i broke my foot in south korea.

Let’s get real for a minute, I am not the most coordinated person. That is to say, I am the person who voluntarily stood up during dodgeball and let people hit me rather than embarrass myself by running, or worse, attempting to throw a ball. I have no natural athletic ability. I am also the girl who wakes up in the morning and ponders, “I wonder where that bruise came from?” before commencing my morning shower — I rarely ever actually know. Also, I fall a lot, like once a week.

Rewind to Friday. Jared and I are walking the opposite way down a hill we usually only walk up (I mean honestly, my internal compass was entirely skewed, so I can’t be completely at fault). While discussing something really important, I trip and roll my foot — not my ankle, the middle of my foot — but I managed to not spill my iced green tea latte, which is, by far, the much more impressive feat. It hurt, really badly, but I figured I could soldier on, and I did, until I finally broke down and asked Jared to carry me the rest of the way to work. He did, piggyback style (yay! for boyfriends). By the end of the day I had a big, purple egg pushing angrily against the edge of my Toms. I spent the weekend in bed icing and elevating, but the pain remained this morning.

Now, I am not a wuss (most of the time). I didn’t go to the hospital Friday because I figured my pain level was just “bad” and not “unbearable” — the pain level the Internet indicated I would have if my foot had fractured– so I assumed my foot couldn’t possibly be broken (oh, willful naivete).

When our school director saw me limping to to the bus stop this morning with my brave face and quiet obscenity muttering, she offered to take me to the hospital where I met with a doctor and had an X-ray. Korean hospitals are kind of like pit crews, everyone runs up and checks you and then it’s over and you didn’t even really see what happened — it’s amazing. The doctor spoke decent English, but he had a coffee mug filled with syringes on his desk, you know, the way normal people would have pencils. And the X-ray was weird, no lead blanket or removing of metal jewelry. Oh well, I guess I was due for a healthy dose of radiation.

The result? I fractured my foot.

I haven’t broken anything since 4th grade. And, seriously? I am the only person who fractures their foot in a foreign country from walking. I don’t even have an interesting story — I was sober, it was during the day, I was on my way to work. After I got done laughing maniacally at my own fate, I enjoyed looking at the X-rays of my foot (X-rays of your body parts are so cool — I am always like THAT’S MY INSIDE!)

Then, I was then moved to the “splint room” which contained a sink and a bunch of cardboard boxes (I don’t know) where a Korean man fitted me with a splint and slid on a weird boot around my ankle announcing: “This your new shoe!” I told him it was “pretty” and he laughed for a whole minute (have I mentioned I am really funny in Korea?) So, I have to wear a splint and take pain pills until Friday when I go back for another apathetic X-ray to see if it looks any better. Oh and just to rub my healthcare in your face, the whole thing cost less than thirty dollars — silver lining?