War Wounds

Almost 2 weeks ago, I went to war with our lawn-mower, and lost.

I usually LOVE mowing the yard. Ok, not the actual getting hot and sweaty part, but the physical activity, smell of cut grass, and making the yard look nice and neat again are a plus for me. It's always been my "chore" since getting married. Growing up, Chris was made to mow the yard even though there was poison ivy and he is highly allergic. So he would mow with a long-sleeve jacket, pants, and ziplock baggies duct-taped around his hands so that he wouldn't get poison ivy. Since I love it and he has issues with it, I just mow.

On Tuesday, April 10th, I started to mow, just like any other time I'd done it. I started a little later than I planned because I had to refill the gas can. So it was a little closer to dark than I'd have liked, but since it only takes a few minutes to mow our yard, I didn't think anything of it. I started in the back yard, right next to our deck and a bush, and before I'd made 2 movements back and forth with the mower, something hit my left calf with the force of a 5 pound rock. It didn't hurt at first, but within just a few seconds my calf muscle was tensing up very badly. When I looked down, there was a thin stream of blood (gross, I know) already down to my shoes, which surprised me a lot. I hobbled inside and sat down on the couch. After the kids looked it over and Chris took them to bed, he came down to examine me.

We eventually came to the conclusion that I'd been bitten by a snake. After calling poison control, we were told to go to the ER to have it checked out. Our good friend from church, Lizette, came over to stay at our house with the kids while we went to St. Lukes in the Woodlands. When we got there, a very snappy nurse talked to us. I'm just going to give her the benefit of the doubt and imagine that she'd worked 10 days in a row, or something. Anyway, after seeing the doctor, we learned that it wasn't a poisonous snakebite (hallelujah!). In fact, after an x-ray just to double check, we found that it wasn't a snakebite at all. A small piece of metal was lodged inside my leg. That's right. A tiny piece of metal (which I later found out was from the inside of a small fake flower that had fallen on the ground and blended in with the grass) was inside my leg, basically right in the middle of it.

So now 2 weeks later, I still need to call the Orthopedic doctor to have it checked out to see if I need to have it taken out. I've been so busy that it has honestly been the last thing on my mind. Now that I can walk on it again (I could barely walk on it), I'm busy with trying to get our house on the market (which is an entirely different post topic).

Moral of the story, wear pants when mowing your yard!