6/29/07 - Tricia

I just got a call from Tricia, my orthopedist’s receptionist. She was calling to remind me that Righty and I have appointment on Monday. I was like, um Tricia thank you for the call but it is pretty much the most unnecessary thing you’re going to do all day, perhaps in your entire lifetime. I will be in your office in precisely 68 hours and 10 min. and I will think of nothing else until then. In fact it has been resting on the tip of my brain since I made the appointment 12 days and 22.5 hours ago. Instead I said “Thanks Tricia, see you then.”

6/29/07 - D.A.R.E.

I am undeclaring myself a drug free zone and although I hope Paris continues to fight the good fight I am going to return the world of mild sedation. I’m going to save the magical total body numbing 8hr Tylenol’s for bed time and stick to your garden variety ibuprofen during the day. I feel a bit defeated that I am resuming my drug habit but I’m 100% off the Percocet so that’s progress. Those D.A.R.E. mom’s would be so proud of me.

6/28/07 – My BFF, Paris Hilton

Here is how humor kills pain, an excerpt from an IM conversation with Liz:

liz8alley2: what up yo

scaryisgreat: righty and i are fighting

liz8alley2: why

blah, blah, blah insert explanation of 8hr Tylenol drug delusions as explained in 'Duped' post.

scaryisgreat: so today i am a drug free zone

liz8alley2: so is apparently Paris Hilton

scaryisgreat: great news

liz8alley2: thought you should know what you have in common with the heiress

6/28/07 – Duped

Yesterday was a good day. Righty and I were rolling right along on the reduced swelling train, testing out some new found range of motion and feeling like maybe we were brave enough to let a few little rays of hope shine in. We had a brief field trip to the farmer’s market and the running shoe store, we had a delightful visit from Laurel and Duke (holla BC girls I got to meet him and he’s pumpkin ; ), we even got invited to Jays for some post game celebrating. All of this with really minimal pain, relatively speaking. I went to bed thinking that maybe we’d crossed a healing threshold. Maybe Righty was mending and there was crutch free walking and even driving in our near future. These were the wonderful dreams I was dreaming right up until about 2am when Righty woke me up screaming as if Kathy Bates and her sledge hammer were poised at the foot of the bed.

You see Kelly had kindly given me a bottle 8hr Tylenol pills. She said they worked wonders when she tore her ACL. I had taken them in the morning with breakfast and then another does just a tad shy of 8 hrs later. Then about 6hr later I went to bed. Well it turns out, Kelly was right, they do work wonders. They do such a good job masking pain that you actually think that you’re not having any. They do such a good job making the pain disappear that you are lulled into believing, worse hoping that things are on an upswing and that you’re approaching a mending milestone. They also make you push Righty a little to hard because you can't hear the screaming.

Now, I know its not Tylenol’s fault, they’re just doing their job and kudos, they do it really well. But I don’t like not knowing what’s going on with my body. So today I am declaring myself a drug free zone. That's right, cold turkey. Righty and I are going detox.

So far, I want to kill myself.

6/27/07 - Mama Needs a New Pair of Shoes

You know what’s funny? Crutching into a running store with a giant black immobilizer boot on your right leg and asking the sales clerk, “Do you have the Saucony Hurricane in size 6.5?” The girl looked at me with a hint of skepticism but mostly with pity as if maybe I wasn’t quite all there and it had somehow escaped my notice that I was on crutches and in a giant black immobilizer boot.

I assured her that they were for future running engagements and that I wouldn’t be attempting to jog home in them. At that she smiled with relief and bounced to the back of the store emerging in seconds with a pair of size 6.5 Saucony Hurricanes. I know they’ll be collecting a bit of dust in the short term but just having them makes me happy.

6/26/07 - Day 10

So a few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine who recently recovered from his own personal variety of ankle annihilation and he said ‘have you hit day 10 yet?’ I looked at him quizzically and said, “nope.” But then I had to count how many days it had been, which was 6. When do you stop counting in days and move to weeks? Is there some rule like with babies, they’re 18 months but not 24 months b/c then they’re 2 yrs old.

