On Wednesday morning, I woke up and thought, "Oh hey, I don't have class until 12:30 today, I should go for a walk today and maybe try a little running." I have joint issues and I've been doing ankle strengthening exercises so that I can exercise more. So I went on my walk and threw in a little running just to see how it went. It went impressively well so I was proud. I went back to my ger feeling pretty good and got ready to go to class. I put on a pair of hose that, according to the woman who sold them to me, are supposed to be one size fits all, but let me tell you, that was definitely not the case. I made the shoe choice of flats instead of heels and felt pretty good about that too. Around 12:15, I headed out to the kindergarten to teach my class and eat some lunch.
Before I made it out of the yard, I was suddenly falling down with a rather horrible noise coming from my right ankle. I collapsed on the ground in a mixture of shock and pain. I laid on the ground for a couple minutes trying to compose myself. No tears, mainly just hyperventilating until I could breathe normally again. I sat on the ground for awhile checking to make sure I could wiggle my toes and not pass out from the effort, both successful endeavors. Since my cellphone broke about a week before this, I was stuck in the yard unless I could get someone to help me. I called for my hashaa family, but they didn't hear me. After sitting there for 15 minutes, I decided to see if I could get up because I could wiggle my toes and I thought that maybe the pain was just the initial shock. That was a terrible idea because the moment I put a little weight on my foot, I had the overwhelming to pass out and throw up so I sat back down, waited for it to pass, and decided to wait until someone came by to help me out.
Eventually my hashaa dad drove up and asked me what I was doing. He thought I was sitting down just waiting for the outhouse because I was sitting right outside it but I told him I was hurt and couldn't get up. We called in reinforcements, got me up and hopping to my ger, and called Peace Corps. In true Mongolian fashion, I iced my ankle with vodka bottles. I was told to go into Erdenet to get an x-ray and depending on how that went, I might have to go into UB. I packed and headed into Erdenet where I got an x-ray, confirmed that it's not broken, and was instructed to go into UB for more tests. I channeled my inner kangaroo and hopped onto the night train because the hospital in Erdenet doesn't have crutches, of course our car was pretty much as far away from the station. Luckily PC decided it would be safer for me to travel in with someone so they arranged for another PCV to come in with me to help with my hopping and carrying things in. All of that hopping led to an incredible burning in the hopping leg - I'm going to have a ripped left calf muscle at least.
Finally I made it to the PC office in UB, got crutches so I could stop hopping everywhere, and got a few more x-rays. It's my first time on crutches so I'm learning a lot - the crutches always go first and I didn't know I had so many muscles in my arms that could get sore from using them. I sprained my ankle enough that I can't walk on it yet but not badly enough to send me to an orthopedic. So for now I'm pretty much confined to the guesthouse because everything in this country is up a flight or two of stairs and that's really hard to manage in a boot with crutches. When people go out to get food, usually I can pass along money and have people bring me back food. I'll probably head back on the train Monday night and finally get back to site Tuesday afternoon. I'm starting to write the alphabet with my foot to work on range of motion so I should be up and walking soon.
The best part about being confined to a guest house is that there's free wifi here. Essentially while resting my ankle and working on being able to walk again, I watch the most recent season of Bones. The biggest question in my life right now is what show to watch after Bones. Silver lining, my friends.
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