As you can see from the picture, I, Tamara Luevano at age 57, after homesteading for 8 years and 4 of those years alone, ended up at Urgent Care awaiting an X-ray.  I have never gone to Urgent Care for myself.  So, how did I get there?  Well, if you saw my previous blog post, Make Your Coworkers Girlfriends, They will Volunteer to Move a Piano, you will remember that the upright piano was damaged by moisture and mold.  It was left outside for me to dismantle to save the harp with the strings.

I saw my Physical Therapist friend, Joe Hillebert, at church and invited him and his wife to come over some time.  I told him about my piano project and he wanted to come over to help me take it back in once it was dismantled.  He said he could come on Friday, but his wife, Bonnie, was busy and unable to come.  Wednesday, he called to say he was coming on Thursday.  I hadn’t done anything yet.  I thought I would have all Thursday and now I just had Thursday morning.  The pressure was on.

It was October 8, 2020, and I set up my camera and got right to work.  The chisel pounded in nicely and immediately got stuck.  Even though I bought the chisel with the longest handle, it wasn’t good enough.  I really needed a crowbar for better leverage.

As you will see and hear when you watch the video, I was making musical noise as the strings would vibrate with the pounding.   After quite a while, I decided to stop videoing.  I turned off the camera and did some more work.  Then I got this bright idea that if it was lying down, I could take it apart even better.  So, I got beside it and rocked it back and forth three times to get the momentum to start it going forward.  My plan was to lower it down and of course, get out of the way.  Well, that didn’t exactly happen.  It was much heavier than I had anticipated and it landed on my right foot.  I had to get it off right away!  My first attempt to lift it off didn’t work.  But, with the proper motivation, called PAIN, I managed to lift it just enough to get it off my foot.

I knew that I needed to get it in cold water right away.  I saw a basin by the faucet that I was using to clean some water filters.  I limped over and dumped them out and filled it with clean water. I got my shoe and sock off and started soaking it and applying pressure.  I thought that I should call Joe.  Where was my phone?

I didn’t want to wear my fanny pack during the video, so I took it off and left it, with my cell phone inside it, on the pallets covered with the green tarp.  I was so close to it when I hurt my foot.  I really needed my phone, so I was going to have to hop there and back.  Don’t you wish I had that on video?  Well, I did it.  That is not something I like to do.  I got my phone and called Joe.  He said he guessed I didn’t need him to come out.  What!  Yes, of course, I needed him to come and rescue me!  I asked if he had any crutches.  He didn’t but he did have a walker he could bring.  Perfect!  He would come right away.  It would take him at least 40 minutes.

You can see in the picture my beautiful foot.  I got hurt in the area where bunions form and from there all across the top at the base of the toes, but the worst was at the base of the great toe.  I did the test my doctor-mom showed me to see if it is broken.  She said to push the bone from the end inward.  It didn’t hurt any extra, so I was really hoping it wasn’t broken.  How could I manage if I had to be on crutches for very long?  I have seven cats and three rabbits to feed.  This was a depressing thought.  After a while, I decided to go to the motorhome and make a charcoal poultice to put on it.  I put my shoe and sock back on and walked on my heel to get in.  After I made the poultice, I put it in place and got on the couch, and elevated my foot.  Rather than reducing pain, my pain seemed so much worse.  When was it going to stop hurting?   The pain rose to an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the pain scale.  I was doing Lamaze-type breathing to get through the pain.   It got so bad I was in tears.  I was so happy when Joe finally arrived.  

Joe was my hero.  He brought my camera and tripod in from the sun.  He decided that I needed to go to Urgent Care to make sure it wasn’t broken.  I called to find out if I could come right in and how much it would cost.  The estimate was $400.00.  It ended up being more like $280.00.  Joe filled my water bottle for me and I put my sock and shoe back on.  The pain was way down now.  Either the pressure and support in the shoe did it, the charcoal was finally working, or my happy endorphins kicked in.  Where were they when I needed them?  The thought of being in a cast for a month was daunting.  I didn’t want that to be my fate.

