Hopefully this is going to be the only post of its kind. At any rate, I’m determined not to write another like this no matter what happens, but since this is an accountability blog, and since it’s been four weeks since I posted anything, I thought I’d at least touch base with what life has been like in the interim.
Annus Horribilis.
That’s Latin for ‘horrible year.’ It looks, on the face of it, like ‘Anus Horribilis’ would be a better label for 2020, but it doesn’t translate.
Anyway, on a pleasant Saturday evening, the 23rd of May, what could be more pleasant than a walk in the last of the sun with the wife, kids and puppy, and a small glass of port?
Well, I learned the importance of appropriate footwear.
It’s been a good few years since I last broke a foot. It was November 11, 2007, at about half-past four in the afternoon. The wife and I were sitting inside our house on Fort Lewis when there was a screeching of tires, a sudden crashing sound, the creaking scream of a tree falling – that’s what it sounded like, anyway – and if we’d not reacted instinctively, looking toward the source of the commotion, we’d have noticed the TV go out. Along with everything else. As it does when some drunken idiot crashes off the road into the power pole serving your row of houses.
Anyway, of course I’m going to run out and see if I can help, but the second my right foot hits the ground outside the door, I’m not going to be running anywhere for about six or eight weeks. Broken fifth metatarsal on the right foot, all the way back by the ankle.
Metatarsal Physics.
This Saturday evening differed in many ways. I wasn’t running, nobody crashed any car to cause it, and while I’d had a couple of glasses of Port, the alcohol wasn’t a factor.
My right foot simply found a dip in the ground, possibly the bowl of a rabbit’s nest, and the sandals I was wearing offered no protection at all. The end result? Broken fifth metatarsal on the left foot, all the way back by the ankle. From now on I swear I’m going to wear combat boots everywhere.
It’s not a long walk from where we were back to the house – unless your foot’s broke. My dear wife took off, after giving me her port, to get the lawnmower and, after sitting and cursing not just 2020 but every mother’s son of it, plus all parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, children and grandchildren related to 2020 in any way, I rode back on that.
Next morning, after a night spent with the foot strapped up in an ankle brace, it was out to the VA Mountain Home Emergency Room, and one more reason to look back on that fateful day, when I raised my right hand to be sworn in, for me to think, ‘well, the following six years in the Army kinda sucked, but I’m glad I did it now!’ (If you’re interested, I mention a cut foot costing a sizeable wad of cash back in 2003 here.)
Out to Launch.
I’ve been doing an inordinate amount of sitting ever since, but I got to catch the Dragon launch to the ISS, so that’s something.
A Complicating Factor.
About the same time I got my crutches, I got quite an unpleasant eczema outbreak as well. Right across the exact appendages necessary for effective crutch usage.
That picture doesn’t show the worst of it, but this isn’t a gallery of my skin complaints. I’ll just share one more and get off this god awful subject, but before I do that, this breakout lasted two weeks and I drank water and drove on because I didn’t have any prednisone.
Turning Around?
There is some good news in all of this, although it only qualifies as ‘good news’ in the context of this being 2020. In a decent year… not so much, because even this bright spot is tinged sadness.
Just before I left for England, we were moving forward with the NRCS project. We’d got the water lines in and were setting up for grading. Our contractor, a great guy who was named – like most people around here it seems – David, had received a cancer diagnosis and was battling his way through it. The poor fellow very recently lost the fight through some complications which had delayed him in getting back to work with us. We were waiting for him because we liked him, he did a good job and with COVID-19 buggering everything up, we thought it’d be good for him to have paid work to look forward to, rather than for us to switch contractors just for the sake of time.
Well, his nephew is taking over the business and we’re back in the process of completing the project. So, one more faltering step toward becoming a viable sheep and lamb enterprise.
The V.A. Returns.
I’ve been back for one podiatry consult and have at least one more to look forward too in the not too distant future, although not soon enough for me because I’m impatient to get back to full function.
At that visit, the nice young lady, I’ll call her a Nurse but I don’t know if that’s her job title, said they’d have me shipped a bone growth stimulator.
Well, it arrived yesterday and here it is.
Last time I saw anything like this was during Basic Training, at the beginning of which we did so many push ups that my arms turned to jelly and I kept banging my knees on the concrete. Every morning I’d get yelled at when I reported for sick call, then I’d go to the TMC and get twenty minutes of ultrasound treatment for both my knees. In the end I had to request RTD because I hadn’t made the progress the Medics wanted, but I needed to PT test out – I sure as shit wasn’t going to stay at Benning a day longer than absolutely necessary. After not having run for weeks I ran my ass off and passed.
So much for reminiscing about the ‘good old days’ of Basic Training.
That’s what 2020 has come to…
Almost Summer.
Yup.
We’re not even half-way through this year yet. There’s been a Disney trip, I’ve lost my mother, the pandemic almost stranded me in England, the girl’s school shut down over half a semester early, a hundred thousand Americans have died of COVID-19, an unarmed black man has been murdered (allegedly) by white vigilantes, a sleeping black woman killed by Police who’d broken into the wrong house, another black guy killed in broad daylight in Minneapolis, global protests about racial inequity, riots and looting across the country, I’ve broke my foot, and we’re not even halfway through yet.
I dread to think what the rest of the year’s going to be like.
I hope for the best for us all.
Enjoy your week. I’ll be back when I actually achieve something noteworthy with the novel.
Andrew Wellington 
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