It's not broken

The good news is, it's not broken.

Last week on a camping trip in Belsh, a town near by town of Cerrik, I twisted my ankle in the middle of the night (wine+dark+hole in the ground=bad). With a little bit of creativity and good old Peace Corps spirit, Maggie wrapped my ankle in a pair of long underwear, secured by duct tape and in the morning I was able to hobble down the mountain. My ankle was swollen and bruised, but I could put some weight on it and was able to walk (slowly, slowly).

After about a week, the ankle seemed to basically be healed. The bruise (ugly, purple) was gone, the swelling was reduced and it was no longer tender. And then I woke up on Sunday in extreme pain. But the pain wasn't from my ankle, it was from the side of my foot.

I called the PC Medical office and the our lovely Medical Officer decided to bring me up to Tirana to have a look at it. He thought that it was possilbe that in the process of the twisting, I could have fractured my 5th metatarsel, the bone going up to my pinky toe. I came up this morning (in a swanky PC SUV, not a furgon!) and we went this afternoon to have an x-ray. It's not broken, but I probably pulled a ligamant (from my ankle connected to my foot bone) and I will be on crutches for at least a week. I'm going to stay in Tirana tonight (since it is already late and driving on the scary Tirana-Elbasan road- or for that matter anywhere in Albania- is not recommend).

The real fun part will be trying to go up the five flights of stairs to my apartment on crutches. . .