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I Do Not Fucking Have Time For This Shit or How Many More Ways Can I Break Myself?

To say that I was in a precarious position was an understatement.

I was in the bathroom, trying desperately to pull my pants up from around my ankles. Made more difficult by the fact that these were my work pants, weighed down with tools and an impressive wad of keys. Made monumentally more difficult by the fact that I was doing all this on one leg while trying not to let anything touch or jar my left foot. All while I’m cursing and Kyle’s standing outside the door yelling, “Are you okay in there?” and a nurse is laughing hysterically.

This is, after all, what happens when one gets a bladder infection and a possibly-broken toe within a 36 hour period.

The bladder infection is bad enough. I’m prone to them, being equally bad about staying hydrated and relieving myself more than once every eight or nine hours. I’ve had some pretty bad ones in my day, and I’m quite familiar with the symptoms. About once a month or so I’ll start to feel the slightest symptoms creep in, so I’ll take a cranberry pill, take it as a warning sign to drink more water, and the symptoms will pass. But not this time. Despite my best preventative efforts, this one barged itself in and unpacked its shit and settled down in my bladder anyway. Right in the middle of a very busy, very long work week.

Awesome. I do not fucking have time for this shit.

Okay, but I could deal with this. I caught it early and got myself on antibiotics as soon as I thought I was past the point of self-medication. I got aggressive with  home-remedies. Yeah, it’s going to mean I was going to have to step off deck more often to go pee. But my body reacts really well to antibiotics, and even after only 24 hours I was feeling decidedly better. The bladder infection was annoying, but it was in no way going to stop me from kicking this busy work week’s ass.

And it didn’t. My toe did.

We were striking Leon Redbone. There wasn’t much to the stage set-up, so it was going to be a quick out. I had grabbed a panel of drum shield to put away in the backline room. Imagine a 1/4″ thick sheet of plexiglass that’s 5ish feet tall and 2ish feet wide. It’s stored in a giant sack on end. I’d lifted the panel up above my head to lower it into its sack when it suddenly slipped from my hands. My initial reaction was not to worry. The shield was going into its bag, it was just going to fall the rest of the way into the bag.

My secondary reaction, however, went more like this:

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH! FUCKMOTHERFUCKINGCUNTBITCHFUCK! FUUUUUUCK!

That’s because I didn’t realize that the empty part of the bag was right over my left foot. And that 20ish pound panel of drum shield came right down on my left big toe like a fucking guillotine.

At first I thought it would be like when you stub your toe; you know, it hurts like hell at first but you know the worst part’s over so you ride it out for a minute and then you’re okay.  I gave myself a few minutes alone to grab my knees and swear and punch the wall, and when it felt like the worst was over I stood up and went back to strike. Kyle asked me to take the bundle of spare curtain back down to the storage room, so I grabbed it and headed for the elevator. My toe was still pulsing a bit, but I put it to the back of my mind, confident that it would pass.

Except it didn’t. By the time I got downstairs and got the storage room unlocked it was throbbing. I barely managed to get the hamper open before the pain swelled to the point of tears. I stuffed the bundle haphazardly into the hamper and hobbled back to the elevator. As soon as the doors opened our elevator operator Gary could tell something wasn’t right with me. “Take me to 3, please, Gary,” I asked him. He looked worried, surprised that I didn’t want to go to 2 where strike was still going on. The elevator went to 2 anyway, and as the doors opened on the lobby I said, “You know what, this is fine,” and hobbled towards the nearest chair.

Other than being red and swollen, the toe looked fine. But it didn’t feel fine. It hurt like a motherfuckingbitch. I’ve never felt pain that bad before. After watching me take my shoe off Gary and our Front-of-House Manager had gone for Kyle, who came with the rest of the crew. When they found me tears were streaming down my face and I was wishing for unconsciousness. Our Buildings Manager, a former EMT, started asking me to wiggle my toe and all I could do was shake my head furiously. Kyle’d come up with an ice pack, and I screamed when he laid it on top of my foot. As the crew left me in my chair to finish closing up the space, I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically between my tears. “I do not fucking have time for this shit,” I giggled manically.

Despite our Buildings Manager’s reassurance that it probably wasn’t broken, Kyle and I decided to go to the ER anyway. I was supposed to go to work today for a maintenance call, and we have a pretty big rock show on Saturday. (The Psychedelic Furs, which I still think sounds like the name of a 60’s porn production company, but turns out to actually be a pretty kick-ass punk band.) The maintenance call can be rescheduled, but I will be damned if I miss that show on Saturday. So unless this thing was going to heal itself in 36 hours, I was going to the ER.

A couple hours later I was sent home with an ugly orthopedic shoe-thing, some impressive drugs, and the news that it wasn’t broken, just bruised to bloody hell and back. Oh, and the order to stay off it as much as humanly possible.

I hate it when they say that.

So instead of going to work today, I’m at home, foot propped up and wrapped in an ice pack. I’m not on deck, experimenting with options for my head-high boom fixtures. I’m not in the genie bucket, tweaking focus on my pipe ends. I’m not even doing laundry or loading the mountain of dirty dishes into the dishwasher. I’m stuck on the couch, watching all eight seasons of Scrubs and accumulating an ever-growing pile of dirty dishes in the hopes that if I take it easy today I’ll be back in the thick of it tomorrow.

Because I do not  fucking have time for this shit.

{ 7 comments… add one }
  • Jeff June 1, 2012, 12:53 pm

    The psychedelic furs are greatness from back in my day. They do rock. Go see them- the drugs will make it even more better!

    • Monster June 1, 2012, 2:24 pm

      I’ll most definitely be seeing the show, seeing as I’m the ones lighting the show. But unfortunately the show won’t be even more better for me, since I save my fun for after work.

  • building guy June 1, 2012, 9:03 pm

    Be sure to bring some drugs for me. He’s right they only make the psychotic furs better!
    Capt. 🙂

  • Charm City Kim June 4, 2012, 6:33 am

    Ouch! My toe is throbbing right now with sympathetic pains. Glad it isn’t broken though!

    And I LOVE the Psychedelic Furs!

  • Christine June 8, 2012, 6:19 am

    So, guessing you do not want to march with the HMT gang in the Flag Day Parade tomorrow? How about excessive drinking afterwards?

    • Monster June 8, 2012, 7:42 am

      Actually, the toe is almost totally healed. I went for a run yesterday, and my desire for death was due to my out-of-shape lungs, not my toe. No, my lack of participation in the parade and subsequential drinking has more to do with our 7am-11pm workday than the gimpiness of my toe.

  • doahleigh June 8, 2012, 10:08 am

    Suck! That sounds miserable. Just cut off the toe, probably easier.

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