So my blog has been deathly quiet for many months. Fortunately there are 2 reasons for this – one being, my new job (goal #39) where I’ve been for a whole year now – has NO internet. Talk about a downer. I have a smartphone to help take the edge off, but my internet use has tanked subsequently, and writing posts is no longer in the forefront of my mind.
My second reason is not such a good thing — and really stemmed from my trying to tackle goals #12 and #13.
I’ve had flat feet since end of Junior year at college. Right around the same time, I suffered an injury to my left ankle which has never been the same since. I didn’t take proper care of myself in that respect. I worried about other things, and glossed over addressing the issues by putting a band-aid on them in the form of Fit Flops. But last spring, they weren’t helping anymore.
It’s taken me over a year to get here – but as I sit here typing — I am 2 days into recovery from ankle surgery.
I had an arthroscopic procedure to explore my left ankle joint – my surgeon was going to remove an
osteochondral lesion from my joint. He would remove the surrounding damaged cartilage, bone
chip underneath and then drill the talus bone underneath to generate growth of fibrocartilage to replace the damaged parts. He also apparently removed the small bone spur I had underneath my heel (which was a nice bonus!) and some scar tissue in the ankle that all stemmed from that college injury.
I’m currently in a hard cast up to my knee. I’ll have it for 2-3 weeks. I have to be completely non-weight bearing for a full 6 weeks, and then partial-weght bearing and using a cam-walker boot for another 6 weeks after that. Theoretically, I should be back on my feet in mid-October, walking and moving more normally. I’ll have to take it easy after that however – running, jumping, skiing… I won’t ski till at least 2012. Everything else will be a gradual shift – with no set time, but at least an extra 6 months sounds standard.
The past few months I’ve been distracted with doctor’s appointments, getting scans, finding a surgeon I like — and dealing with a great deal of discomfort. The ankle was making things hurt in my knee and up into my hip. I’ve been seeing my chiropractor every week to throw my hip back into alignment. 
I even had scans done of both my knees – in the late winter it was the worst. But I’ve since lost almost 30 lbs, and am still working slowly towards losing more. That has made a huge difference, but in the end – the surgery still needed to happen. My insurance is great right now, you recover better when you’re younger — and further damage needed to be prevented.
I have an 80% chance of a more ‘complete’ recovery. Fibrocartilage is never as good as the cartilage we’re born with, but if it grows in strong enough – it’ll be better than what I was working with injured. My doctor thinks I’ve got a good shot.
So here I am. And my list needs to be tweaked a little.
I’ve changed my skiing goals – it seems foolish to have skiing goals at this point, when I’ll simply be very happy to ever be able to ski again. I haven’t been able to go hiking because uneven terrain is excruciatingly painful for me. So my #24 (New England Double Black Challenge) and #88 (New Eqiupment) are going to be replaced with something different, and my more athletic goals may need to be tweaked — or saved for another day because of my 101 in 1001 timeline. I might be able to hike by next summer… but I wouldn’t make the deadline for my goals.
I may give myself an extension — by the simple fact that I’m losing 2 months for anything very active, and have lost several months due to sorting out my injury.
In the meantime I’m slamming at my 101 Movies list, and working on 101 Books and other less physical goals.
So we’ll see what happens. I’m out of work for 2 weeks – so I’m going to do my best to keep my chin up while I recover and get some things done in the meantime!
