So last Thursday I twisted my right ankle. It’s not serious; I think it’s a mild sprain. I think this because, while I have always been able to walk on it (aside from the excruciating first minute or two immediately after twisting it), it nevertheless swelled up and turned red. The swelling is gone, now, but my ankle has been giving me some minor trouble ever since–which is to be expected of a sprain, since, according to the Mayo Clinic, I think it was, even mild sprains can take three to six weeks to heal completely.

By “minor trouble,” I mean that for the first few days, even aside from the generalized pain kept at bay with Advil, there was the sensation of a ligament on my ankle popping whenever I had to go up or down the stairs and an inability to rotate the joint more than, hmm 45 degrees or so without causing discomfort. Now, five days later (I’m writing this on Tuesday) I can go long stretches of time without it bothering me–as long as I don’t move. Once I move, there is usually some tightness or aching.

However, sometimes I get a twinge of pain that, if I were to anthropomorphize my ankle and give it the power of speech, I would say is the equivalent of the following: “Stop that right now or I will cripple you!” So of course I stop doing whatever it was that caused the pain, because having my mobility reduced even this much sucks and I want the duration of this to be as short as possible. My stopping whatever it was I was doing makes the pain ease, so it’s like my ankle is all, “Oh ha ha, you fell for that? I was just kidding!”  Therefore heartened, I recommence moving, which gives me a warning twinge, the equivalent of  which is “(But I’m really not kidding and srsly, I will cripple you if you keep doing that.)“

I really, really, hope I am at the three-week end of the healing time-frame.

And if you think it’s odd that I would anthropomorphize a body part and give it motivations antithetical to my own ostensible best interests, you clearly do not know me.

I’m off to appease my passive aggressive ankle with sacrifices of sweet-smelling lotions and gentle rubbing.