Well, so far this Friday the 13th has been most inauspicious, at least for our little apartment household. My housemates are both sick, one is also injured, and I sprained the motherlovin' Christ out of my ankle and can't walk well.
(Not that I'm implying that my ankles are a special reservoir of Christianity that the rest of my body lacks. However, my ankles are even more lacking in crap, piss, tar, hell or heck, so the aforementioned turn of phrase seems most appropriate)
Braunbeck and I stayed up all night Thursday night so that I could drive him to a late-morning doctor's appointment. Why did we do this in lieu of actually getting sleep? Well, everyone here's turned into such a bunch of night owls that we've not been getting to sleep until 6 or 7 in the morning. Thus, it seemed logical to just stay up.
On the plus side, I got a lot of work done that night, and we were able to get a decent breakfast and run some errands before going downtown to the doctor's office. All good, so far, except that we both moaned "Argh! Daystar bad!" the moment the first bright early-morning sunrays hit my windshield and blinded us.
At the doctor's office, however, Braunbeck got some bad news. His wrist tendinitis has gone way beyond anything medicines can help, and he needs surgery yesterday. So the doc sent him on his way with new, stronger prescriptions and stern instruction to make an appointment with a surgeon immediately (which he did and he's seeing a surgeon on Monday)
But when we got to CVS, I started feeling quite queasy. Was it the unaccustomed sun? The lack of sleep? The multiple cups of strong coffee on top of a big, greasy breakfast at Bob Evans? Probably a combination of all. I took some Tums and went to sleep right when we got home, and when I got up I that afternoon I was feeling much better.
But not Braunbeck. He was sick, and couldn't keep anything down. It could be his new meds, but he has to be able to take them or he's in excruciating pain, can't move his hand, and can't meet his deadlines ... and if he doesn't meet the deadlines, he'll have no way to pay for his medicines or surgery. Welcome to the lovely world of a freelancer without health insurance.
I went to the store and got him some ginger ale, saltines, and jello. He already had Pepto Bismol, but it wasn't working. After I brought the groceries back and got him a bit more settled, I ran over to midnighter's house so I could give him a ride back from dropping his van off at his mechanic's.
I got back to the house around 5 a.m., and I wanted nothing more than sleep. But the vast quanitities of dirty dishes in the bedroom bugged me, so I gathered them up and took them downstairs.
Whereupon I slipped on the stairs and fell, twisting my ankle and smashing most of said dishes. Ironically, the most delicate glass in the bunch survived without a chip.
I hadn't sprained my ankle in many years, and I'd forgotten how painful such sprains are. At first I was afraid I'd broken it, but /jen, who is a nurses' assistant and in nursing school, took a look at it and said it likely wasn't broken. Yay, no emergency room visit for me!
I wrapped it and iced it for a while, took some Advil, then went to bed. It's much better today, though walking is problematic. And Braunbeck's still very sick to his stomach. And /jen woke up with a cold and a horrible headache.
Bad luck? Maybe. But all of this could have been worse; a sprained ankle is the least of things I could have done to myself falling on the stairs.
At least I have been saved from the terrible secret of space ....