The Foot Thing

I keep thinking I want to document The Foot Thing, from beginning to end.  I certainly mention it plenty here and everywhere.  I really can't bring myself to it. In fact, the days right after surgery are already misty (thank you, pain pills) and I'd like to keep them that way.  I do have the urge to think about it in a timeline sense.

July 3, 2010-  Jump around and jump real high at the Faith No More show, land on heel.  Heel turns jet black and hurts like dying agony for a month and a half.  It eventually faded, only to flare up during long stints on my feet, in bad shoes.

July 3, 2011 (right?)  Attend a party, consume alcohol, go on a 3 mile walk to see fireworks in very cute and very terrible for my feet sandals.  Slip.  Brush it off for the rest of the evening, till I woke up at 4 am in a cold sweat, with the weight of the blanket crushing the life out of my foot, it seemed.  Ate an oxycontin, went to the ER the next day. (turns out, in retrospect, this is when I ruptured it.)

July 3- September something.  Misdiagnosis, pain, more pain, low air boot, higher air boot, x rays, physical therapy, cortisone shots...then epiphany in the form of an MRI.  Surgery scheduled.

September something to Nov 9- Cramming as much fun and activity into my fall as I could possibly, while secretly stressing and dreading.  Lots of pain, disregarding it.  Screw pain, I have a life to live.

Nov 9- surgery to repair not only a ruptured achilles tendon, but an infected bursa, a heel spur so large it made my surgeon say "whoa!" out loud.  It was supposed to be a routine 1 hour surgery that stretched to three hours.  Into the wheelchair, and a bandage/splint.  Began sleeping on the futon downstairs.  Learned the meaning of "sponge bath".

Off the pain pills by Nov 12.

Nov 16- Hard cast and still in the chair/crutches.

5 weeks after November 9- a fall off my crutches that stretched the healing through February.  Blew the incision open, exposing the tendon.

Days after the fall- out of the hard cast into a huge bandage, thus beginning the "wound care" phase of this journey.  Out of the wheelchair full time, and hobbling a little.  Wheelchair for long stints on my feet (long, at the time, meant longer than a trip to the bathroom.)  Able to sleep back in my room upstairs, and take half-assed showers.

Christmas- walking very tentatively, in a boot, with lots of resting and a cane, still half in the chair.

January 4, tendon still right out there, exposed.  Back into surgery.  Skin graft time.  Novacane shot right into my tendon, nearly pissed my hospital johnny, and back on the pain pills for the next week straight.

January 10- go back to work.  Shaky, in the big boot and in a lot of pain, wishing I could use my crutches at work.

January 23- start physical therapy.  Ecstatic about being able to drive a little, and walk into work looking relatively normal.  Out of the boot.  Walking like a careful drunk.  Not quite limping, but sort of like I have a potato chip between my ass cheeks and trying not to break it.  This is a result of not being able to bend my foot at all.

February 6- walk around the block.  Regret it later.  Still totally psyched.

February 7- walk around Red Bank, maybe 4-6 blocks total.  REALLY regret it later.

February 8- Get a stern lesson from my therapist.  Still atrophied, still in a lot of pain.  My leg looks like the leg of an anemic five year old, with no color or muscle tone, still in spite of all my exercising.  Throughout all this, I've been religiously doing my physical therapy, since I got out of the cast.  Learn that it could be a year before I'm pain free.  Trying not to be depressed about it.