A day to forget

Yesterday seemed to be going so well. Weather was perfect, and I was excited to get to the oasis to water, even though for a couple of months now I've had bad pain in my right foot. I thought with a cane, it'd be fine. But it turned out that I couldn't drag heavy hoses, refill feeders, etc. using a cane. So I just endured, as I have been doing for months.  It keeps getting worse.  Can't use a cane all the time anyway or it makes my shoulder hurt too much. (Long time followers will remember I quit carrying a heavy Canon camera that I loved because of the weight to my shoulder.) So, hoping to get it x-rayed when I can get in to see a doctor. They're so backed up. When I was at my doctor a couple months ago and brought it up, she said probably arthritis, and mostly brushed it off.

But then I got to thinking, and researching. It only hurts if I put weight on the foot. Otherwise, I can bend it fine. I have high arches and the pain seems to originate in the area of the navicular bone (aka nutcracker) above the arch. I've always had a habit of skipping the lowest rung of a ladder, jumping down off  low walls, etc. Age caught up with me. I figure it's a well-earned stress fracture.  Resting it seems to be all that helps. I've tried boots and stuff.

So anyway, I was dealing with that. Then a door handle broke off my pickup. Next, as I was trying to review 200 video clips from my game cam, my oasis computer kept freezing up. It's so slow that rebooting it was taking forever. Time I didn't have. Some of the clips seemed to have parts of interesting birds on them. (Had to adjust the camera again, hoping this time the whole bird will show.)  

Therefore, I decided instead of spending the night, as planned, I'd rush through watering and get to my town computer. Just before I reached Hwy 118, I couldn't remember if I had turned the pump off. No choice but to go back. Nearly dark by then. I'm not comfortable driving at night. My eye focus is slow. Like going from outdoors to indoors, it takes a while before I can see. Turns out I had left the water on, so it's good I went back. 

Driving to town on the highway, my foot hurt so bad I couldn't work the accelerator. I know the road so well that I never use brakes, just adjust my speed accordingly. Unless traffic, or at the border check point. Or deer. No traffic, so I used my left foot on the accelerator, driving slower than normal. Braked at the checkpoint with my right foot, as I normally do, and noticed that my foot pain had subsided quite a bit. So I continued on the last 15 miles in my comfortable normal mode. Still I went slower, so as not to make it start hurting. 

Getting closer to town, I saw an oncoming car. I think the driver dimmed his lights, but his type lights were still blindingly bright. All I could see was black and his glaring lights. As we approached closer, almost to the point of going past one another, I saw two big deer standing in, and blocking, my lane. Couldn't swerve around into the other lane because of the approaching car, and the ditch was steep with a rock cliff beside it. All I could do was slam on the brakes. Not sure how aggressively, because of my foot, but everything in the pickup flew forward, and the ice chest in the back flipped over.

I hit the deer with a sickening thud just as the oncoming car passed by me. The deer went tumbling into the oncoming lane a split second behind the passing car. I don't think either deer hit it. I had never hit a deer before. The car pulled over. I pulled over. I sat there a minute. Car was working fine; lights fine. Decided to limp on home, keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. The other car went on too when they saw I did. Normally I'm not a procrastinator, but I just dreaded having to face the damage.

Couldn't believe my eyes when all that was damaged was my old cracked plastic grill. Cracked from hitting an owl a few years back. My son ordered a new grill online for less than $100 and he'll install it. Boy, did I dodge a bullet!

Then at the house, I didn't have the SD card that I had come to town to review. I had somehow gotten cards mixed up and brought an empty one. I feel like such a dysfunctional mess. Maybe when I finish the hep meds and my foot heals, life can get back to normal, whatever that is. I think the meds give me some fatigue, but it might be age and pain. It's not like I'm going to leave this world in a pristine body. LOL