8/07/2007 – Exit Stage Left

After almost two months, 40 posts, 30+ comments, and countless ice buckets I believe it is time to bid Right adieu. I have to confess that this brief foray into the world of blogging has been far more entertaining and enjoyable than I would have ever imagined. It was an exercise that forced me to focus on the funny and the positive in the midst of the frustrating and the painful and for that alone it was a worthwhile endeavor.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to all of you who faithfully checked in to read a few paragraphs a week about my ankle – which still is rather astounding to me. I hope you feel you got your money’s worth.

Of course I can’t end this blog without announcing the winners of the ‘Webster’s New Word Challenge’ contest so they are as follows:

1st place winner of longest submission which incorporated all of the words: Klinger
Major Award: Concert/Soccer game attendance of your choosing

1^st place winner of most concise submission: Becky
Major Award: Long overdue lunch date

1st place winner of most anonymous submission: Anonymous
Major Award: ridiculous make believe blog & welcome home cake

1st place winner of haiku submission: Anon #2
Major Award: dinner where I actually make the selection

1st place winner of poetry submission: Dave
Major Award: dinner where I actually make the selection

1st place winner of most risqué submission: Erica
Major Award: Car bomb & crabs

Thanks guys. I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun with Righty if it weren’t for you all being the most kind and generous audience in the whole wide web. Take Care.

Love,

Righty

7/30/2007: Psalm 31:24

So today was the 3^rd visit with my beloved Dr. My hope was that it was going to be my 3^rd and final visit with him, not b/c I don’t adore the man, b/c I do do do, but because after 45 days of stress and struggle I am ready to be done with Righty. I want Righty to go back to being ‘anonymous right ankle’ with no special needs or handle with care instructions. But hope can be a dangerous thing.

So, I spent the week-end trying to level set my expectations, to base them on data instead of desire. I ran, I juggled, I dribbled, I grape vined, I stretched, I iced, I prayed. I gathered a wealth of data about Righty in hopes that when aggregated and presented to the Dr. he would have no other choice than to declare me cleared to play in this week-end. In the end however, I knew that after he had heard me out and listened patiently to all my proof he would ask me what I thought. Would I clear myself to play if I were him? As Clark put it “what does that gut of yours tell you?”

My gut says ‘play your heart out’ and then it says ‘you have way more to lose than you do to gain’. My gut says ‘you’ve played more banged up than this before’ and then it chuckles and says “when you were 18’. My gut says ‘go, have fun, play your game’ and then it says ‘hiking in Alaska is going to be hard in that boot.’ My gut is worthless. Thankfully, I have my beloved Dr.

I have promised several of you, you who pushed me to make such a promise, that I would not play if the Dr. didn’t clear me. That I would resign myself to his authority and I would skip the tournament no questions asked. I wouldn’t argue or bargain or fudge the facts to try to sway his decision. I would just accept it and move right along to my next goal, Army 10 miler anyone?

Fortunately, I don’t have to keep that promise. I was cleared to play this week-end. It isn’t a risk free situation but as my beloved Dr. said “Your strength and stability is solid and I’m not pushing the envelope to clear you to play but you are one hard tackle away from the sidelines.” I nodded. I understand this.

Yeah, hope can be a dangerous thing unless you place it in the right hands. My hope is now my joy. Thank you guys for all the prayers. . . . and keep ‘em coming ; )

7/25/2007 – From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running!

So, my running prescription from beloved Doc was a progression of slow treadmill, to faster paced treadmill, to outdoor track, to pavement, to soccer field. Well, I need to be on a soccer field in 11 days so I decided that it was time to kick start this progression.

So, early this morning Righty and I pedaled out to Washington and Lee H.S. and hit the track. Typically, I hate running on a track. I need scenery and forward progress to distract me from the usual monotony of running. And running round and round and round is not at all distracting and is totally uninspiring (this is why I find NASCAR’s rabid fan base unfathomable) Anyway, since just being able to run is now a thrilling exercise in pain thresholds and patience I don’t really need any distractions. The monotony of circling a track is now as compelling as the beach sequence in Chariots of Fire. Unfortunately I didn’t have that song on my iPod or I totally would have been rocking out.

I decided I would aim for 2 miles and depending on how I felt I would go for one more but I agreed (yes with myself) that regardless of how good I was feeling that I would cap it at 3 miles. So, I did the first mile and felt pretty ok and decided that the second mile needed to be faster. So I finished mile 2 fifty seconds faster than mile 1 and decided that I had an even faster mile 3 in me. This is why beloved Doc didn’t want me doing this alone. I am incapable of not pushing harder. It can be a good trait of mine but it can also be a tragic one. Left to my own devices I might accomplish great things by destroying myself in the process. This is why God does not leave me to my own devices very often, well or ever.

Well I pushed and I finished the 3^rd mile 65 seconds faster than the 2^nd mile. And thanks to all the great coaches I have had in my life this ran through my head: “You know, that just means you didn’t push yourself hard enough on the first 2 miles. What you save you lose.”

For the first time in weeks my heart was pounding in my ears and my lungs hurt for want of breath. I had sweat in my eyes and dripping off my chin and elbows. Side note: I love sweating, Christine thinks I am insane for this but that makes it no less true. I actually had a really hard time when I lived in Denver because I would run for hours out there and never sweat. It’s so dry there it sucks the sweat right out of your pours. It’s very unfulfilling. Anyway, I digress. I was tired and sweaty and happy because Righty held up. As I walked my cool down lap I paid very close attention to the pain signals emanating from my lower right extremity. There were a few familiar pains but rather dull, a 3 (if you will KB) on that stupid pain threshold scale. And there were a few bandwagon pains in my foot and calf. But overall, we were doing just fine.

