This Pain Was Toe-tally Unexpected

I wonder how many stories about mishaps start with the phrase "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Except in this case, it really was a good idea--just one, I suppose, that needed slightly better execution.

I had a gig this afternoon, in a part of Dallas that's not too far away from my church, just a few hours after church let out. Since I didn't want to make the trip from home to almost-downtown twice, and since the intervening time would allow me to have lunch at Zuzu along the way, it made sense to me to turn it into one big excursion.

But the thing is, I'm not used to taking a lot of things with me to church, and certainly not the four things (bari sax, bari stand, music stand, and flute) that I'd need to bring to this gig. And since I tend to be a little slow on Sunday mornings, I could totally see myself running out the door without any of the gig stuff, which would require the double round-trip. So I decided it was best to leave everything near the door, just in case.

Looking back, I probably could have just done what I did last night--leave the music stand near the door--and I would have remembered everything else. But when I got up this morning, I decided to be efficient and move the rest of the stuff to the front.

And when I did that...well, I thought I had left myself plenty of room to walk back and forth to the kitchen, but I guess not. Because right before I was about to leave, I managed to walk right into the bari stand (which was sitting on the floor parallel to the bari case), whacking the living daylights out of my right little toe in the process. (In a fit of clumsiness that's not altogether foreign to me, I also managed to get somewhat snagged in the stand after running into it, which gave my left ankle a much gentler smacking as well.)

It hurt like crazy, of course, and I said a few choice unSundaylike words right afterwards, but I could find no immediate evidence of damage. Still, I decided on shoes rather than sandals for the immediate future; it might hurt more, but at least I'd be protected from any further damage. (And while at church, I found the most remote part of the balcony so that I could have a row to myself--this made it much easier to slip out of my shoe and sock, to let it "breathe" and check for any signs of swelling or bruising, though none was found.) And I was most happy to get a very close-in parking space at my gig; it was all street parking, so that was very much in doubt until I got there.

But when I got home from my gig about six hours later, there was in fact a fairly substantial bruise. There was not, however, a ridiculous amount of swelling, so after a bit of research, I've decided to play things by ear and see how things are going in the morning, hoping all the while that the bruise is just that, and not a sign of a fracture. I've done some ice and elevation, and being out of shoes for the past six hours has helped a lot (and with tomorrow's holiday, I don't technically have to put a shoe on again until Tuesday morning).

So wish me luck; with the schedule I have for the next several months, this is something that needs to be able to heal quickly and on its own. And while I'm walking carefully (and watching my step, of course), I haven't really had to limp for the past several hours like I did when I was in shoes; needless to say, I had more than a few unpleasant flashbacks to last year's knee injury when I was hobbling around.

More as things develop...