At Last

I’m still here.  I promise.  Things are busy.  Work is busy.  Website development is busy.

And physical therapy is keeping me busy.  Most of my weeks remain consumed with trips back and forth to various people who push and pull and tug and yank and do various other things to bend me back into shape.

On Monday—this coming Monday, May 6, 2019—I will find out how well all of that has worked, because this coming Monday will be the very first day that I will be able to attempt any running since the date of my surgery, which was just about six months ago to the day.  (In actuality, I have not been able to run since September 17, 2018, which was the day when it became officially evident that my ankle was, in fact, busted.)

This progression is equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking.  Though I am not at all thrilled about having to start this process by jogging on a fancy ALTERG treadmill (must this entire process involve endless amounts of “medical” appointments everywhere?), I am beyond thrilled that I will soon be able, finally, to test out my repaired ankle.  Spending hours and hours every week on an exercise bike and rolling around on the floor to do all manner of ankle “stretching” exercises is turning my brain to soup.

However, I am also very, very, very nervous that this return to running will actually prove true the suspicions that everyone has tossed at me throughout this miserable experience: I’ll never be able to run the way that I once did, if I can even do so again.

We will soon see.  And you can bet that there will soon be more writing about all of this, including, as promised, some musings on physical therapy and the (I believe unsubstantiated) mystical power of the theraband.

But before all of that, some surgery stats.  Once again, these stats are provided mostly in the interest of documenting the timeline for the very particular kind of surgery that I had—a DeNovo tissue graft—for this very specific kind of injury.  All of the people who have told me I can’t run again have told me it’s because there isn’t enough research on the effectiveness of this graft.  I have a separate stack of soap boxes for that logical fallacy (and the question about why the hell this procedure was recommended to me in the first place), but for now these stats are offered in the interest of the anecdotal research that I am conducting on all of this.

The only caveat to these is that I was very conservative when it came to my return to driving.  Living in the city, I don’t do much of it anyway.  And since I had the procedure on my right ankle, I wanted to be fully comfortable with my range of motion and strength before attempting city driving.  I don’t think that it would take most people nearly five months to drive again, though there is no accounting for specific details, like having this procedure on your left ankle if you drive a stick shift.

3/8/19—first full day and night without any kind of device—brace or compression sleeve—on my right foot in four months

3/11/19—first day wearing dress shoes to work since 11/6/18

3/29/19—first day driving

4/4/19—first day on the elliptical machine (ten minutes)