Don't Break Your Foot in New Jersey

I broke my fifth metatarsal on December 31, 2001. On January 1, 2002, I had it x-rayed and set, and I spent that semester, until my Spring Break in Paris, in a cast cleverly painted with orange flames by my artistic roommate, Lori. It was a pain, but I managed, with the help of the roomies and the USC shuttle bus, the drivers of which knew me by name within a few weeks. I relaxed on the couch with my fire-engine red hair and my casted leg propped up on the armrest, typing on my laptop. I finagled a bookbag that rested on the small of my back so as not to throw me off balance. I got my shower time down to ten minutes: garbage bag, blue artist's tape, plastic bench to sit on in the tub, leg propped up on the side.

Walking with crutches is sort of like riding a bike. I suspect that once you've learned how to maneuver, you never really forget, so when you have to do it again, you pick it up easier, get stronger faster, and don't have to try as hard to figure out how to go up steps or carry your purse.

--

Saturday night. 11:15 PM. Lower East Side of Manhattan. Walking across a small street on our way to a milonga. Two sets of dance shoes in purse. Pothole.

The pain that I felt when I first felt myself falling from twisting my foot on the pothole I don't really remember. I remember not being able to feel my foot and not being able to really breathe. I remember grabbing Sasan's arm, sort of, and knowing that I couldn't put weight on my foot as he helped me to the curb. I sat on the planter under the streetlight and he took off my espadrilles, and I gasped for air. I looked down and saw the purple bump on my left foot, growing bigger and purpler with every minute. The more I sat, the more I could feel the pain, until I knew that this wasn't a bruise. 'Do you want me to call a cab and go to a hosptial?" "Yes," I said weakly.

Sasan carried me to the side of the road and the cab pulled up and drove us a few blocks to New York Downtown Hospital. The staff put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me down the hall to the ER. My foot was swollen and bruised, shaking from the strain of keeping it elevated. A man and a woman approached me, took my blood pressure, temperature, and got my statistics: name, birthdate, date of last menstrual period...the man tied an ice pack onto my foot, which felt instantly relieved. Both nurses talked to me at once, but slowly, as if in a leisurely conversation, and I couldn't see straight to answer both of them. "What medications are you on?" "Ortho tricyclen-lo" The elderly nurse offered me a tablet to write the name down. "It's birth control," I said, puzzled. "Oh, well, I don't need any of that, so that's why I don't know what it is."

They wheeled me into a room with a bed and turned me around. I gave them more information, signed a release, gave them my Aetna card. It took forever, and I sat there in the curtained room, crying, looking at my iced foot, holding Sasan's hand. "Maybe it's not broken! It's probably just twisted or something," he offered optimistically. I looked at my foot dully and shook my head. I've broken it before. I had a hunch it wasn't just bruised.

The wheeled me into the x-ray room. The man gestured to the table with a pillow at one end. "Should I sit up there?" "Yeah," he said, "Your head..." "My head goes there or my foot goes there?" "Your head." "On the pillow?" "Yeah." It seemed like a lot of effort just to find out which way to lay on the bed. He didn't wheel the chair over to the bad, so I got up and hopped on the bed. My foot--still raw and throbbing, still without painkillers, rested on the x-ray film. The technicion ripped the ice pack off; I cringed. For each x-ray, he moved my knee abruptly, causing me to gasp and cringe, clearly ina lot of pain. "I need you to put this side on the film" he said. "That side HURTSSSS" I gasped. He looked at me as if this had not occured to him. "Oh...sorry."

When that was done, he tried to put the ice pack back on, but didn't have any tape. So he wheeled me, sans ice, back to the waiting room. "Hey, this girl needs an ice pack, I didn't have any tape to re-tape this one back on." Nothing. I looked at Sasan. "Where's my ice pack?" "I have no idea..." He got up and asked the nurse, "Um, she needs an ice pack for her foot..they took it off..." The didn't exactly jump to attention, but they did hand him an ice pack, which he held onto my foot with two paper towels. I sobbed quietly in my wheelchair. At some pointthey gave me some percocet, but I don't remember when. The doctor approached. "You do have a fracture..." I sobbed more. Sasan droped his head and looked at the floor. I don't recall what other information she gave me, but it wasn't much. we had to ask what kind of fracture, what the next step was, who should I call in DC, what medication should I take, will it take long to heal, will I need a cast, should I keep it elevated...

She left to get some painkillers and I sat there crying in my wheelchair. I cried because it hurt and because a fractured metatarsal means no tango, no salsa, no swimming...for three months or hot, sticky, DC summer. Our weekend in New York was shot, we were going to be up all night figuring out hotels and cabs and prescriptions and busses and pharmacies. The doctor returned. "Mrs. Range!" she looked alarmed, "why are you crying?" I didn't answer, just looked at her, dumbfounded. I'll give you three guesses why I'm crying...

They wouldn't give me a percocet to go, although they did give me two and told me to take one or two every six hours. By this time it was 1 AM. Where is a 24 hour pharmacy? At 14th and 4th. But if we go there, we'll miss the bus to our hotel, which is in New Jersey. The man at the hospital desk called a cab, which came, but wasn't announced to us. He drove us to Port Authority, where we did get our bus. The bus driver was the same that had dropped us off that afternoon. His eyes widened: "What happened to you!" "She broke her foot..." He shook his head in utter sympathy.

The bus dropped us off, with all his condolences, at Hasbrouck Heights. We called the Hilton. "Could you please send a cab? One of us is on crutches." We waited, and waited, and waited, kept company by a wasted young man in a baseball cap who thought he should tell us all about where he was from and what he was doing in Jersey. I sat on the curb. Sasan looked at the pharmacy hours. We waited. We called the Hilton again. We waited. We called the Hilton again. Finally, a cab came, a big black car with a tall accented driver. Could we plase go to a pharmacy first and then to the Hilton? He seemed confused by our request, but obliged, looking up pharmaciies on his GPS. The CVS that was nearest to us was closed, opening at 10 AM on Sunday. He drove us to the Hilton. It was nearing 3 AM.

Now, the prospect of waking up the next morning without painkillers was unappealling. Sasan approached the concierge again. "Corey, my man, do you have any idea if there's another pharmacy near here open 24 hours?" There was! 6 miles away, he'd call a cab. We called the pharmacy, we called the cab, we waited. We waited. We waited. Sitting in the matte beige lobby at 3 AM, drugged up, sleepy, foot throbbing, sitting on the square, boring ottomans looking out the revolving doors into the blackness. Easy pop songs played over the speakers...2 am and she calls me cause I'm still awake...the revolving door thump thump thumps every time someone comes in. The cab approaches. Finally.

The driver was Persian, or his mother is Persian. He and Sasan exchanged pleasantries and he drove us past the previous CVS...two blocks. On our right hand side there's a RiteAid. It's open. Five blocks from our hotel is a 24 hour RiteAid.

The lady at the pharmacy slumped in her chair and raised her eyebrows, "On Sundays from 2 to 4 AM the computer doesn't work...so..." Sasan and I stare. "The computers don't work? We need some percocet...she just broke her foot...it's kind of important..." She sighs and says, "Well, I guess I could TRY the computers..." They worked. She filled the prescription. Ten bucks for Percocet, 2.50 for granola for the morning. $25 for the ride back to our hotel, five blocks.

At 6 AM I take two percocet and fall dead asleep, foot elevated on two of the Hilton's fluffy pillows, sheets wrapped around my body leaving my foot exposed. I would wake up thinking, "Where am I....Why does my foot hurt...Wait...Why is my foot broken?..." and fall back into a fitful sleep.

Don't break your foot in New Jersey.