Broken Ankle – The Parenting Chronicles

Welcome to The Parenting Chronicles where I share those parenting tips that you certainly shouldn’t follow, which will most likely mean a trip to the emergency room, and honestly I can’t believe we are still alive. Let’s face it if you grew any time prior to about 2005 life was very different. Parenting was different and if any of our parents were parents today Family and Children’s Services would be making weekly visits to our homes.

That doesn’t mean they were bad parents. Times were just different and this is one of those stories. I was in my teens when I suffered my first broken bone. I had never seriously gotten injured before and in fact had only one hospital stay prior than this particular one.  My dad told me to go outside and get my younger siblings to come in since dinner was going to be ready soon. He specifically said “Don’t go out there and play. Just get them in the house.” So, I turned off the stove and went out the backdoor which happened to be in the kitchen. I stood on the porch and told them to come in. One of them, I can’t remember which one now, asked if I would throw the football to them just one time. 

I said yes instead of making them come inside like I was told. I went down and under the porch (it was one of those high ones you could walk under) and stepped onto the retaining wall we had there. It had been raining for several days and I forgot that this particular wall hadn’t been attached together yet. My dad had put it up the weekend before and then the rain had started and he told us to stay off it until he could get it bolted together. 

I stepped on it and that railroad tie (the wooden things you see on the tracks) slid out from underneath me and down I went. How my ankle broke I can’t tell you. I reached out to grab the first thing I could, which happened to be my mother’s prized cactus bush. Once I landed I rushed to kick my shoe off because my ankle was swelling. When I lifted my foot my ankle flopped down and my youngest brother said “That doesn’t look right.”  I told them to help me get in the house. Okay, there might have been some crying for my daddy but I can neither confirm nor deny that. 

Instead of helping me back up the little hill into the backdoor, these two geniuses decide they are going to put me on daddy’s creeper (those things mechanics used to slide under cars) and just push me. In the process of this nightmare, they drop my ankle and end up breaking my leg bone. It was bad. By this point my dad assumes we are playing and comes outside telling us to get in the house now. I say I broke my foot and he says, stop fooling around. He’s getting angrier by the moment because he wanted us in the house and things done by the time Ma got home from work. 

I make it into the basement but have a flight of stairs to climb. He says “Put your foot down and walk up these stairs now.” In his defense I was more than a bit of a drama queen when it comes to getting hurt. I scrap would put me out of commission for the whole day. I hop up the stairs and flop over the arm of the chair. My dad takes one look and says “Sh*t that’s broken. Let me take a shower and then we will go to the hospital.” He and my siblings showered so they wouldn’t look bad going to the hospital y’all! I didn’t get to shower. I mean really!! 

Then we have to go back down to the basement because the truck is parked outside it. So, I go out the front door and down that way. By this time I have already been all around the dang house. He doesn’t even pull the truck up so I can get in. I’m in pain and just mad at this point. We get to the end of the road and he debates which hospital to take me to. If this had been anyone other than my dad I would have punched them.

We get to the hospital and are the only people in the emergency room. While doing our paperwork this young child comes in because they had a sledge hammer dropped on their foot. My dad, God bless him, says “Take the baby first. She can wait.” As an adult now I can see why he said that and I would do that myself now. I was in pain but not so much that I couldn’t wait for that baby to go back before me.  As a teen who was in pain, I was heartbroken that my pain didn’t seem to matter to him at the time. 

When we finally get back there and into X-ray they call him in and we learn they will not be setting my ankle and leg. I had in fact shattered the ankle and the leg bone broke oddly. That meant surgery. My dad said “You just had to be an overachiever in everything didn’t you?” Then went to call Ma so she could come to the hospital to chew him out. He figured, we’d get it set and home before she got home and then he could explain that his children don’t listen. 

The funny thing is the entire time he is in the back with me, my two younger siblings are sitting alone in the emergency room waiting room. They aren’t moving or making a sound. Just sitting there. He told them to watch out for Ma. You couldn’t do that today with your teens.

They knew better than to move or do anything. They sat there quietly watching the television until Ma got there with them. After she saw me and gave my dad the side eye that clearly said he was in trouble when they got home she took the kids home.  My dad stayed until I went to sleep and when I was being wheeled into surgery at 6 am he was right there again.

He felt so bad for everything that happened that he didn’t want to leave. It took me months to recover fully with two months in the cast, another in a walking cast, and then another at physical therapy. 

While it was all an adventure nothing was as much as when my dad discovered the hospital didn’t remove the cactus needles. There were just so many they didn’t realize they didn’t get them all. I didn’t realize it either because I was in so much pain from the ankle. I had those needles all over my back, under one arm, and on my butt as well as my legs. Let me tell you when I got home and the pain medication began to wear off I noticed.

To make sure they were properly removed my wonderful father in all his wisdom called one of the medics at the base to come by. We are not going to talk about the embarrassment of having the two that showed up pulling needles from my naked teenage butt. They were the hot ones too! To make matters worse my younger siblings were watching The Lion King and it was right at the whole hyena scene. Y’all know the one I’m talking about.

I wanted to die! I mean everyone was laughing and while I could (and do) see the humor in it, my poor teenage soul just didn’t. As an adult I can see why he did things the way he did. However, let me tell you for years, anytime I felt slighted in some way I would say “It’s my ankle all over again.” Finally one day my dad said that was enough and next time I broke a bone he would make me wait a full day. It’s funny the things that destroy us as kids but as adults we can see how much we overreacted.