A story of de'feet

Not my de'feet, thankfully.  Everything is going well on The Plan, but since I am running after work today there's not much to report.  Although remember how yesterday I pretended to quit because I hadn't lost a single solitary ounce after half a day on The Plan?   Not sure if I mentioned that yesterday I logged my highest weight in about two years, but this morning I got on the scale out of curiosity and I've lost 2.8 lbs.  Since yesterday.  I know that either yesterday or today was an anomaly and that I haven't really gained or lost that much since yesterday (since I'm not a Biggest Loser contestant or anything), but I still find it amusing.  And if I haven't lost another 2.8 lbs by tomorrow, I'm quitting!!

Anyhow, back to de'feet.  Since I have little to report on The Plan other than an incredibly boring recitation of what I ate yesterday and how many calories that was and what percentage of carbs and protein and fat, I thought instead I would tell a story.  That's how much I care.

A few years ago, my stepdad broke both his legs.  Funny, yeah?  Well, maybe just funny to us because it's kind of par for the course in our family.  Right up there with "remember the time grandpa was using a chainsaw in a windstorm and he almost cut his own head off?  No, not the time he was using a chainsaw in a windstorm and almost cut his own leg off, the other time."  I'm not making any of those up either.  Okay, back to the story. 

It was a few days before his and my mom's birthday -- they're born on the same day, but several years apart.  It was a milestone-type birthday for one of them, 55 or 65, something like that, so they were planning to have a big BBQ that weekend.  I was trying to figure out if I could swing a trip up there for it (it's a five hour plus drive, not fun for just a weekend trip). 

So, on a Tuesday I think, my mom was in the house canning and my stepdad was out in the barn hauling stuff up to the loft because they were having a BBQ and wanted to clean house.  At this point in time -- and this is crucial to this part of the story -- there were no stairs up to the loft.  To get up to the loft, you had to climb to the top of a twelve foot ladder.  Not just up to the top, but stand on the top rung top of the ladder.  Can you see where this is going?  I thought so.  Usually when doing something potentially dangerous my parents work together, but there was some timeline factoring in to the canning so he was out in the barn by himself.  Without carrying one of the walkie-talkies I bought them years ago just for this reason, but we'll overlook that. 

He gets up to the top of the ladder and it wobbles.  He slips.  He slides down the ladder.  Not like wheeeee!!! on your butt, let's go again that was fun, slide down the ladder.  This was slide down the ladder, scrape all the skin off your shins on the way down.  Which he did.  However, that was actually a good thing because if he had fallen off the ladder, he would have impaled himself on the John Deere tractor that was parked underneath the loft.  We like to make things challenging in our family. 

He slides down the ladder and hits the concrete with both feet.  Breaking one of his shin bones (I forget which) and his heel bone in one leg, and then shattering his ankle in the other leg.   Because when we do something, we do it in a big way. 

So there he is, on the floor of the barn, two broken legs (although he doesn't know they're atually broken but he can't put weight on one leg for certain).  He now has to crawl 30 feet or so across the barn floor -- concrete, not sure if wood planks would have been better for any of this -- to get to the door of the barn so that he can try to get my mom's attention.  Luckily for him, not only does the kitchen window face the barn door but my mom is in the kitchen at the time.  She manages to get him another 20 feet or so across the gravel driveway and up into their SUV; my mom is about 5'4", my stepdad is at least six feet and around 250 lbs.  Off they go to the ER, 40 minutes away.

This is when I get a call, my mom telling me he's fallen off the ladder in the barn.  My first thoughts are, he had another heart attack and that's why he fell, or he broke his back when he fell (which happened to a neighbor of ours back in Issaquah).  Luckily no, just maybe a broken leg.  You think?  Long story long, he gets a cast on one leg, an airboot on the other, and something like 26 pins in his ankle.  He has to travel with an MRI scan of the pins so they can match them up and confirm there's no 27th pin as a bomb.  He wasn't very diligent with the rehab on his ankle so he walks kind of stiff now.

Now, I told you this story to tell you this one.  Over the past couple of months, his foot has been bothering him, the one where he shattered his ankle and has all those pins in it.  Being that he is a man, my mom had to push him into going to the doctor to see what was going on.  They figured it was a problem stemming from his ankle.  Turns out, he has a piece of metal in his heel.  Not from the ankle pins; from walking around barefoot in the garage and stepping on a piece of metal.  Because he has lizard feet like most men do, he never noticed he'd stepped on something until it worked its way about a half an inch into his foot and was pressing against his heel bone, causing the pain.  He had foot surgery last week and they pulled out a half inch long piece of wire.  I know, because my mom made them save it so she could see what the hell was in his foot.

Moral of the story?  First and foremost, the weirdest stuff amuses me.  After I got over the concern of he hadn't had a heart attack or was going to die or be paralyzed, I thought it was funny as hell.  Only he would manage to fall down a twelve foot ladder and break both his legs.  Actually, it was more like only he would think it was a good idea to climb to the very top of a twelve foot ladder, next to a big ass tractor.  He'd made me go up there several times, and that was before the loft even had a floor.  (And I'm deathly phobic about heights.)  Poetic justice, as far as I was concerned.  The loft now has stairs, by the way. 

Second, always do stupid stuff with a buddy.  Or the walkie talkies your daughter oh so thoughtfully bought you years ago because you think it's a good idea to climb to the very top of a twelve foot ladder. 

Third, pedicures are important, and they're not just for women.  Take care of your feet!  And while you're at it, trim those nasty long toenails.  The latter is just my pet peeve, but really.  They're gross.  This is why runners lose toenails, you know.

Fourth, do I need to come up with better stories?  I got a lot of them.  Besides the chainsaw in a windstorm incidents, there's the time the wheel came off our SUV.  As we were going 60 mph.  Or the time he got so annoyed that a sticking car door wouldn't open that he ripped the handle right off the inside.  That was a few seconds before one of us pointed out that the door was locked at the time.  Ah yes.  My childhood.  It's full of beautiful memories.

And this is cheaper than therapy.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl