Recovery (II)

 This one is a bit happier/more optimistic, I promise ;) Again be forewarned it still is a "Recovery" article.

I think I was DEAD ON about support from people. I mean, we're complicated beings with our own agendas and egos. We see our friends and acquaintances succeed in life or find happiness and on some levels we are indeed happy for them while on others we can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. At our best, we remind ourselves not to draw comparisons and that we are best off finding inspiration in the success of others. At our worst, we wonder why we haven't been blessed with similar successes and rationalize that our own lives have been inundated with far more adversity than our peers. Or maybe that's just my internal strife....

Regardless, I have found a basic trait of human nature (and again.... I claimed this entry would be "optimistic" not "cynically realistc") to be that if you're just generally a good person and do your best to help others when you can, they'll most likely do the same to you in your time of need. We could get into some Jean-Luc Ricardian scarcity principle arguments or prisoner dilemma game theory here, but hey there's a reason the "Golden Rule" or "Karma" is so ubiquitous in our worlds' major religions. People LIKE to help each other out. Especially people they like or in turn have helped them out. So again for my recovery, a lot of it has been sucking it up, admitting I'm feeling weak, and just really taking a lot of comfort in my great group of friends/family.

I was nervous as all hell again prior to my October 2nd follow up visit. Nervous about what my prognosis would be. Nervous if life would ever return to normal. Nervous if I would ever run again. Fortunately, my Mom came down again to help give me a ride to and from the Stanford Orthopedics clinic. I showed up for my appointment. The nurse welcomed me, took a brief survey of my pain/healing progress, and then told me to await the arrival of the orthopedic technician. Said technician then entered the room and pulled out his special "cast saw". Whoa! Didn't know that's how they'd remove my splint. But sweet. Splint off. WOW so that's my right leg now! 

Not like as TINY as I feared it might be, but pretty significantly atrophied. And surprise, my right ankle was not really swollen that much anymore. The stitches didn't look too gruesome either. Also, I actually could still see the permanent marker on my leg indicating ONLY OPERATE ON THIS ANKLE more or less. Hopefully this was a clear sign to the team I had taken their "keep the wound dry" instructions to heart! Finally, I took a glance at my post-op X-RAY from September 15. Kind of weird seeing metal in your ankle? But overall the hardware was much smaller/minimal than I had feared. So far so good.

Enter our fearless leader, Dr. Chou. This is the big one. I exhange greetings and sort of very sheepishly mention how much I would love to run again even though I know it's very early in the recovery process. She all but laughs at me and assures me I will be running again although she officially refrains from making an official promise. I've become fond of her. And instantly my heart melts.

That is the biggest relief I've felt in maybe my entire 30s decade. 

Close runner ups are probably like not DYING the first Widlflower Long Course race (certainly died in 2013 though), working for RTI full time, being able to announce to friends that our Kilimanjaro summit bid was successful, my parents having successful surgeries, and maybe my 2019 raise. It felt damn good. And I'm pretty certain the nurse could tell I had a few tears of relief when she re-entered the exam room. Dr. Chou set me up with a boot (not a hard cast!) and cleared me to remove the boot for cleaning and stretching once a day. She then told me I would be able to start weight bearing after my follow up visit in 2 weeks. 

I started to realize and think that I was going to be okay. I was also fortunate a number of friends decided to meet me for a socially distanced gathering at Rengstorff Community center that Sunday. PHEW. Things got a lot better. The next two weeks were far more managable. Just that feeling of knowing things were going to be okay did a TON to make the non weight bearing/dependent prison more tolerable. It is hard to describe how relieved I was. Life was suddenly pretty good again.

That's the HAPPY part. And it was indeed a pretty happy time. But lest I give you a storybooked Disney ending, please remember this is a "Recovery" entry. Spirits were far higher, but I was still entirely non weight bearing and void of the usual exercise routine. And I still had a long way to go. A LONG way. As my next follow up visit, Oct 21 approached, I got nervous again. I think the magnitude of the ordeal sort of becomes VERY real as I prepare to return to the clinic. This time I was worried that there was some bleeding from one section of my wound. 

Surprise, my actual first return to the clinic was Oct 19, as they had made arrangements to remove my sutures prior to my official Oct 21 visit. I showed up and actually had the SAME nurse (nice!). She proceeded to EXPERTLY remove my sutures despite a touch of light headedness on my part. That felt great, one more step towards healing. Yet she did encounter some bleeding. Another nurse came in and decided that there were no signs of infection, yet she wanted to keep her eye on the bleeding.

Two days later, I returned. This time was the more serious visit. I showed up and was taken to the Xray room to view the progress of my healing. Shortly thereafter I was sent to a waiting room where I'm quite confident I overhead one of the nurses mention "This ISN'T pretty". UMMMM were you looking at my Xray???? I was then called back by the SAME nurse once again. She and a few other nurses removed the tape from my ankle, and examined the wound. This bleeding that I had been concerned about ended up being due to some extraneous tissue known as "exuberant granulation". One of the nurses joked that I was a "super healer" and actually grew too much new skin! I was relieved, as this issue was resolved by applying some Silver Nitrate a few times to cauterize and eliminate the extra tissue. The wound itself had been healing fine.

And more importantly, both the nurse AND Dr. Chou agreed the healing was going really well given the Xray. Great! This "victory" of course lead me to being progressed to the healing state of "being able to walk while wearing the boot". And I tell you, although there is pain as I work to regain my ankle strength, those first few steps felt MAGICAL. Then showing off my new mobility to friends, being able to walk to my apartment dumpsters to get rid of trash, and for the first time in 6 weeks jumping in my truck (not yet driving) were accomplishments. These were boons. 

HOWEVER, reality set in pretty soon after. My next follow up and chance to progress to the next stage of healing would not be until FOUR weeks later this time. And that seemed SO long away. More importantly, I would also not be driving nor beginning physical therapy in the same 4 week time frame. So I was left with quite a bit of a feeling of, GREAT PROGRESS, and soon after NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED.

And furthermore, once you start walking again on your injured ankle (albeit in the ortho boot), you very likely will feel like you've even taken a step in the WRONG direction. It HURTS when you start to weight bear, because it has become accustomed to being functionless as the bone heals. The tendons and ligaments tighten up without being moved. The muscle atrophies. Suddenly, the feelings of making progress and moving to the next level can very easily be replaced with the feelings that you're actually regressing to a time you felt MORE pain. 

So this is where I'm at now. Still elated by the fact that the healing is progressing and the prognosis is I will resume running. Yet, also feeling the fatigue of how long the road to continued recovery is. Sorry, no happily ever after! But this is stage II.