The X-ray Guy Says it’s a Mental Disorder

Oh, really?

So LATE Thanksgiving night, my family was all asleep and I was up planning my shopping strategy. When I went to go to bed, I climbed up on the window sill to turn off the really tall pole lamp that should be hooked up to some sort of normal-height light switch.

I fell down.

Hard.

All ---lbs of me, on the front of my left foot. It killed. It still kills!

Let me say there was no mercy for a poor cripple at the Day After Thanksgiving Sales, no mercy whatsoever.

It slowly started to get better but when I woke up yesterday morning, it was hurting again and I thought, “What the hay? We’ve got the best insurance in the world. I might as well go to the Doctor and let him have a look-see.” He referred me to the Urgent Care facility so I went late at night after the kids were in bed and so the experience would sound more dramatic and urgent on my blog.

Once I got there, I was really embarrassed. I wasn’t urgent and I really didn’t need much care and it probably wasn’t broken anyway. But they took the pictures and I must say I was startled at the loveliness of my bone structure. I have exquisite feet!

It was getting awkward in the little room with the X-ray guy as he kept taking pictures of my perfect feet in silence so I started blabbing away. I thought, “What do me and this guy have in common? Why, X-rays of course!”

So here’s where I got into trouble. I started telling him my history of X-rays. When I was in early elementary school I had a dream. Bobby-Joe Somebody-or-other had shown up at school with a cast on his leg and received no end of attention for weeks. Everyone got to use the Forbidden Sharpie Markers to sign all over his cast how much they liked him, BFF, Keep in Touch, U R A Q-T, etc.

I wanted a cast so bad that I started throwing myself out of trees in an attempt to break something. My mother put an end to this one day after watching me from the dining room window, climb to the crook of the tree in our front yard, stand stalk still with my arms outstretched and fall like a log to the ground….several times.

The problem was, I was too chicken to really “go all the way”, so I would bend my knees and catch my fall right before the bone-jarring landing.

I stopped taking the falls after our little "talk" but every time I got hurt in the slightest, I would beg her to take me to the doctor, limping around for days saying that I KNEW! THIS TIME IT WAS BROKEN. She’d take me in for X-rays. They’d say I had a contusion and send me home, a very disappointed little girl. (I was really impressed with the diagnosis at first. Until my mom said, “A contusion is a bruise, Katie. Get in the car.”)

Lots of X-rays in my formative years, no protective lead helmet. Explains a lot, eh?

…And I’m telling all of this to the X-ray guy whose job it is to see if I have a broken bone or not.

Me: Yeah, I used to always try to get a broken bone so I could get a cast. I would throw myself out of trees and ram into things. Pretty hilarious, huh? Heh heh….. um…. yeah…..”

X-Man: You know that’s a real disease?

Me: Huh?

X-Man: Yeah, that’s a mental illness.

Me: Um, yeah. I was seven.

X-Man: (silence)

Me: I don’t do that anymore. I never get x-rays. I haven’t gotten an x-ray for as long as I can remember. Except earlier this year when my son was born. But then, we thought he’d damaged my pelvis so……(blabbing on and on and on)

X-Man: (silence)

Me: Yeah. He was 10lbs 8oz.

X-Man: (silence)

Me: Yeah so this experience reminds me a lot of that one. Ha ha. (nervous laughter)

X-Man: Hmm?

Me: Well, like I kept telling everyone he was really big and they didn’t believe me and I thought that if he really was big that would be good because “I’d show them” but then if he was small that would be good too because…um…he’d be small and the labor would be easy and that’s like this experience because…um…because…um…well, it would be a good thing if my foot isn’t broken, but then if it is broken it would be good because I wouldn’t feel so dumb for coming in here and then I’d get the help I need.

X-man at this point is walking out of the room and motions for me to follow him.

The doctor looked at the X-ray and his diagnosis was not mental illness but a “sprain”, which is the appendage equivalent of a “virus.” As in, “Dude. Your foot hurts. Go home.” But to make me feel better, he did prescribe a “special shoe.” I have an actual prescription for a “Bunion Boot.”

Problem is, I can’t find anyone who will fill the prescription so I have no “special shoe” pictures to show you. But when I do, no “Run Forrest, Run!” jokes, okay?