For years I’ve heard about how Scott’s Grammie broke her foot when she stood up without realizing that her foot had gone to sleep. She stepped weird, and that was it. I must admit that I never really understood how she didn’t know her foot was asleep. When I have a limb that’s asleep it either has those needle pains in it or it is oddly numb – that kind of numb that you can feel (which I realize seems to make no sense). I recently had the opportunity to understand with a little more clarity.
I was trying to get Cooper nice and calm before taking a nap. We were in the comfy chair in his room; he was snuggled in my arms. We were rocking; we were listening to lullabies. That’s all I remember until I woke up an hour later…still holding my snuggly (and now sleeping) little guy in exactly the same spot. I wasn’t twisted in some weird position. Nothing seemed to be pressing on my legs. I was just sitting in the chair. I stood up to put him in his crib when suddenly I found my right leg unable to carry any weight. Apparently my leg had gone to sleep without any of the telltale signs. All I knew was in a split second I was crashing to the floor and seeing my ankle twist under me as I fell. I was trying to hold onto Cooper but dropped him a few inches above the floor just before I fell. He, of course, woke up in complete shock. At first I wasn’t able to move my foot and was in a good deal of pain; I was afraid I had broken something. I didn’t want to freak Cooper out, but I needed to let him know there was a problem. All I could think to say as I was clutching my ankle and trying to breathe was, “Mommy…owie! Mommy…owie!”
I also couldn’t help thinking, “I can’t believe I woke Cooper up from his nap over this!”
I also couldn’t help thinking, “I can’t believe I woke Cooper up from his nap over this!”
I slinkied my way down the stairs but realized that Cooper wasn’t following me. He can navigate stairs with no problem, but I think he was so stunned by what had happened that he was still sitting on his bedroom floor crying. I called and called to him, but he wouldn’t budge. So I crawled my way back upstairs, got him and maneuvered back downstairs. I made an icepack, and by this point realized that I could move my foot and toes and hoped for nothing more than a sprain. Cooper was happy to sit on my lap as I fed him ice chips out of my icepack and read him books. I called Scott who did some quick research on how to handle sprains – icepacks, ibuprofen, elevating the sprain. I tried to take it as easy as I could with a 15 month old who still loves to be toted around. The next few days I hobbled along fine – just no racing Cooper around on his little bike. Thankfully, at this point it looks like it’s just a sprain with plenty of swelling and soreness.
Because we document all of our wounds, you too can enjoy a picture of this injury. And the next time someone talks about a leg going to sleep without knowing it, know that it is absolutely possible.
