My Cross To Bear

Hello all, sorry I have not written in a while. I changed my work schedule from getting to work at 9am to getting to work at 5am, not an easy transition. I have had to go through all of this trouble so I could avoid driving to work, with my left foot, in rush hour traffic. Good news though, I have my CAM boot on now and it feels GREAT being able to go to the bathroom while standing on two feet. The CAM boot is far better than the crutches but I did figure out that I cannot move very fast while walking in that thing because of the difference in height. Needless to say, I have had a few situations where I would try to rush somewhere while walking in my CAM boot and I got a lot of laughs out of that. I have even had some good friends who really did not want to laugh at me but the more they say me trying to limp quickly to and fro, they had to stop and literally laugh out loud.

  Okay, image it. I have to almost walk on the tippy toes of my good leg, and I have to turn my CAM boot to the side a little as I walk to compensate for the extra height. Now imagine seeing someone almost spring to their tippy toes on one foot while they swing the other foot around to the side. Then imagine them trying to do that at a fast pace….now that comedy. I have been told by a friend of mine that I may still be walking to the side with my bad leg because of the atrophy in the muscles. He said when he tore his AT he had to walk sideways because his newly healed leg could not take the weight of walking regular since his calf and his quadriceps muscles had atrophied. I must admit, that bothered me a bit. So I have been doing simple leg lift while sitting in my chair at work just to make sure the muscles in my thighs don’t atrophy as bad as my calf has.

       I actually got a chance to look in the mirror at both of my legs together and I was shocked. My left leg looked as if it was nice and healthy and muscular, but my left leg looked as if it belonged to an underweight teenage girl. It almost makes sense now that some people reinjure their AT soon after getting rehabilitated because they probably did not have a good amount of the calf muscle built back up to help support the tendon. After seeing the dramatic decrease in size after being wrapped up and immobile for 3+ weeks, I think I have come up with a great idea for men and women who want to lose some weight in their midsection quickly. All they have to do is wrap a cast or some ace bandages around their mid section for a month straight and then, presto! It’s probably not likely to work but hey, people have spent tons of money on worse weight loss ideas.

   I think I almost got my wife arrested when I went to my last doctor’s appointment as well due to my little game I play. This lady, who I had no idea who she was at the time, asked me what I did to my leg to end up on crutches and in a boot. So I jokingly responded to her and said, “Well…..my wife likes the clothes folded and put in their respective drawers in a specific order and….this is what happens when you put the face towels where the bath towels go”. So just as I expected to here a quick chuckle all I heard was, “Is this the first time she has hit you?” WTF? So I had to explain to her that I was only joking and that I had injured myself playing football. After this explanation she then proceeded to tell me that she is some kind of social worker for the hospital that investigates abuse injuries. WOW. So needless to say she probably did not really find that funny though she grinned about after I told her I was joking. I am pretty sure she probably followed me home and staked my house out for a day or two anyway.

    I need to hurry and get my scar pictures on the site too. When I went to get my staples removed (a week after I originally thought they were getting removed) I was quite shocked, both at the relatively little pain that was involved in removing them, and at the very fine line that was cut into my skin and later glued and stapled back together. It almost looks like you won’t be able to tell that there was an incision made there. But I do think there will be marks on my leg from the staple holes though. But the weirdest thing that I have to deal with right now is the fact that my leg really is not sore or swollen, but for some odd reason it’s my ankle and the top of my foot are swollen and dark. Go figure.

    Another problem with having my foot wrapped up so long is the dead skin. I was lying in the bed the other night with no sock, no boot, nothing at all on my feet. This was also a night when my wife had put satin sheets on the bed. It felt great to be able to put my foot in the bed with no ties, or wraps or ice bags on it. But I started hearing this sound every time I would move my feet around the bed and at the same time I would feel something pulling on my foot. When I figured out what was going on, I noticed that the skin on the bottom of my foot was grabbing the sheets like Velcro, and as a matter of fact that was the sound that was made. It sounded like I was pulling the Velcro straps on my CAM boot. So whenever I can actually reach my foot again without having to strain, I will be soaking my foot and using one of the pedicure stones to get that dead skin off. If not, I fear that I will be kicked out of bed the first night my foot accidentally brushes up against my wife on accident and exfoliates her leg! lol

     Before I go, I have to share with you a conversation that I had with a nurse at to doctor’s office. This was the some nurse who removed my staples. I was sitting there on this table complaining about my leg shrinkage and she also told me the same thing my friend told me, “The rest of your leg my atrophy too”. So I looked at her in the eyes and said that I cannot and will not let that happen. I told her I would be crushed if that were to happen to me. So then she looks back at me and says, “Ya know……there are some other body parts that I am sure you would be even more upset about if they shrank and shriveled up”. I sat there for a minute and thought about what she said, and low and behold, shes right. So from this point on I have realized that a shrinking leg really is not all the bad in comparison to some other things shrinking.

                                                                          Till next time freinds.