2020.02 Hopping Along

Psalm 37:24 
“When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.”

Life has a way of changing very quickly and unexpectedly at times. For all of my January plans – the time to get caught up, clean out, all eroded after a series of events. I moved my mortgage license to another company, which has taken way too long, gotten licensed in two more states, which also is still not complete and been just plodding along with other things. Things were busy, a little chaotic, but going along until the water man showed up!

January 13th I was working quietly at my desk and looked out to see a man beating the bushes at the end of my driveway. Impulsively I wandered to the back deck to ask him if I could help, realized he was looking for the water meter, directed him to the front and turned around to go back in. Now, I’m in house slippers on a wet and little bit slimy deck. I’m wary of the slime, but not wary enough. I shift weight to my left foot just before reaching the door and down I go. My left foot going way left and flat in a way a foot never should. I lay there yelling, “please help me”, uh no one comes. I pulled out my phone and called next door neighbor – not home. Cue up 911 because I can’t get up and I’m afraid it’s more serious than the bad sprain I had last time I did this on the same slimy deck three years ago. Realize that I don’t really want the drama of emergency vehicles or wasting the afternoon into dinner time dealing with ER. I uncue and decide to crawl to the other side of the house to the bathroom and put on ankle brace. Besides the shock of the fall, nothing really hurts. Put on brace, cannot stand. Bad, bad, bad. This one needs a picture.

Decide to crawl to the garage, somehow got down a couple steps and managed to stand up and hop into the car. Whew! I can do this now. Pain at around a 4 while driving (childbirth is a 12 and the scale only goes to 10). 20 minutes I get to hospital and call them to tell them I don’t want to crawl across of the parking lot. They bring a wheelchair. Yay! Intake nurse tells me that I shouldn’t be driving with a hurt foot. I told her that it’s my left leg and she tells me that you need two feet to drive…uh, remind me not to ride with her! X-rays say I have broken my fibula, the skinny bone in my left leg right above my ankle. They say it is clean, put a splint on, outfit me with crutches and tell me to call the orthopedic surgeon in the morning. Dr. says I’m ok to drive since I don’t drive a standard. (smirking smugly a bit) Crutches and hopping are exhausting. Sooo thankful I can drive even if I can’t walk!

Wow! So much for any plans for the year. That first week, I was worthless. I slept a lot, made a nest on the loveseat in my study and parked myself there. Doc saw me a week later and took new pictures, then did a stress test where you turn your knee in and then he pulls your foot the opposite way and a right angle. No paid and the bone stayed in so I get to pass on adding hardware to my leg for the moment. I get a big fat boot, which feels awful because my foot and toes are still very swollen. It’s been a week and some and now the boot and I are better friends, toes are more normal. He told me I could take a bath. Best news ever! Getting in and out is a little treacherous still but I’m starting to put a little weight on foot while in the boot and can at least rest it on the ground when the boot is off. There is hope, but dang is it slow! Oh well. Thankful it improves a little bit every day.

Then there is the soap opera that is work. Made the change. Had to go get another set of fingerprints done for the California license as they apparently won’t accept the ones already in the system. Then my boss, who is the CEO of this big company asked me to build some training for him since I am stuck on the sofa. Actually, I was thrilled and thought he had looked at my resume. No, he said he hadn’t, it was just intuition. So, ironically, I’m back doing what I left behind, originating mortgages and he has me building digital training – the thing I learned to do in school when I left origination 10 years ago. He didn’t flinch at my price and I realized he is in the Bay area and I probably could have quoted double. Thankful. It’s pretty fun and I’m teaching in it everything I have learned in 35 years of being in the mortgage business. The target audience is new loan officers. Only God could arrange that. I tried to get into this area in my last company but they didn’t want someone remote and they were very stodgy anyway. This guy is younger, liked what I built and I love his vision. I was able to take a one hour course that was already in existence and reinvent it into a 10 minute video. Awesome! Would this have come my way if I hadn’t let him know I had a broken leg? Who knows? I will assume that this is God making lemonade out of my lemons because it’s always best to assume good intent from the Author of all goodness.

Laid up and living the adventure today,

Kiki

Watched a lot of movies last week cause I had no brain including some Pink Panther movies. Here is one of my favorite clips from that series.