Bad To The Bone

Last year, I got sick and tired of being obese. I decided that living in a new area with nothing but time on my hands, I was out of excuses for not taking better care of myself. I started going to gym and working out. I loved going. For the first time, I enjoyed working up a sweat, lifting weights, having sore muscles, the whole deal.

About three months in, I started having some pain in my right heel. I thought I had strained it while lifting an elephant. Wait, how did an elephant get into the story?

See, my YMCA had this computerized circuit of weight machines and I’d get an email telling me how much weight I had lifted. I kept getting emails telling me how much I’d lifted and it’d say, “This is the equivalent of 5 elephants.” By the time my foot started hurting, I’d worked my way up to about 8 elephants a month (73,000lbs).

When my foot started hurting, I thought I’d overdone it.

A few days later I was cutting Hubs’ hair and I dropped the scissors. When I bent to pick them up, I heard a loud pop and a horrible pain shot through my heel. It hurt like crazy, but 10 minutes later I could walk on it again and so I didn’t think much about it, until I noticed a lot of swelling in my heel.

I thought I might have torn my Achilles Tendon, because of the noise and the swelling. I certainly damaged something in the area, because it’s been swollen every since. I know I have a bone spur like the one shown above, so either a piece broke off and is floating around and causing me grief, or it’s still there and has grown into the tendon.

After spending nearly all of last summer in a cam-walker, it finally calmed down and I thought maybe it’d just keep getting better.

False.

When it started acting up again after the first of the year, I went back to the doctor who told me to get the surgery on it, or be crippled the rest of my life. When he put it like that, I decided to schedule the surgery. I’m tired of having limited mobility. Walking hurts, especially walking up hills or stairs. If I walk too far, my foot hurts. I’m too young and have too much on my Bucket list to be so limited in my mobility.

This particular surgery means I will not be able to stand on my foot for 7 weeks for fear of snapping my tendon. I’ll be in a cast for 3 weeks and then back to the cam walker for 4 weeks. How will I get around?

One of these little knee walkers is being shipped to my house tomorrow. I have no plans to visit jolly ‘ol England while my mobility is limited,  but I will be taking in Les Miserables in Cleveland. I’ll also be working on some projects that I can do sitting down.

My disco ball has been patiently waiting for me to finish it. I’m about half way around now. It needs some attention.

I may just take it easy, too. We’ll have to see what I get done. I have some things up my sleeves, including some ideas for how to decorate my cast.

Stick around. You never know what’s gonna come next.

Suesan