Thank goodness it's just a horrifically painful injury with a slow recovery

It's funny how prejudices can embed themselves into seemingly innocuous phrases that survive from generation to generation. I discovered one such phrase the hard way this weekend: "Thank goodness it's just a sprain."

As the urgent-care doctor explained to me a few hours after I missed a step and sprained my foot -- an injury that announced itself with the sickening pop of tearing tissue -- a fracture would have been a "better" injury because it would have made for an easier recovery. Despite the commonness of sprains, somehow the term has come to signify a slight twisting of the ankle, the sort of thing you get over by hopping on the unaffected foot a couple of times, looking around to make sure nobody's making Gerald Ford references, and then getting on with your day.

Nuh-uh. A sprain is a rip. If the same thing happened to the outside of your body, blood and perhaps the police would be involved.

Falling in such a silly way was hard enough on the ego; I wasn't about to let anyone minimize my suffering by describing it as "just" anything. Now I have a new mission in life: Sprain awareness. I suppose I'll have to start a new nonprofit, appoint myself executive director, and recruit a board of rich people who have suffered sprains, have loved ones who have suffered sprains, or who are in some way members of the sprain community. We'll have a 5k Fun Limp to raise money, a publicity campaign called SprainAware, and after a few years in business we'll hire a rebranding firm who will donate hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of time coming up with our new slogan: "Sprain!"

So, sprain sufferers, rise up! No, actually, don't. Sit down, put some ice on that thing, and invite your friends over to watch the bruises heal.