Another senseless sitar-related accident...not gourd--er, good.

I can’t take credit for that title. That’s what my friend Steve said when I told him I hurt my foot playing sitar. We’ll, I wasn’t really playing the sitar when it happened, but that sounds better that the utter stupidity of what actually occurred.

Tom Dennehy was visiting, and I was showing him the sitar I picked up last year. After dabbling with that in a pseudo sitar-playing position, I remained on the cold basement floor while we talked about the characteristics of Indian instruments and the pros and cons of being an artist in today’s commercial market.

Perhaps 30 minutes passed when I realized I couldn’t feel my left leg. It wasn’t asleep and tingly - it just wasn’t there. The combination of the cold and the pretzel I had placed myself into combined to cut off all circulation.

Somewhat panicked, I stood up on my right leg to see if I could shake out my left leg to get the feeling back. It wasn’t coming too very quickly, so I thought if I hopped over to the stairs and tried to walk up, it might help. Yeah, bad idea.

I hobbled to the staircase. As I placed my left foot down (thinking it was flat), and placed my weight on it, I heard a snap. Instead of being flat, my foot had been curled under and back. Of course, I didn’t know that because I couldn’t sense the position of my leg, let alone the foot.

Soon I began to retrieve my sensation. As the numbness retracted, the pain began. Over the next hour or so the foot began to swell.

From a similar experience that Audra had only a few weeks ago (dropping a chair on her foot), I knew it was not likely my foot was broken. I decided to wait until the next day to get an Xray. Luckily, the foot was not broken, but I was told the torn muscle could take a couple weeks to heal. For now I am trying to keep the foot elevated and avoid walking if possible. I’ve got a nice purple bruise to compare with Audra’s. So if you see my hobbling about, you’ll know why. Just another senseless sitar-related accident.