[foot] Escape.
I mentioned in my first posting re. my foot that I was inspired by a former work colleague who’s become somewhat of a confidante and it seems like a good time to share his story. Meet Tony Meehan, a guy who plowed into a tree snowboarding back in 2010. After shattering his lower leg, foot and ankle, he spent 3 years having extensive, painful reconstruction surgeries. In 2013 he did a BKA, or “below knee amputation” and it was the best decision he made. I reached out to him about a month ago right before I scheduled this most recent surgery because I knew a little about his story when we worked together (2015) but I didn’t know all of the backstory.
In the last 2 weeks I’ve talked with him via phone, I’ve read all of his blog postings (totaling close to 400 entries and thousands of gruesome photos and videos) and we’ve texted. When we chatted on the phone two weeks ago, he could only talk for 30 minutes. He was on his way to playing pickleball. He’s the only person right now who seems to get where I’m coming from.
One thing I noticed about Tony’s blog is that he tried really hard to keep it lighthearted and upbeat. Most of his posts have a gentle, self-deprecating humor and as someone who’s now spent almost 2 years to the day laid up or, at best, barely active, I get it. I am a real drag to be around when I’m down. My husband has remarked several times in the last 24 months that he’s “amazed at how well I have been handling all of this”, motioning to my left leg. The thing is, he doesn’t see it. No one does. I know that hearing me complain about my foot/ankle is a real drag. But the pain, the frustration, the knowledge that getting off the crutches simply means more pain and additional issues we have yet to address, is always there. And for the past few days, it’s been really difficult to get away from the dull throbbing and the waves of sadness that I’ve been fighting back. Because I know this “problem-surgery-recovery-physical therapy-REPEAT” isn’t over, not by a long shot.
I realize that this isn’t something anyone really wants to read so I’ll leave you with a photo of my foot, two weeks post-op. It looks OK as long as you qualify what “OK” means on the outside (spoiler alert: it does not look anything like the right one!) Inside it’s aching and small lightening-like pulses are shooting up into my toes, which vacillate between numbness, sharp stabs and swollen rigidity. My ankle is stiff and sore from the boot, having lost what little progress I made in the latter 9 months of 2022. My lower back throbs from too much sitting with the leg propped up and too much time on crutches and an iWalk device. My calf has shrunken to half its normal size, something it always does after weeks in a hard boot. A boot that I also must sleep in. That’s right — I have to sleep in a metatarsal stress fracture knee length boot (i.e., not a lightweight Aircast.) I haven’t managed a solid night of Zzzzs since the night before surgery. I’m exhausted. But hopefully in a few hours, the day will be over and I’ll be abandoning this feeling as I sip a glass of wine, a ritual that I don’t love on a weeknight but one that allows me to hobble away from the reality of the situation for the time being. I used to lace up a pair of shoes and go for a run when I wanted to escape. These days, a weeknight glass of cheap wine on the back patio is as far as I can make it on one leg. For now, it’ll have to do.
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