Putting Your Best Foot Forward, In Stupidity

Article by KA

On Sunday night I was walking across the living room floor in my bare feet when I accidentally kicked a dumbbell. Now we're not talking a big strapping dumbbell you need to be Geoff Capes to lift - that would be much less embarrassing. I'm talking about a small, turquoise, 3lb women's dumbbell that your granny could lift.

As such I felt that there was no way I could have hurt myself badly. In fact I was even rubbing the toe (right foot, second smallest) in the hopes of avoiding a bruise - something that only served to make the pain worse and turn the nail a blue/green colour at the base!

Throughout the night I got no sleep as my toe grew more and more painful and, by the time my alarm went off at 6am the next day, I woke Jenny and asked her to drive me to the hospital where I found out I had a fractured bone. How, I thought, could a 3lb (just over 1kg) dumbbell do this to me? It's barely heavier than a bag of sugar!

Nevertheless, the doctor was causing me pain while checking out the injury, so I was prescribed two tablets of Co-codamol, the 500+8mg version. Apparently they are pretty much the strongest painkiller you can get on prescription without having a nurse or doctor feed/inject you with it in person.

Within a few minutes they had kicked in and I was feeling light-headed and a bit giggly. It did little for the pain but a lot for my stress levels! They seem to keep your mind constantly active but at the same time very unfocused. They make you drowsy and a bit confused, but you can't get to sleep cause of the constant activity of your mind.

Since fracturing my toe on Sunday evening I have had around several hours of poor sleep and it's really beginning to take it's toll (it is now Tuesday morning, 11am). I'm trying to work with tens of thousands of records in a database and have made little progress today. Even while writing this I have caught myself drifting off into unfocused thoughts, staring blankly at the monitor. It's a strange drug but by no means the worst for your mind - when I think of people who are on much stronger drugs for long periods of time I feel sorry for them. The confusion and lack of focus must really get to them after a while and I would hate to have to take even these for any longer than the week I have been prescribed.

Trying to do my everyday job, usually something that is no big deal, has become a great challenge. The doctor had told me to take the week off work, as the meds would make me unfocused and I should be staying off my foot. But daily TV is something I hate and I'm unable to focus on much else or go anywhere farther than the kitchen. Adverts for claim to win, insurance companies and debt consolidation have forced me to give work a chance today. It wasn't the best idea, but it's taken my mind off my foot and anything is better than daytime television!