“Don’t run in the house.”

It’s an adage that I’ve heard countless time in my lifetime, and I now find myself repeating the same words but from the standpoint of authority.

I should have heeded the advice that was given, and the advice that I give.

For some reason I thought that it was okay to run through the living room with a 4-year-old boy on my shoulders as his sister sprinted away shrieking.

I believe “get her” might have been uttered.

But when I rounded the corner from the kitchen, the ottoman was slightly off kilter and caught my baby toe as I sprinted past.

I kept going and the toe stayed affixed to askew piece of furniture.

At first it hurt just like a stubbed toe, but when I looked down – still balancing this ramped-up 4-year-old on my shoulders – I could see that it was jutting out sharply from my foot.

I stumbled and fortunately caught myself, and when I walked into my room where my wife was relaxing, recovering from an illness, I told her distinctly that “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

This isn’t an uncommon thing because I’m the person who thinks a splinter requires an ambulance ride. But just like when I blew my out my ACL skiing, I could feel that there was something seriously wrong.

When I sat down I noticed blood trickling down my foot and onto my carpet – the 8-year-old had the honor of removing the spots I tracked down the hallway with Resolve – and it wasn’t until I looked closer that I saw what I had done.

I broke my toe so badly that I ripped open the webbing between the fourth-and-fifth toes on my right food.

And when an inquisitive wife who works in the healthcare field and finds the things that most people would believe are gross fascinating looks at your gash and your mangled metacarpal and gives the “ooohhhhh” – you know that it’s bad.

So off to the Emergency Room at Memorial Medical Center I go. Driving of course because I had to get there and the kids needed to be tended to. My car is still in that parking lot.

In all I spent seven hours at the hospital. It took three hours before they even called me up to take my insurance information – giving me plenty of time to get X-rayed and realize that contemporary pain killers aren’t doing a damn thing to stop this “discomfort.”

When the Physician’s Assistant finally did take a look at my foot and the X-rays, she was blunt about the fact that I might need surgery to fix this one.

Wonderful.

Now, this is where I should point out that I absolutely hate needles. I can’t give blood because I pass out from anxiety and I have to look away from the television anytime one flashes onto the screen.

And in order to sew up my foot, she was going to have to numb it – sticking said needle into and around the cut and the massively swollen toe.

It wasn’t good. It hurt. And apparently Lidocaine and Marcaine cause bleeding, which didn’t make things look any better.

In the end I ended up on crutches with a funky looking shoe and have spent the last three days icing a toe that has turned every color of the rainbow and throbs at will.

Today I have an appointment with a podiatrist that is going to numb my leg and try to “set” the break and keep it in place so that surgery can be avoided.

I have a feeling this isn’t going to be good.

The moral of the story? Don’t run in the house.

If only I would have listened. 



To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.