Anyway back to the days-o-healing count. So I told him that I was at day 6 and he asked how the swelling was and I said that it hadn’t really gone down much but wasn’t getting worse. And then he leaned over a bit and said in a super secret pinky swear sort of way “wait until day 10. All your swelling will just disappear.” I sort of looked at him like, yea ok thanks for sharing but I doubt all this swelling is just going to vanish b/c its day 10. Undeterred by my look of unbridled skepticism, he said “No really. My doctor told me that on day 10 I would see a massive decrease in the swelling and he was right.” He went on to say that almost all of the swelling was gone by day 10 and never returned and that the pain didn’t really subside but his range of motion rapidly increased – b/c all that puffed up flesh was out of the way I presume.

So, guess what today is? It is Day 10. And guess what else, he wasn’t kidding. Had I actually spoken the sentiments conveyed by my facial expression I would be sidling up to a big plate of ‘my own words’ right now. He was inexplicably correct. I mean my ankle is almost back to normal size. Its still a little deformed looking but it no longer looks like I have a softball for a joint. Its like someone stole into my room last night and deflated my ankle. Pure magic. I wish I had taken pictures so I could show you the Before and After. Just imagine Before and After pictures of what’s her face on that TrimSpa crud. That’s pretty much what its like only way better b/c it happened magically and not via some chemically toxic weight loss drug.

Oh and also, he was right about the pain not subsiding with the same magical speed as the swelling. Range of motion has improved. All in all this was a rock star day. Hip, hip, hooray for day 10.

6/25/07 - News Flash

This just in, I can see my Achilles tendon. After countless hours in the ice bucket the swelling has subsided just enough to bring my Achilles into view. I can safely say my ankle is on the verge of no longer being eligible for description as cankle. This is a great day. If I could jump for joy I would. In lieu of jumping I am going to celebrate by continuing to sit here with it elevated.

6/24/07 - Benefits of Humidity

So, you know what makes sticking your leg into a foot of ice water not make you wail like an infant? 98 degrees and 200% humidity, generously offered up by today’s weather. It turns out if I sit outside, directly in beams of sunlight while ice bucketing my leg, it doesn’t hurt so much. I am not sure how good it is for my lower extremity to be freezing while my upper body is sweating but hey it makes those 15 minute fly by, well comparatively speaking that is.

6/24/07 - Commercial Break

In case you’re growing weary of reading about my right leg here’s something completely non orthopedic for you: the word ‘quarantine comes from the Latin word for 40, which was the number of days (in the 14^th century) that the Venice ports required ships to stay anchored off shore to prevent the spread of the Black Death plague.

6/23/07 - Anniversary

Today Righty and I are celebrating our 1 week anniversary. We’ll be celebrating with 2 sessions in the ice bucket, an attempt at spelling the entire alphabet with my toes, and a 400 billion milligram ibuprophen cake. Also we will celebrate by not riding in any ambulances or scaring the crap out of any of our friends.

6/22/07 - Be Still

I just received a text message from Squishy. It was brief and said ‘read Psalm 46:10’ I love that I have a friend who text messages me bible verses.

Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God” I suppose it was only a matter of time before God tapped into the text messaging craze. I hear You and I am trying. I am bad at stillness but You know this, clearly.

6/22/07 - Open Wound Insert Salt

I just got the Muddy Buddy e-newsletter. I am going to go stick my head in the oven now. Jokes people jokes. But damn it we were going to win this year. Oh right the blessing part, thank you God for the sunshine and zero % humidity today.

