Ouch!

Day 3, June 29, 2009

I got to my dig site and was assigned a new square, same grid, different section. (Imagine graph paper. Each square on the paper is a 10m by 10 m that is a “square,” then a grid is made up of those squares). So, I am in a new section and about 30 minutes into being there I am bringing back more gufas (buckets) to fill with dirt and I slip off the rocks aka stairs.

Gufas go flying and my ankle goes twisting! Ouch! I immediately start to sob out of frustration, embarrassment and pain. As I mentioned before, everyone is so nice, in a minute I had people help me up and sit in a place where I could elevate my ankle. One girl told me stories of her clumsy moments to lighten my mood (it helped), because of the quick swelling and bruising I was taken to the hospital.

Let’s just say as mentioned before Israel and America have different standards of cleanliness. After waking the hospital staff we got in to see the doctor. He told us (me and Laura aptly named “dig mom” to go to x-ray room, which according to his directions, “take a right then a left.” As if we frequent this hospital often. The x-rays came back and the doctor said when I sprained my ankle the ligaments came away from one bone and pulled another bone with them…to me that sounds bad, to him he didn’t seem bothered, a nurse lightly wrapped it and the doctor instructed us to get an ankle brace.

We spent the next two hours running back and forth between pharmacies looking for an ankle brace. One pharmacy had a left foot brace (my sprain is on the right), one had a small brace (for a size 6-7 shoe) and the rest had the compression socks (no support). We ended up with a cane and an ace wrap. I cannot walk on it and am in the process of sending the x-rays to my doctor in the states for a second opinion. There is lots of bruising, but the swelling has gone down.

So for the rest of the day I am stuck in my room watching Israeli TV and reading/blogging. I am praying for a quick recovery, we have a field trip on Friday and I really hope I am able to walk by then. Please pray for a good attitude, I am frustrated now and never realized how inconvenient being immobilized can be for a person. Tyler is wonderful, he brought me lunch and slept next to me during his break. I hope tomorrow is a better day.

I will post pictures tomorrow: my book bag with my camera was left at the dig site, so I cannot upload pictures yet.