I had hoped my leg wasn't broken.

Two weeks ago Saturday, I finally got it together to dismast Le Menagerie, our Rhodes 22, which has been moored across the turning basin from 'Div. I'm trying to get it on the trailer, cleaned up and sold.

It was a warm day, and I was in shorts and flip flops. Stepping aboard, I put a foot on the starboard gunwhale and, ZIP! my left leg shot out from under me, contacting the gunwhale edge with a sickening crunch.

It was one of those moments like when I fell over the Commanders lifelines, and I popped up as quickly as possible to avoid the embarrassment of lying there in a heap with other dock people snickering.....

I immediately went to work taking off the mainsail, boom, sheets etc. Glancing down a few minutes later I noticed that my leg was swollen at the site of impact with a lump about the size of half of a haas avocado.....I showed it to D and wondered if I should go and have the thing x-rayed.

About that time, the phone rang and the whole landscape changed, owing to the fact that her "remmitance man" brother was in the hospital, a victim of self induced delirium. I won't make further commentary regarding this.

Of course, that became top priority.

Like a true imbicile, there I was hanging around in the hospital e-room in McAllen, an ice pack on my leg, too stubborn to get an x-ray....I figured either it'd heal, or it wouldn't.

So for the next week, I layed off, and it slowly got better. The ankle and leg swole up like it was snakebitten, and a glorious black hematoma pooled near my heal.

Then last Saturday, I waltzed the hated lawnmower across the hated lawn, and during the earlier part of this week....made several trips up and down the stairs of the Cameron County Commissioners courthouse. Starting about Wednesday the leg began to swell, and the pain got, well, exponentially more severe. To the point of being truly awesome. No amount of acetimenophen, aspirin or naprocin could take the edge off. I couldn't sleep, and I was getting grouchier than usual...

Yesterday I finally decided I couldn't take any more, so we went to the clinic after work, and got the dreaded x-rays.

Fractured in two places.

....And worries of compartment syndrome too.

Fortunately neither fracture looks too awfully severe....One at the site of impact, an incomplete break, and another, more severe complete fracture (with bone fragment) in the ankle,

The x-rays are being evaluated by the orthopedic surgeon, and I guess we'll know more in a few days. So far, no cast, but I am on crutches, and have been told to stay off of it.

Right.

How do I get on and off of Olivia with crutches?

How do I do the bottom job that I need so badly? 

I just got over appendicitis, and now this.

I better get out there before I can't. It's more dangerous at the dock anyway.