6/22/07 - It Could Always Be Worse

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/22/six.flags.accident/index.html

A friend of mine just sent me that article so apparently, it can always be worse. I am not sure why pointing this sort of stuff out is considered a valid condolence technique. But is and it is employed far and wide by friends and family trying to comfort and console. But it isn’t really very comforting to know that some 13 yr old just got her ankles torn off. But maybe it isn’t about comfort. Maybe its about perspective. Maybe its about being reminded that in the grand scheme of things my life is pretty great. And I can get on board with that in general. But I have to say, knowing that this poor kid is looking at a lifetime without feet does not really make me feel much better about the fact that I can’t bathe without sitting on a stool. I feel badly for her but no more or less so than I would if I weren’t crutching around my living room and calling that exercise. Does this make me a bad person? Don’t get me wrong, there was an instant when I read that story (or when I hear all the other stories of awfulness in this world) when I was washed over with a giant wave of relief. But the relief is temporary. Because I just don’t think joy is sustainable if its really just the absence of pain.

I don’t think we should spend our lives muting our own pain, dissatisfaction, disappointment, and loss by focusing on those far worse off. I think that does our blessings a disservice, like they’re only blessings in contract to someone else’s lack of them. I think we need to be aware of our blessings and our gifts so that we can fully experience them and be grateful for them and protective of them. But I don’t consider myself blessed only b/c I know there are people are out there starving and dying and being abused. I just consider myself blessed. I just also consider myself broken right now and no amount of someone else’s trauma is going to make me feel better about that. All of that said, when I started writing I was thinking “blah blah blah, it could always be worse” the very next thought was “yeah it could have been, you could have jumped into that water head first”

So don’t get me wrong, I know things could always be worse. Way worse. So I think I will continue to be really pissed off about being broken but I will make sure that every time I curse this busted up leg of mine I will find something to bless. Not comfort but perspective.

6/22/07 - The Whirlpool

In college if you sustained any injury to any part of your lower body, really anything from the waist down, you were assured that an ice bath was in your future. The trainers liked to call it ‘the whirlpool’ which makes it sound at worst benign and at best heavenly after a hard practice in the Williamsburg heat. They’re liars. It is pretty much the opposite of benign and heavenly. I suppose they’re not total liars, it was in fact a whirlpool. It was a large metal tub about 5 feet in length, 3 feet in width, and 4 feet deep. At one end was a wee little outboard motor. It looked like maybe it was a motor to Barbie and Ken’s vacation boat. But, as advertised, it whirled.

The problem was what it whirled, ice water. I don’t mean ice water as in cold water. I mean ice and water. The trainers would fill the tub a quarter full with ice cubes and a quarter full with cold water. The other half of the tub was filled with your body. On good days you got the “whirlpool” all to yourself but most days you had to share it with some other athlete damaged from the waist down. You might think it would be nice to have someone with you in the tub-o-misery but it wasn’t. It really wasn’t big enough for two bodies so all your damaged frozen parts were bent into even more uncomfortable positions. And its not like you were going to chat. The instant you toes touched the surface of the water your jaw clenched shut, your lungs expelled every last atom of O2, and your brain slipped into a childlike coma only able to generate moans and thoughts like ‘mama, mama’.

It actually took superhuman strength to lower yourself into the “whirlpool” b/c it went against every single solitary survival instinct you’d ever had in your whole life. The first few times I had to do it I kept looking over at the trainer with desperate pleading eyes, thinking “Really? Really, you think this is a good idea? Have you felt this water? Its super cold, like arctic cold, like ice burg cold, like I am going to die of hypothermia cold. Where are the penguins?” But alas, they had no sympathy. Some b/c they were evil and sadistic and some b/c they knew what you had a hard time wrapping your popsicled brain around, that this really would heal you.

The “lucky ones” only had to submerge to the upper calf, those were the ankle/Achilles/calf cramp folks. If you were a knee injury you were in up to mid thigh. Which sucked but you got to stop just short of that place on your body, you know where it is, that makes your head explode if you put it in cold water. If you were a quad, a hip, or a groin, you were toast b/c you had to submerge to your belly button. I am pretty sure those folks spent several years in therapy trying to recover from the experience.

