the standard procedure for an ankle sprain. When you told me about this it sounded like a repeat of my experience in Chicago, except that I was in the company of some people who were shot up at a rave and one dude with a drug over dose.

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