"It seems like its been on forever".
You're telling me. Large, clunky, difficult to maneuver. Beautiful weather wasted by mandatory sitting on ass for seven weeks. Watching my dog whimper and stare through the window. I whimper too sometimes. But just a little.
"She can tell mommy's off her game!" the dog trainer said enthusiastically, pointing at my cast.
"Why are her eyes turning so red?" I asked, trying to calm Lola.
"She's just wound up, she's choking herself!"
I looked at Lola, tethered by her leash in a corner while the other dogs went through their training. I started crying.
We slept close that night and many nights after, Lola's neck stretched across mine while I hugged her in my sleep.
"Can you explain the difference between preparing an ordinary, American new teacher as opposed to an international teacher to understand your school?" I asked again.
"Well, we have New Teacher Orientation" the interviewee responded.
Click. That was all I could think. Click. Your Fulbright adventure has now come to an end.
My doctor grabbed the outside of my purse, dramatically.
"Is my phone vibrating?" I asked, alarmed.
"Where's your other shoe?" he asked, smiling.
"Are you kidding?" I asked, incredulous.
I was thrilled.
He wasn't kidding. I went home and put on my other hiking boot, the mandated stiff bottom foot wear. I was really excited. Until I realized I can still barely walk and that my left knee is hurting from carrying my right leg along. And my broken foot again turned purple and bruised.
I had a great, short walk with Lola and fun training and playing with her while she was tethered in the yard. Her eyes were NOT turning red. After, I took a couple of days off from walking because of the pain in my foot.
I decided today that I was being a lazy fuck and that I needed to quit making Alec walk my love dog. The walk wasn't going as great as the other that I had bragged about. She was pulling hard and not responding to any of the stuff we had been working on in our training. I was juggling her treat bag and transferred her leash onto a few of my left hand fingers while I tried to rearrange the bag on my shoulder. Suddenly, Lola jumped a couple of feet in the air and ran toward a rampaging squirrel. I held tight and pulled, even though I had heard a snap. I got her onto the sidewalk. I knew something was wrong and I looked at my awkwardly positioned ring finger that wouldn't move and was hanging at about eleven o'clock to the left.
I got Lola home, actually trying to act natural when kids and parents commented on my cute dog. I put her directly in the crate and drove to my sister's. I had broken out in a cold sweat and was crying and trying not to vomit. They took me to Grady.
Grady is a very large hospital about two miles from my house in downtown Atlanta. It is the only place indigent people can go here. I've visited only a few people there and have always been scared of it. But, I was more afraid of my dangling finger.
We had to pass through a metal detector and an airport manual wand to get in. They handed me something to put on my shirt that I stuck on. Only later did I realize the date was written on the sticky. I guess if they found me in some corner a few days later they would know that I was ripe.
I got X-rayed. I was surprised everything was happening so fast. Every time that I have ever been to the emergency room I sat there for hours. All of the doctors looked younger than I am, which was weird. They put me in a plush ass room with a TV and started telling me what they were going to do. It was broken, below the knuckle. They were going to manually re-align the bones, basically grab my finger and push the broken bones back where they should be. I started sweating again. They told me they wouldn't hurt me and started talking about an IV painkiller drip.
Then, timed stalled. I saw people wheeled into the trauma unit. They had neck braces on. I heard them screaming from the rooms. I waited a while. Hours. I understood. But I was getting more afraid.
A young intern put shots in my hand and joked about how sweaty it was.
And then, I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut as he moved and shoved the bones of my finger back into place.
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