So, this morning I decided that it was time I got aggressive about healing. Don’t worry I didn’t try to go for a run. I emptied my trashcan, lined it with a plastic bag, and filled it ¼ full of ice and a ¼ full of water. Then I stared at it for a few minutes. I tried really hard to convince myself that it wasn’t nearly as painful as I remembered it, that I was only going to have to go mid calf and only for 20 minutes. Not true, it was just as painful as I remembered it and I couldn’t actually keep it in there for the full 20 minutes, I lasted 15 minutes. I was apparently much tougher when I was 19. It took about 5 minutes for my foot to thaw so I counted that as part of the ice time. Now I will spend the next several hours seeing if I can convince myself to try it again. Because you see, it really is very effective it is just also very traumatizing. I am still trying to get air back into my lungs.

6/22/07 - Smoke? I don't smell anything

Ok so I have discovered thing number 431 that I can't do b/c of Righty, change the battery in the smoke detector in my living room. This is b/c changing it would require climbing a ladder. So in 2 min intervals the downstairs is filled with an ear piercing BEEP. This has got to be penance for some previous sin or maybe it is to remind me that things can always get worse. Well here’s what I have to say about that . . .BEEP.

6/21/07 - Points to Ponder

So, what does it tell you about yourself when you crutch down to your office refrigerator with an empty zip lock bag to make yourself an ice pack only to discover that the one you made for yourself a month ago is still sitting in the freezer?

6/21/07 - Virginia is for Runners

So you know how when you end a relationship everywhere you look you see couples. Like the instant that your relationship crashed into bits the entire rest of the population somehow became the world’s happiest couple. Everywhere you look people are holding hands, walking arm in arm, using the pause at traffic lights as an excuse to smooch, and you know if you could hear them they’d be saying things like schmoopy and snugglekins. And it transcends age. Now that you’re single even the 13 yr old pimply kids and the wrinkly old grandpas have someone to call their very own. I don’t know how this happens, it just seems to be a universal invariant. When you lose something all you see is that everyone else seems to have found it.

I can now say, with complete authority, that this phenomenon extends beyond being newly single to being newly broken. Everywhere I turn people are running. I mean seriously everywhere, at all times of day, all shapes and sizes. It was 900 degrees here on Monday with 300% humidity and the whole of the population of Arlington was out running. As of Saturday at 6pm we were a nation of fatties but I bust up my ankle and shazaam everyone’s magically transformed into Forest Gump. I suppose I should be comforted to some extent that my incapacitation seems to have resulted into an all consuming fitness trend. I mean even the 13yr old pimply kid was out for a jog with his new girlfriend this morning.

6/20/07 - Friendly Encouragement

Telephone conversation I just had:

Me: I’m so broken, whaaaa. I can’t walk or drive, boo hoo. I’m going to miss the Muddy Buddy WHAAA. I mean can’t sit here all day and do nothing, whiiiiine. And it just hurts so badly, sob sob.

Friend: I know its hard and it hurts.

Me: yea, sniffle.

Friend: I have been where you are before and it is a struggle but I am going to give you some of the best advice I’ve ever received when I was beat up and broken. It saved me and I want to share it with you. It goes something like, Suck It Up.

6/20/07 - Field Trip to Work

I had to spend a few hours in the office today so I hitched a ride and left my couch for what felt like the first time in months. Once there I mostly just hid in my office so as to avoid having to explain over and over and over again that, yes I am in fact totally banged up as the result of a kick ball game. This was reasonably effective but some people just won’t be deterred by a mostly closed door. Any hint of drama, like crutches perched against a file cabinet, and they appear like paparazzi. I began toying with the idea of making up a new story for each new person but I didn’t have the heart or the energy. A friend of mine recommended putting together a PowerPoint presentation and posting it on my door.

As I was leaving I got caught in the hallway by a co-worker. Its not comfortable to be propped up on crutches, which makes me wonder why in all of human history we haven’t invented a better tool for leg injuries. I mean absolutely no medical advancements in this regard since like the dawn of time, well at least since Tiny Tim. Anyway, I am standing there – and by standing I mean leaning heavily on my underarms - with a somewhat over exaggerated grimace on my face hoping to convey my intense need to get going, when Melissa came by. She’s one of my most favorite co-workers. And if you know me, you know that is saying a lot. Anyway, I see Melissa, I think salvation, I am right. She chases off anonymous co-worker, who was on Chapter One of a story about the time his son broke his arm on the monkey bars. What that has to do with me (a stranger) smashing an ankle playing kick ball I will (thank you Melissa) never know.

