A Funny Thing Happened On My Way...

So, maybe not so funny in a Zero Mostel kind of way.  But it was just funny/weird.  Saturday afternoon found me in the back yard pulling a huge patch of Yellow Nutsedge from right in front of the deck steps.  Our yard needs mowing and the Yellow Nutsedge only exaggerated that fact since it was growing about four times the height of the regular grass.  Plus throw in that it's almost a neon green color and it get's pretty noticeable that we've been neglecting our yard for the past few weeks.  Okay, month.  It's just been too hot to even think about doing any yard work, let alone actually doing it.  What's so sad about that is we have a riding lawnmower which the only effort or physical labor required is to haul one of our keasters up onto the seat and turn a key.  Yes, it has an electric starter.  I know.  Pathetic. 

The Daughter was a big help.  She was out there helping me pull the Nutsedge and 99% of the time she pulled the weeds instead of the grass.  But like most three-year-olds she quickly tired of that game and wandered back inside to see what the other daddy was doing.  She may become a manager when she grows up as she would wander out every few minutes or so, look over my shoulder and ask "What doin' Daddy?"  After about the sixth bagillion time of her asking me that same question, I finally wised up and started asking her "what is Daddy doing?"  Her answer?  "I don't know."  After a while, neither did I.

I quickly filled a 13 gallon trash bag with the Yellow Nutsedge and then headed around the deck to see what weeds were coming up in the small rose bed around one corner of the deck.  A mere inches from my destination, I stepped on what can only be described as a railroad spike in our back yard which is surprising because I'm sure I would have noticed something that large sticking up out of the ground.  Within a fraction of a second, my foot was buzzing like I had stepped on the queen mother of all angry hornets and I went flying into the house to run cold water over said foot in a futile effort to numb everything from the ankle down as best as could in the absence of any narcotics in the house.

Four hours pass and it feels like a 50 pound weight has been dropped on my foot.  Daughter is ready for bed and I hobble of to the local Doc-in-a-Box to have things checked out.  You know, just to make sure that some rogue spider hadn't laid eggs in my toe.  Or that I wasn't going to die from tetanus.  (And just so you know, none of this is the funny part.)  I fully expected to get there and have to wait for at least 10 hours to see a doctor, but I didn't think it was anything worth an emergency room visit just to have $150.00 extracted from my bank account.

My wait was less than 10 minutes.  A nurse came out to take me to an exam room, get some initial readings: blood pressure, temperature, heat rate and asked me a few preliminary questions.  Reason for visit, what medications I take, and am I at risk for HIV or hepatitis?  I paused for a second and said "Well, I am gay. And according to the blood banks, even though I've been in the same relationship for the past ten years, that puts me in a high risk group."  And here's the funny part, she laughed.  She said "that doesn't put you at an higher risk automatically.  Your behavior does."  Wow.  So there are thinking people in Indiana.  They didn't all move out to the coasts.  Or Chicago.

The doctor came in shortly thereafter and had to get magnifying goggles to see what ever it was that was in my toe.  She worked something so tiny out that I couldn't see it on her finger.  It seems that whatever it was had directly hit a nerve ending.  Boy did it ever! Waves of something akin to an electric jolt would rack my foot every few minutes.  There was also talk of a puss pocket forming in just four short hours.  Glad I didn't wait until the next day to go have it checked out.

With a prescription for vicodin and and an antibiotic in hand I drove over to the 24 hour pharmacy to get myself drugged so I could at least sleep that night.  And the next day, and the day after. And the day after that.  Yes, today was the first full day of work I've done all week.  Only six more days of antibiotics to go.  The painkiller went by the wayside after the second day.  Footwear while out in the yard... here to stay.