How I Hurt My Fucking Ankle

I went to the Portuguese Bend Preserve for a hike. I’ve been down here many times and didn’t think anything out of the ordinary would happen. Of course as I was heading down Burma Road, I decided to go down the Water Tank Trail, connect with the Garden Trail, up the Landside Scarp Trail to the Ishibashi Trail back up to Burma Road.

One problem: it is really steep going down the Water Tank Trail for about several hundred meters. Normally I would take one step, make sure I had traction, take another step and so on and so forth. For some reason I started jogging. I knew I was fucked. The jogging thanks to gravity turned into a full run. “Fuck me,” I said out loud resigned to my fate of falling. And I fell, slid for a couple of meters and stopped.

My first fear was that my glasses were broken. Fortunately they were only dirty from all the crap I kicked up. So at least I could drive.

As I was sliding, I felt my gimp foot in pain. As I stood up, what is normally a slightly numb leg was in pain right at the ankle. Fortunately I didn’t hear any popping and I could actually walk, so I figured I sprained the damn thing.

Walking more than a mile back up to my car with my sprained ankle was a bit funny. I was laughing most of the way back up. Not funny was twisting my ankle twice more, but I kept on going.

After washing off, I noticed my ankle the size of a tennis ball. I ate lunch then went to my acupuncturist where along with the normal needles:

I got the bleeding and cupping you see above. And just for kicks you can see the trail rash on my left leg that happened when I slid to a stop:

I have a couple of scrapes on my arm, but other than that and the sprained ankle I’m okay. But at least it was a pretty day.