tryingnottowrite.md

Popping and Locking

THE BROKEN ANKLE GOSPEL (Merged Edition)

by Rick (and a Higher Power I Don’t Fully Trust Yet)

“A new life opens up before you… you shouldn’t have time to be bored.” -- Some AA Person

Cute. Sort of pedantic. Whatever.

Boredom wasn’t my problem. I’m an introverted INFP who learned self-maintenance early, and now I carry a laptop everywhere like a cybernetic teddy bear. Between my brain and my toys, I’m never bored.

What really cured boredom was the slow-motion train wreck known as My Life™.

The Slow-Motion Train Wreck Period Vol. 4

Summer 2020 onward:
Crawling air disaster with occasional fast-forward scenes.

I was depressed I wasn’t dead, but hopeful I was inching closer.

Then I broke my ankle.

Not in a glamorous “car crash” or “fell off scaffolding” or "skateboarding" way.

Nope. I got up in the middle of the night to pee — thank you, diuretics — stood weird, came down wrong, and crack-ow.

I told myself it was sprained and didn’t go to the ER for four days.

The ER doc was a straight-up wit: Doctor Richard: “Was your bed on the exterior ledge of a seven-story parking garage?”
Me: “Funny. No. Just dumb.”
Doctor Richard: “Well you’re dumb but extremely tough. I’d want you with me in a survival situation.” He wasn’t wrong.

My survival skill is mostly just… not dying. And I've demonstrated a knack.

Then came the surgeries.

The first two were done by Dr. Fuckwad, who made things worse. He actually said:

“I hope you’re not thinking of suing me for malpractice…”

Why would you even say that? You know, I honestly wasn't thinking about it...

The third surgery was done by a Badass Named Captain Dr. Richard Derner, formerly Special Forces trauma surgeon at Ramstein AFB, bolting soldiers back together for a living. Real deal.

He looked at my films and said, “You’re one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen. Heard of, actually. We're gonna be famous.”

"That's exactly what I needed to hear, somehow!"

Then he saved my ankle, left it functional, and cut perfectly around my Nine Inch Nails tattoo.
Half animal, half machine, half alien intelligence, half angel, half God, half Kali.

He nicknamed me Humpty Dumpty, which was fair.

The Pop Heard Up My Skeleton

During the ER phase 0 ankle relocation (before Dr. Derner’s rebuild), things got educational real fast.

They rigged a sling around my big toe — medieval as hell — so they could create traction.

Me: “Oh, come on.”
Doctor Richard: “I know. It’s draconian. But trust me — it’s the only way.” The anesthetist hit me with Demerol and a nerve block.
A whole classroom of interns and students filed in. Doctor Richard: “Everyone say hello to today’s lesson:
Why Not to Wait for a Broken Ankle to Heal Itself.” The block was working, but I felt the pop/click of the bone relocating travel all the way up my skeleton to my right ear. Doctor Richard: “Feel anything?”
Me: “Just the pop echoing through my vertebrae.”
Doctor Richard: “Without the block, you’d have bitten your tongue off and then passed out.”
Me: “I’ve never passed out from pain.”
Doctor Richard: “Huh. Maybe you wouldn’t then. And it would’ve really sucked to be you.” Correct. Six months on Percs followed.
I didn’t start snorting them — not by virtue or grit, but grace plus just enough fear.

Minnesota, Mayo, and the Not-Dying Problem

Amid all the chaos, Mayo Clinic said:

“Sure, come to Minnesota. We’ll take care of you. Just… stop drinking.” I got a job the same week.
Landed at a college for ten months until mental health + insomnia + cirrhosis + existential rot = relapse. Psych ward.
Left the job.
Moved to a sober house in Owatonna to be closer to Mayo.
Almost died there in mid ’23.
Medicaid kicked in the week before. Grace. Then the relay race of survival:

Who the fuck has time to be bored? Who does that even occur to?

Scooter, Mugging, Meth Psychosis, Repeat

Fast forward to May 2025. I wrecked a scooter at 21 mph during an attempted mugging under the Mayo Park pedestrian overpass at 2AM. Nothing broken. Nothing ruptured.
Cirrhosis means either of those should've killed me thanks to varicose veins all over my throat/gut/ass, all of whom are waiting for an excuse to rupture.
Instead, I bounced like a Superball. I went home leaking to find a housemate in meth psychosis while everyone else hid in their rooms.

Me: “Anyone call the cops yet?”
Housemate: “I was about to…”
Me: “Do it. I should be at the ER, but I need to get this pizza out of the oven before it ignites my gauze.”

Own worst enemy? Sure. But competition is fierce.

Diabetic Roulette & Walking Off the Line

Later, while working in a fancy high-tech factory that makes things not for discussion, I was told I’d probably slip into a diabetic coma on the assembly line because eating or drinking water wasn’t allowed on shift.

My blood sugar could go from 50 to 250 in minutes and all I could do was watch a little Windows CE–era scanner brick tell me I was screwed.

So I walked. Which is sane; it's not an easy choice:

Cue the next chapter of the survival saga.

Where my base configuration of being stubborn, angry, and occasionally able to point those traits in a useful direction.
a.k.a. “resilient.”

The Meeting With Two Richards

I now run a meeting almost no one attends except one other guy named Richard. We’re both recovering drunks, so we forget each other’s names constantly. He’s basically my sponsor.
He knows it.
We don’t talk about it. We sit, twitch, talk shit about how we’re somehow still alive, and then discuss what we’re going to try to do today. Sometimes that’s enough.
Sometimes that’s everything.

Good Days, Great Days

Special Ed told me in 2017: