August 20, 2010
I Tore My Achilles and Learned a New Skill: Posting Photos on Your AchillesBlog
Posted by booklady under Uncategorized
It was two years ago, on my birthday that I started having problems with my achilles. It’s been a long story since, and I realize that this experience has shaped me immensely. My bruise-scar still makes grown men wince, children question how I hurt myself, and others use my story to justify their inactivity. It’s a tough injury and life resumes its course soon enough. I am now training for the Honolulu Marathon after a two-year absence, have SUPped (Stand Up Paddleboarding), and have climbed many castles in Germany, where I encountered a few VACO-casted tourists who simply nodded when asked, “Achilles?” It needed no translation.
This injury has bettered me — from being more sensitive and aware of others’ disabilities, to respecting health and the human body’s ability to heal. In addition, this injury has introduced me to a larger community bonded by our broken tendons. Our storylines are similar, but I never tire of reading your words. To help you share further, I’d like to offer one way of posting your photos in your blogs. This skill and blogging would not have come about for me if it weren’t for my injury and for Dennis giving us this forum.
Happy journeys, all, and I hope to be “seeing” more of you . . .
Booklady’s Steps:
1. Choose your photo from your camera or computer
2. Google “resize pictures” to use one of the many free online resizing services that will compress your photos to a file size that’s manageable for the web. (Found this out the hard way after Wordpress kept rejecting my huge files). I use www.picresize.com because it’s easy and takes about 3 minutes. On it, put your photo on their site using your BROWSE button. I click QUICK RESIZE and select my new size to 75% SMALLER. You may do SPECIAL EFFECTS like FRAMING. After your photo is resized, save it on to your desktop and rename it with a RESIZED ending (i.e. FootResized)
2. Login, go to DASHBOARD, POSTS and ADD NEW POST
3. Enter your heading, write your content
4. When done, put your cursor at the beginning of your entry. Hit RETURN key to insert a line space. Place cursor at the very top of the box (or wherever you want to place your photo within your content)
5. Click Add Media ICON (looks like a sun) above the format boxes
6. An ADD MEDIA screen will appear. Under the FROM COMPUTER tab, click SELECT FILES and locate the resized photo on your desktop using your BROWSE button.
7. Your photo will appear and you may caption it.
8. Scroll down further and ALIGN your photo placement (center, left, right), set your SIZE
9. Click INSERT INTO POST
10. Go ahead, you can do this!
August 20th, 2010 at 6:05 am
booklady - nice to hear from you again, and thanks for posting the instructions on how to post photos. I’ve created a link from Frequently Asked Questions, under “AchillesBlog Site Related questions” to this page, and I’ll refer people to this page from now on for photo upload questions.
I wish you the best on your Marathon training. I’ve started my training for the NYC marathon for this year, and I plan on posting update in the next few days.
Glad to see that you are doing well, and I am looking forward to reading your next update.
August 20th, 2010 at 11:01 am
I understand surgical scars that stay ugly forever, but. . . have you gotten any explanation for why it still looks bruised?
August 21st, 2010 at 11:32 am
Oh Norm, “ugly” is such a relative term — but one of the most deteriorated tendons my ortho has ever seen, two surgeries, suture rejection, a bone infection, a 2-month intravenous antibiotic therapy and that Asians are prone to scarring are all reasons why I am still bruised 1 1/2 years later. Given these reasons, AND that I am still able to walk — is all good.
August 21st, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Yikes! Again, it’s not unusual scar tissue that I find surprising. What I find surprising is that the color still looks like there’s active clotting (like “black-and-blue marks”) right under the skin on your ankle. Scars are left behind by healing, and they form the way they form, some almost invisibly, and some “not so much” — especially after the kinds of complications you’ve suffered.
But I’m unfamiliar with damaged skin or tissue that maintain that “purple” look for years, like yours. (Not that I’m a bruise expert, or have examined a lot that weren’t on my own body, you understand!!)
August 23rd, 2010 at 12:34 am
Norm —
A gallon-sized can of paint fell on my good foot five years ago. No bones were broken, no wound — just a golf-sized welt that hurt a lot. Eventually I did have it drained after it shrank as much as it could. It took about 3 years for it to fade — right before my achilles tore.
Based on that personal experience, I expect that I will be purple for years to come.
August 28th, 2010 at 1:14 am
I tried to post pics, but when I do the final step “insert into post” it just shows me a blank page. When you look at the browser error (small yellow triangle with an exclamation point on lower left). I see “permission denied”. I’ll dig around some more on the dashboard to see if I can find a setting…
February 3rd, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Can I insert the photos in my first post from yesterday. I tried to go to the edit area of the blog but was unsuccessful in uploading the pictures. Any advice?
Thank you!
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:54 pm
I haven’t been able to post pictures, either. I get a blank page after I hit “insert into post”. Kinda frustrating.