Twas a rainy Monday morning and I was moving some things into my mother’s basement storage room. Wearing rubber rain boots, I walked on a wet rubber ramp, when — splat — I violently twisted my ankle and it was as if my foot folded beneath me. I found myself lying on my back screaming: “I think I broke something. I think I broke something.”

“Did she break something valuable?” my mother apparently said to my sister (they were in the storage room).

“No I think she means she broke herself,” my sister reports telling her.

The pain was excruciating but somehow I was able to go upstairs to my mother’s apartment. Within a half hour my foot had swollen to the size of a nerf football and my mother and I went cross town to have it x-rayed.

“It’s not fractured,” the radiologist told me. “You can go now.”

“But what do I do? ” I asked plaintively.

“We can’t help you. You’ll have to call your primary care doctor.”

I wanted to cry. Sure, I was relieved that it wasn’t broken or fractured but clearly there was something wrong with it and I needed some advice about what to do.

Standing on the corner of 84^th Street and Lexington Avenue in the cold rain with a throbbing foot, I called my primary care physician who told me to “go home and if you can’t walk tomorrow call an orthopedic doctor.”

That seemed exceedingly unhelpful at that moment. Finally the doctor gave me the number of a nearby orthopedic practice (“the only one who will take your insurance,” she grumbled). My mom and I  went into a restaurant, ordered some pizza and dialed the number she gave me.

“We can’t see you until later in the week,” the receptionist told me.

“What should I do in the meantime?” I asked tearfully, my foot still radiating pain.

“I can’t tell you anything until the doctor examines you,” the receptionist said coldly.

Tears filled my eyes. I tried not to sob into my pizza. But I felt helpless. My foot was becoming black and blue…

“Excuse me,” a beautiful Indian woman walked over to their table holding a small, white business card. “I’m sorry to eavesdrop but it was awful what you just went through on the phone,” she said.

The woman’s kindness made me WEEP with gratitude.

“Why don’t you go around the corner to see the doctor I work for. He’s a Physiatrist and he’s wonderful. Tell them Samantha sent you.”

I did just as good fairy Samantha told me to do. We walked around the corner and Dr. Loren Fishman, an elfish man in a red bow tie and round glasses, was able to see us almost immediately.

When I told Dr. Fishman what happened he measured the good ankle and the sprained ankle and concluded that, indeed, my ankle was very, very swollen.

Fishman, the author of Yoga for Osteoporosis, and many other books and papers, told me to keep my foot elevated. He said the best thing  I could do was lie on my back and put my leg up against the wall.

My mother and I were both enchanted by Dr. Fishman. We spent close to an hour with the good doctor (my mother told him about all of her foot problems…). He told me to come back in a few days for physical therapy “so as to preserve your range of motion” and gave me prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory and an air cast…

Thanks to caring practitioners like Samantha and Dr. Fishman.  I needed to be taken care of and they took care of me. Mucho gratitude.

As for me, I am taking things slowly, trying to stay off my foot and feeling better day by day.