It was about 6 a.m. and I had to wait for doctor’s offices to open. I could’ve gone to an emergency room, but it didn’t seem like an emergency and I was worried about being billed too much — I wasn’t sure if my insurance had in-network and out-of-network hospitals. So in the meantime, I kept googling, hoping for a sign that I just sprained or bruised my foot.
I knew I needed the X-ray.
I hobbled out of my apartment, limping and feeling like a cripple. I started to cry as I passed pedestrians on the street. I drove to the doctor’s office. I think the combination of the embarrassment of not being able to walk and the pain in my foot got to me. I was quietly sobbing when I reached the reception counter to be check in.
“So what brings you in today?”
“I think I broke my foot.”
The doctor, whose smug, patronizing attitude through the whole ordeal didn’t help, looked at my foot. He bent the ankle in a few directions and it seemed my ankle was fine. He got to my foot, pressing and asking if I felt pain. “No, no, no, no, ow.” Under my baby toe, it hurt like hell.
He ordered an X-ray. When I returned to his office after a ridiculous wait of like 90 minutes, he said, “Well, you were right.”
I already knew I was right though. When I left the X-ray department, they handed me a report to give to the doctor when I returned. I peaked inside in the elevator. It said: “Mildly displaced oblique fracture, fifth metatarsal.” As I sat in the waiting room forever, I googled what that meant. All that I figured out was that it was broken.
I called my mom. She was coming to visit me in three weeks from the east coast. We had a whole trip planned where I was going to show her my favorite places in the city and try some new restaurants with her, and then we were going to drive up to Seattle together.
“I think we need to cancel our trip.”
“You don’t know that. Just wait to see what the doctor says.”
Broken Fifth Metatarsal 