Squirrel - 1; Me - 0

After retriving my dog from the kennel on Sunday, in the throes of guilt, I decided to take him for a nice walk in the park. It was a beautiful day, and we could easily get in a good hour's walk before dinner, so I thought, why not? Plus, the kennel people said that he'd been very good for his bath that morning, and I figured he needed a reward.

The walk went as scheduled - there was gorgeousness everywhere (albeit VERY early spring gorgeousness - no green things, but beautiful sun), and the park was alive with ducks and geese and squirrels and whatnot.

As we headed back toward the car, we had to cross a bridge that goes over the Clinton River. Ducks gather around the bridge because people feed them, which is fine. On the car-side of the bridge, I saw a squirrel, and I thought, "I should let him chase one - he hasn't seen any since we started the walk, and we're going to go home and make an early night of it..... Why not?"

Why not, indeed. Because I wasn't going to let go of the leash (so that if he decided to chase ducks instead of squirrels, I wouldn't have to go into the river after him), I ran with him. As we rounded the corner of our (maybe!) 25-foot dash, my foot landed right on the side of a small indentation in the ground, causing my ankle to twist sharply in a direction ankles are not supposed to turn.

I dropped the leash, executed a somewhat less than graceful shoulder roll, and ended up flat on my back looking up at the sky with a very sore ankle. (Puppy-boy did NOT go into the river, but he also did not stop chasing the squirrel to find out if I was OK - ungrateful little rascal).

A kind soul got the end of the leash (that I finally dropped), and brought my dog back to me. I got up and started walking around on the ankle, trying to see if I could walk (for one thing) and to walk off the soreness right away. Plus, I wanted to go home - not because I was humiliated (although I should have been - what right-minded 43-year old chases a squirrel with her dog?), but because I wanted to check out the ankle and see if I needed anything more than RICE.*

I stopped at the drug store on the way home and bought an ACE wrap, an ACE ankle brace, and some Epsom salt. When I got home, I pulled the ACE wrap out of the box and wrapped the ankle, took Aleve, pulled some lima beans and rye flour out of the freezer (they were frozen and pliable - it works, trust me) and propped my foot on the bag of flour with the bag of frozen lima beans over the top of it.

Epilogue: Sprained ankles swell, hurt, and eventually turn purple, but they aren't fatal. They also aren't that great for sympathy, particularly when the mechanism of acquisition is such blatant stupidity. As my late grandmother used to say, "Too soon old, too late smart." :)

[*R = Rest, I = Ice, C = Compression, and E = Elevation. RICE.]