I pedaled home, stuck Righty in an ice bucket and got my day off to a good start. I hope you all are having a good day too.

7/24/2007 – PT Update

PTG and I are on a roll. She revamped my routine again and here is the run down.

· Weighted ball bounces against angled trampoline while standing on a foam pad = 88, up 30 from last weeks paltry performance.

· Olivia Newton-John jazzercise running in place, replaced with rabbit hopping over a string of 10 mini orange cones (think construction cones but like for Lilliputians)

· Substituted heating pad for ice bag post “massage”

AND . . .

· graduated to the blue band. Hip hip hooray

It was a good PT day. Quite a bit of pain but an equal amount of progress so I am a happy camper.

7/23/2007 – No Gnews is Good Gnews

Righty and I went for a 20 mile bike ride yesterday and the good news is that I have absolutely nothing to say about it. It was virtually pain and consequence free. There was a bit of swelling this morning but hardly a noteworthy amount, unless you have a blog that allows you to note unnoteworthy things. So, in the famous words of Gary Gnu “No Gnews is Good Gnews”

I suppose the other noteworthy thing is that Righty and I went on this ride with Kelly, who took us on a route that she used to frequent many moons ago. And despite the fact that over 95% of the route is paved, I am apparently the only person she’s ever taken on this ride who didn’t wind up crashing into her or a bush.

P.S. for those of you who weren’t in elementary school in the early 80’s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Space_Coaster

7/19/2007 – Carnies, circus folk, small hands...

Yesterday was PT session #5. In addition to clearing me to run my Doc also ordered me back for 2 more weeks of PT. Lets just say I wasn’t overjoyed at the prescription but I dutifully obeyed and found myself back in the capable if not conservative hands of PT girl (PTG). Well much to my great surprise whatever my beloved Doc wrote in my file and faxed to her convinced PTG that perhaps I was ready to progress beyond level 1 recumbent bike type activities. My excitement rapidly morphed into amusement as she laid out my new PT routine.

It started with a warm up on the recumbent bike, yawn. However this only lasted 5 min b/c the 2^nd half of the warm up was on the treadmill . . . walking backwards, up hill, with my hands in the air. Why, you might ask? Well b/c this works on balance silly goose, or so claims PTG. I think it’s her payback b/c I ask her 7 and a half zillion questions about everything she makes me do.

After that I moved on to another balancing act. This one required standing on foam pad balanced only on Righty (ok so far not bad) and then throwing a weighted ball at a trampoline angled at about a 20 degree angle. This angle ensured that the ball would bounce directly back into my face. I had to do this continuously for 2 minutes. I got 58 throws in, touched the floor with my left foot to rebalance 10 times, and successfully avoided a bloody nose. I wasn’t overly pleased with my performance, I mean that is fewer than one toss every 2 seconds. Next time I am totally getting 75 tosses in, bloody nose or not.

To round out this trifecta of circus tricks I ended the session with 2 minutes of jogging in place . . . on a hot pink round trampoline that women used to have in their basements during the jazzercise era. Seriously, think Olivia Newton John circa 1981. All I was missing was a pair of head and wrist terry cloth sweat bands.

This new set of “exercises” was certainly more advanced (I graduated from red to green, one step closer to the prized blue band) but man oh manishevitz is it a sight to behold. But hey if this sort of stuff gets Righty healthy I’ll ride around the room on a unicycle juggling rattlesnakes. Yeah I said it, rattlesnakes.

7/18/2007 – Hello Pot

Ok so one of the main, if not sole, reasons that I resisted starting a blog was because I think they’re dumb. Any time I have come across a blog it is usually filled with overly precious, self-indulgent drivel. I can’t for the life of me determine what purpose they serve except for making it seem like simply having an opinion means that you should write it down and put it on the internet.

I have lots of opinions, hoo boy, lots. But I also have general wherewithal and therefore know that most of my opinions need not leave the confines of my cranium. I think I have a pretty good life but I don’t think it needs to be documented for public consumption. I don’t visit YouTube, I don’t have a Facebook or MySpace page, and I don’t read other people’s blogs. These were but a few of the hurdles that my dear BC gals (and a few very influential others) had to attempt to push me over in order to bring The Chronicles of Righty to life.

Well, as you know b/c you are reading this, they were successful. I acquiesced. It is amazing what a little bit of flattery will do to convince someone that they should, in fact, post their precious, self-indulgent drivel. And I have to confess that I have enjoyed writing The Chronicles and I have received a decent amount of generous feedback that you all, my loyal readership, are enjoying it as well. I think all this enjoyment lulled me into a kinder gentler view of blogs. And I got to thinking that maybe they do serve a greater purpose. A unifier, if you will, of far flung friends who don’t otherwise get to be regaled with the details of my daily life. A mechanism for uniting friends of friends, who otherwise would never meet, if not for comment block discussions. A means to shrink our crazy busy world and keep us all just a little better in touch.

Turns out, nope, they’re still dumb. Here is my proof, there is a blog entirely dedicate to espousing the greatness of Croc’s (http://www.crocfans.com/) AND one entirely dedicated to hating on them (http://www.ihatecrocs.com/). AND both of those blogs and their “authors” got a shout out from the NY Times Magazine. You see, they are idiotic. Blogs are just clogging up the world with worthless discussion topics and critical judgmental opinions that thanks to, you know Al Gore, we can now post on a worldwide forum. If you have an internet connection or live in decent proximity to a coffee shop you can unload the mundane details of your life to the unsuspecting public. I mean its like, its like, its like writing a blog . . . about . . . an ankle. Oh lawdy what have I become.

Hello my name is Julie. I am a blogger. It has been one day since my last blog post.