Scene One: Saturday before last, I was walking in
Lick Creek with my
Giant Puppy, Suki, and
my friend Laurie and her smaller, but very
solid dog Smorfi. Suki and Smorfi had hung back to sniff something as Laurie and I continued down the path, and then came running full tilt to pass us. Only, Giant Puppy is still a bit clumsy, and ran all 110 pounds of herself, at a full run, smack into the backs of my knees. She kept going, but I lost my balance, twisted sideways, and fell onto my butt on the side of the path. I was fine, but I had twisted my ankle a bit in going down. It swelled up that night, was sore but better the next day. Over the next week and a half, every once in a while I'd do something that would remind me that I'd twisted my ankle.
Scene Two: A week or so ago, I thought of an old friend that I used to hang out with when I was finishing my first undergraduate degree at
Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. This would have been 1988-89. I could not remember her name, but I wondered what had ever happened to her.
Scene Three: Yesterday, Husband and I were enjoying the lovely weather with a little break at Starbuck's, sitting outside. The dry spell had broken, we'd had some rain, and now it was clear and pleasant temperature. Between the weather change and my wearing boots I had not worn in a couple of weeks, my ankle was talking to me again. I mentioned this, and he said, well, let's go get it looked at and make sure it doesn't have a stress fracture or anything. He called our primary doc, whose voicemail told us he was out of the office attending to an emergency. I called my chiropractor, who can xray and treat the ankle, but was unsure if my insurance would cover it. So we decided that the most expedient way to get it looked at, and paid for by insurance, was to go to the Emergency Room. We'd had a really good experience with The Daughter at the newest hospital in our area,
The Physician's Centre, which is also doctor-owned. It's a bit off the beaten path, and is quite small, so we figured their ER would be the best choice, and the least busy. We finished our errands, went home and had a bite to eat, ran another errand, and headed to the PC's ER.
Scene Four: The attending nurse buzzed us into the tiny ER, took one look at me and said, "You look very very familiar to me. [pause] Sam Houston. And Houston." and I took one look at her and said, "Oh my God. Laura. Laura Peacock!" This was the very friend from SHSU I'd been thinking of a week or so ago. Turns out she's been an RN for 11 years and has lived in the area for 17 years, and somehow we had *never* run into each other!
I told her I'd thought of her just a week or so ago, couldn't think of her name, but as soon as I looked at her the name came to me.
She told me that a week or so ago, she was going through some stuff and found a book I'd given her when she got her first puppy, a black lab named Hassan. I'd inscribed the book, so she looked at it and thought, "Huh. I wonder what ever happened to Gigi?"
And I said, "Well, that must have been why I was thinking of you, because you found that book and thought of me!"
How's THAT for serendipity!?!
Oh, my ankle? It's fine. The xrays didn't show any fractures, the range of motion is good, the pain is minimal. The doc said there is a little ligament that runs from *here* to *here* (the exact two spots that hurt) and it is the most commonly torn or pulled thing when people twist their ankles. So he told me to take ibuprofen and gave me an aircast to compress it, and told me to stay off it for three days, no long dog walks or whatnot. And still hurting after a week and a half is normal, strains take 4-6 weeks to completely heal. So no worries!
