A beautiful November morning walk turned into a terrible accident when stepping on black ice sent me crashing to the ground. At first, I thought I had a sprain of my left ankle as the ankle and foot were very swollen. A change of family doctor and close to a week later an x-ray revealed I had an undisplaced fracture of the distal left fibular metaphysis (a crack in the leg bone above my ankle). Thanks to the protection of my hiking boots, there were no broken bones, and no surgery was required. Having to stay off my feet (in a walking cast that looks like a boot) while the injury healed, I preserved the memory by drawing a cartoon of myself doing the ASL hand sign for Boot. Instead of using the initialized sign for Shoe, I went with an alternative hand sign for the footwear from the Canadian dialect. Another plus to this lesson was learning another version of the hand sign for Rubber.