We kept the walker closed in the motorhome and I just used it for some support.  I got down the stairs and sat on the enemy that hurt my foot.  My cats were still outside, so I asked Joe to drive out the driveway and give me time to call them in.  All but one came in.  I think it was Freya.  Joe came back for me and he was so cute.  He showed me how to do a car transfer into the back seat of his car.  I laughed and said, “You are showing me?”  As a Physical Therapist Assistant, one of my jobs is teaching patients how to get in and out of cars.  It was easy getting in his back set since I didn’t have a bad knee or hip.  That always complicates the transfers.  I had minimal to no pain on the way to the Urgent Care.  Joe was willing to wait with me and take me home, but I called my son, and he had the day off and said that he could pick me up and take me home.  He also told me that his wife had crutches that he could bring for me to use.

While waiting in Urgent Care, I decided to use the restroom since it was taking so long.  I had no problems.  I was soon after using the walker to hop to a room to wait.  That is when I took the featured image.  I liked the mirror made to look like a window.  I was seen by a nurse practitioner and she agreed that I should have an X-ray to rule out a fracture.  I got my x-ray in another room, then I hopped back to the first room.  The NP said she didn’t see any fracture.  There was an area that was unclear to her, so she was sending it to the orthopedic doctor to be sure.  The only recommendation that she had for me was a splint.  I thought it would be removable for showers and that I could put it back on.  That was not the case.

I had to go to another room to be splinted.  I had to lie on my stomach, so I couldn’t take any pictures or videos.  The young woman who was to splint me was still learning the process.  She messed up on the first one and I dare say that the second one was also not so great.  The splint needed to have me dorsiflexed with my foot neutral so I could stand on it if needed.  Instead, it was plantarflexed with my foot bending down a little.  I was supposed to hold it in place for her, but I couldn’t dorsiflex my foot at the time.  Before the splint was made, my foot and leg were wrapped with cotton padding.  Every time she went over my foot by the great toe, I was screaming,  “Ow!  Don’t touch it!”  The poor girl!  She finally finished.  I made one more trip to the restroom and even though there was a grab bar, I reached for it and missed and nearly fell over because of the splint.  I resolved to be more careful.

By the time I was done, it was already 3:15.  Before we left Urgent Care, we put the crutches to the correct height for me.  I sure was hungry, so my son said he would take me to Orchards Nutrition to get me something to eat.  I had my son buy me some rice cakes, hummus, and baby carrots.  It was simple but delicious!

On Sunday, Sept. 20, my son had been hurt in a motorcycle accident.  I had spent about five hours with him the following day.  There wasn’t much to do, so I cleaned his refrigerator to surprise his wife.  She said that when she saw it all clean, she had a peace come over her.  She didn’t realize how much stress it was causing her.  Well, now my son was getting a chance to help me less than a month after I helped him.

I just want to record what a good son he was and my second hero of the day.  The day before, I had gone to town.  I had two 5 gallon gas cans in the back of my truck.  “Isaiah, could you put them by the generator?”  There was a bale of hay.  “Could you take the bale apart and put it in trash bags for me?”  It was for my rabbits.  There was a 5-gallon bucket of kerosene in the truck.  He brought that in too.  I had to think ahead.  I was on crutches for how long?  I wouldn’t be able to carry anything except for in a backpack.  “Isaiah, I was going to clean my rabbit boxes today.  Could you dump them and hose them out?”  He sure did it for me and filled them for me too.  I can’t remember anything else, but I so appreciated his help.  He finally had to leave, and I was on my own with myself and 7 cats and 3 rabbits to care for.  I hope you will enjoy watching the video.  There should be another post and video coming on what I did for the pain and treatments that I did.  Make sure you are subscribed to this blog and my YouTube channel so you don’t miss it.