Where I work, you just have to check them in to take them.

Today was my first day back to work since my horrible stripper pole accident.

Yesterday I was able to get around quite a bit with my fashionable new moon boot and could put a little weight on my left foot without pain.

This morning? Not so much. I think I knew that this was going to be the case when I was trying to get my awesome knee sock on. (I have a few ridiculously cool knee socks that are colorful and fun, and a pair that simply say, “BAD ASS” with an arrow pointing up on the back of them.) After two tries, I got the sock on, wrapped my foot and ankle with an elastic bandage that has velcro on one end (Look, Ma! No clips!) and was ready to put the boot on so I could get ready for work with the help of just one crutch.

A note about velcro strip elastic bandages. You have to really pay attention to which way the velcro strip is facing (next to impossible to do when it’s rolled up and the velcro is in the center of the roll) because it is really annoying to find that you have meticulously wrapped the affected area perfectly, but the strip is on the wrong side. That was me yesterday.

At any rate, I got the boot on and found that bearing any weight on that side was pretty painful, so I went for my Ibuprofen. I was not trying to go to work with a mellow Norco buzz after having not been there all week. I knew I had crap-tons of stuff to catch up on, the biggest stressor being a monthly report that needed to be online by tomorrow that I hadn’t started yet. Yes, I knew my assistant had started it, but I also knew that she had other things going on at her desk and that my abandoned duties were not the sun, in that everything needed to revolve around them.

The hubs brought me to work, carried my (about to be seriously downsized) handbag into the office for me and helped get me situated. My assistant had washed out my coffee cup, and had a cup of coffee fixed just the way I love it in my hands within a couple of minutes. She had also filled my 24 ounce Tervis water glass with fresh ice water and informed me that not only had she worked on my report, she’d finished it. Can I just say that I was totally feeling the love? #TeamServiceCenter for the win!

I was about 3/4 of the way through the couple hundred emails that had found their way into my inbox during my absence when my boss called. “Can you come here?” he asked. (And when he says this, it sounds like, “cannyew-cuhmmeer?”) I told him I could, although I am on double crutches and it would take me a few to get my steno pad tucked into my waistband and get myself over to his office. “Never mind,” he said. “Stay there. I need a couple of really important things taken care of…” and off he went, rattling off my short laundry list of things I needed to do, half of which were on my front burner, already. Then he asked me about the status of the software program I’ve been working on implementing on the tablets our Environmental Services management team is using. I had to stop and think for a moment, as it’d been a few weeks since I’d even thought about that. I told him, in my best trying-to-sound-with-it-and-informed voice, “Uhhhhh….hmmmm….Wow…I haven’t really given THAT much thought…let me back up a little.” At which point, he started laughing and told me that going backwards might be dangerous and to be careful. I guess I must not have said anything, because he stated, “Hey, I cracked a joke,” at which point I coughed out my most sincere fake chuckle. That cracked him up. I know it didn’t sound like it, but I was super happy to be back behind my desk.

By 9:45, my ankle was singing to me so loudly I was surprised the other girls couldn’t hear it. I broke down and crutched my way down the hall to employee health services to alert them about my then-impending dose of Norco. Some mornings are better than others and this was one of the others, so I needed chemical support. Which I got. Which made work extremely amusing. Which, in itself, is amusing.

People are funny. My boss is actually humorous on most days, but today? I thought he needed to take his routine on the road. I think he would have a HUGE following in PT/Rehab clinics where the majority of the audience would also be on chemical assistance.

I made it through the day in kind of a warm fuzzy fog. I had plenty of help; the girls kept my water glass full, my assistant hooked me up with a plate of hot wings with carrot and celery sticks when it was time to eat, I had easy access to the little girls’ room, because one of them always went with me to push that “heavy” door open on the way in and pull it on the way out. I found that the commodes across the hall are a lot lower than the ones in my house, so yay for a deeper commode squat, right?

Even in my mildly altered (is that the word I’m looking for? I wasn’t stressed, which is different, so maybe “altered” is correct) state, I was able to absolutely concentrate on doing what needed to be done and I knocked that mess out in record time. I meet with the boss in the morning tomorrow to go over what he asked for today and I’m going to be able to present a couple of completely overhauled job descriptions, some policies that need additional verbiage, and a memo from the HazMat Coordinator that needs his seal of approval.

All in all, a very productive day. It flew by and I get to go back and do it again tomorrow. 🙂

In the meantime, I’m going to have a little dinner, attempt to get into the tub (without further incident) and catch up on the posts of my favorite bloggers…

Have you ever had to do your job while under the influence of anything out of the ordinary? How did you get through the day? Was your focus better, worse or about the same?

Until next time.