Melissa asks me if I am doing ok. Offers to help me down to my car, takes my bag, and as we crutch off down the hall she says “you know, you’re the only person I know who is strong enough to carry their own body weight”. I don’t really know what this means but it makes me very afraid for all of the people Melissa knows.

6/19/07 - Trip to the Ortho

So yesterday my girlfriend Nichole and her daughter Mollie picked me up to take me to the doctor’s office. This is the first time that I have been driven to the doctor’s office since I was in High School. Ironically that ride was also the result of a sports related injury (yes we are considering Kick Ball a sport from here on out) though it involved my parents schlepping me to the doctor’s office, which at the time was still their job. Having a non parent drive me somewhere b/c I was incapable of driving myself was somewhat disheartening. Then I got my head out of my bum and was just grateful that I have such awesome friends and that I wasn’t paying for a cab ride to Tyson’s.

Today Nichole came to get me to take me to dinner. It had been a little over 24 hrs since I had seen her. My giant boot and I crutched out to meet her and as I got in the car she said (after laughing about the fact that she had gotten totally lost and driven by my house 2 times before seeing me on the porch) ‘you look better already’. I shot her a raised eyebrow dubious glance as I bounced down into the seat. She insisted and said ‘yesterday you couldn’t put any weight on the leg and look, today you balanced on it’. She was right. I had balanced on it for about 4.8 nanoseconds. The time it takes to close the passenger side back door and rotate to grab the passenger side front door. Because I am trying really hard not to be grumplestiltskin every second of the day, I smiled at her and said ‘yeah its progress’. Really what ran through my head was:

“Fezzik: You just shook your head... doesn't that make you happy?
Westley: My brains, his steel, and your strength against sixty men, and you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy?”

That of course is the great thing about The Princess Bride, it has a quote for everything. In the end, the head jiggle was enough. Westley recovers (well enough to fake it at least, which I will do too), defeats Humperdink, and rides off into the sunset – replace kissing the Princess with suiting up for the Muddy Buddy and you have my happy ending. Short of that, I have my Fezzik’s who will point out and celebrate the head shakes, the momentary balances, the baby steps. Its going to take time, I know this. I hate this but I know this. But after all, “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.”

6/16/07 - The Ambulance Ride

The best thing I can say about being strapped to a gurney, stuck with an IV (that I swear was the size of a slurpee straw), and hooked up to a billion machines that make sounds implying imminent cardiac arrest is that I probably otherwise wouldn't learn things like 'stab wounds bleed 20 times more than gunshot wounds, unless its a bullet to the head and then whoa blood fest' Oh and also, Rico wouldn't have been able to operate an ambulance siren. So all in all a completely forgettable experience that I highly recommend avoiding - especially if you're someone I love or even somewhat care about.

The Dangers of Kick Ball

I was at 12 annual, a reunion with my college friends that involves (among other things) a big kick ball game - William & Mary (me and my old teammates) vs. The World (spouses, friends, basically anyone not from W&M who happens to be in attendance). Despite all of the W&M group being division 1 soccer players (la dee da) we lose kick ball every year and usually by double digits. We play down near the water - we're on a tributary off the Chesapeake bay. If the ball goes into the water (which is behind home plate) the inning is over, all runners come in, no points. Very bad for the team that is losing by 11 points in the 3rd inning (Team W&M). So picture this, Team W&M at bat, men on base and the ball goes rolling towards the water, slowly taking our hopes of a high scoring inning with it as it approaches waters edge. I go chasing after it, leaping heroically to save the day, jumping into the river and crashing down busting up my right ankle. I went straight into shock, passed out and had to be dragged unconscious out of the river. i managed to scare the living day lights out of my friends and the stupid ball went in the water anyway. If you are at all interested in how that right ankle, lovingly dubbed Righty, is faring then stay tuned.