Bionic Rubber Foot

It's been awhile since I posted so without further fanfare, I present to you the story of The Bionic Rubber Foot.  Complete with pictures.

It was a sultry day in August.. the first of my two days off.  I agreed to accompany my good friend and her 3 small children to a lake for some swimming.  Know this, I'm not much of a swimmer and murky lakes make my head spin.  However it sounded like a good idea at the time.

We had to park a ways off, as the parks and rec don't let you drive right down by the body of water.  For some reason they don't want you to be able to escape quickly.  This particular body of water was more like a swamp, and I was not impressed.  Come time to have bathroom issues, and whoa....nowhere to go.  Either get in the water or go behind a tree.  When tree's are only 12 inches in diameter and your ass is at least 24 inches in diameter, well you do the math.

Getting in the water was another thing entirely.  There was a steep embankment to slide down, or you could jump in.  She convinced me to jump.. I got a running start and for those of you who know me, I don't run.  It was more like a "waddling" start.  I propelled myself off the edge, but not far enough.  Mid flight, the right foot crooked back and struck the side of the bank.  I hit the water... and I knew something was very wrong.  I held my foot up out of the water... it was gushing blood and split wide open on the inside.


She freaked out.. calling for help.. managed to get someone in the water to try and rescue me.  I'm not a swimmer, and with my foot half hanging off it was even worse.

I was placed on a floating device and drug up the bank by a young man.  I was loaded into the back of a pick up truck and driven out of there to meet up with an ambulance.  There was no phone service out there and someone had driven ahead to call them.  My poor friend was loading up kids and dogs... gathering our stuff... One man held my head and another held my foot.. they were both named Jeff.  That is all I know.  We rendezvoused with the ambulance and the rest of the trip was spent with them trying to get an IV into my arm.  They wanted to cut my clothes off and I told them not to.  We arrived at the hospital, the next thing I remember was having an ER doctor in my face.  He informed me I would be sent to Spokane to a bigger hospital as my injuries were too severer for them to handle and he was fearing I would lose my foot.

Calls were placed, morphine was administered, an ambulance picked me up and hauled me up North.  I spent 2 weeks in the hospital, on copious amounts of antibiotics to prevent infection in the bone from the dirty water, 3 surgeries later and that was that.  I left with my foot still attached.. albeit unable to walk on it.

This picture is the repair on the inside where the foot exploded.  Bones flew out and all of the cartilage in my ankle.

This is the outside of the foot where the 3rd surgery was performed to insert hardware and repair the bones.

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Hence my bionic rubber foot, which will never be the same.  I shall forever be stricken with arthritis in my ankle and walk with a limp.  Some men find that attractive, I just don't know who they are :)