One of my coworkers received a large box of Easter crap from his folks today, including an enormous number of Peeps. I commented that we should microwave them, and someone asked why.

Peeps, as has been repeatedly documented, expand to several times their original size in the microwave, and then poof out in an awesomely gruesome fashion. Occasionally, they explode and leave a delightfully sticky mess all over the microwave.

What do a bunch of grown people (of whom I’d like to note I am the youngest) decide to do when presented with this information and are unsure whether to believe it? Conduct their own testing in the office microwave.

This is what happens at 8pm on a Thursday when people work 12 to 15 hour days together for eight months in a row: They start acting like a bunch of twelve year olds.

My physical therapist threw in the towel today. I’m not making any progress with anything other than the exercises I’m doing at home, so he doesn’t see much point in me continuing to come in.

I can sort of understand, since I can do quite a bit of stuff on my own, and I suppose it’s best not to waste money and insurance-covered PT visits when they’re not going to do much beyond what I could do on my own.

The problem is, it basically means surgery is now pretty no longer a question of if but what and how. Still waiting on getting a second opinion for that.

I was bitching about my continuing singlehood to some friends this weekend, saying it felt like I was in the midst of the longest dry streak in the world.

It was good to learn that I still have a ways to go before I can claim that title.

Courtesy, of course, Dave Barry’s Blog.

So in anticipation of probably at least needing some sort of surgery and having to cart my ass around on crutches for a period of time longer than five minutes, I’ve started lifting weights.

The last time I was on crutches, I was on them for about three days of actually using them properly, and my arms just about fell off.

The fact that I’m very overweight also really hit me hard I was on crutches. Every time I took a step with crutches, it was basically like doing a 200+ lb bench press. I had just about zero muscle tone in my arms, and it became quite literally painfully obvious.

This time, however, I’ve got a little warning. I can at least focus my workouts so that my arms only feel like they’re going to fall off at a point where they don’t have to carry my body weight.

Since realistically any surgery is not going to happen until the third week of May, I’ve got about eight weeks to get my arms, shoulders, and chest as strong as possible, and it’s a race against time for me to try and get ready.

My start hasn’t been great. I can really only do about 30 lbs. on several of the machines, and no more than 50 on anything.

I did 50 on one machine this morning (I have no idea what it’s called, but you lift straight up over your head and it works the back and the muscles under your upper arm), and I couldn’t lift my arms above shoulder level until late this afternoon.

I’m going to try and meet with a trainer at my gym next week to get some advice on what muscle groups I need to target. Hopefully I can gain enough strength so that the transition to crutches isn’t too horrible.

However, if I don’t post for a few days, it probably means I’ve overdone it and I can’t lift my hands to the keyboard. If that happens, I’ll try to type out SEND HELP with my nose.

Now I know why I can’t find a damn Wii: They’re being snapped up by retirement communities.

Well, and everyone else and their brother, mother, sister, and now grandparents. The video that’s on that story is pretty cute though, especially the 89 year old woman who hasn’t bowled since 1945.

I had a longstanding follow-up appointment with my orthopedist today. I walked back and he was talking to my physical therapist (whose office is across the hall).

After I finished giving the PT a light berating for Tuesday’s fiasco, the orthopedist came in, and started investigating why my foot’s not getting better.

His conclusion: Two of the major tendons that hold my foot together (the anterior and posterior tibial tendons) are starting to fail. He thinks that I need to get surgery to prevent the tendons, anterior tendon in particular, from snapping.

And not just simple laproscpic surgery, no no. But “let’s disassemble and reassemble half your left leg” surgery that would leave me on crutches for 4-6 weeks.

Resetting at least one of the two affected tendons, lengthening the calf muscle (which he thinks is putting more strain on the tendons), and doing a couple other things that went over my head. 4-6 weeks, no weight on the foot at all.

I have a job where a substantial portion of my day is spent schlepping stuff from Point A to B, and occasionally to C. I live on the second floor of a building with no elevator. 4-6 weeks on crutches is going to be a special little corner of hell for me.

The orthopedist at least is willing to try re-targeting my physical therapy and really ramping it up for a couple weeks to see if it at least makes a difference.

He also, whether he likes it or not, will have to wait for both the show’s season to wrap filming (my boss is directing the finale, and ain’t no fucking way I’m dealing with that on crutches) and for me to get a second opinion, since I’m clearly not going through with anything this drastic without getting a second goddamn opinion.

I’ll know more in a couple weeks after doing the intensive PT and seeing how it works, but it’s not looking good. I’ve written off today to wallowing, but hopefully starting next week, the re-targeted PT will actually start paying off.

Cross your fingers for me.

So Tuesday was a miserably shittastic day for me, because my physical therapist decided one of my legs was shorter than the other.

I’d gone in for my weekly physical therapy, and while I’ve been making some progress with Mister Cranky Ankle, it’s been excruciatingly slow.

So he did some rather unscientific tests and became convinced that my good leg is about a quarter inch shorter than my bad leg, and that this was what was impeding my progress.

This despite the fact that the orthopedist had checked this when I initially had come in, and had found that my legs were the same length. Nine months ago.

Anyway, the physical therapist made some adjustments to the custom fit orthotics I had to get made after the first injury, and sent me on my way.

Problem was, the adjustments he made turned my legs against me in a rather violent fashion.

The heel lift on the good foot threw my entire right leg out of alignment, and put me in some rather excruciating knee pain for the better part of the day.

The small piece of foam he’d added to the arch of the bad foot started bruising the bottom of my foot (a problem I’d previously had in poorly fit orthotics) and that killed as well.

So after all these efforts to make me feel better, what happened? I ended up hobbling around the office and generally looking and feeling like my 89 year old grandmother.

When I got home last night, I took out all the crap he’d put in. Today, I was walking relatively normally and in substantially less pain than yesterday. Still more than I’d like, but I’ll certainly take “irritating as fuck” over “excruciating and making me consider stealing a cane from the prop department.”

I’m gonna give him a nice punch in the face (or at least the bicep) when I go in for my appointment next week.

You know, if this were the text used at the Seder my stepmom keeps harassing me to go to, I might actually go one of these years.

Courtesy, once again, Dave Barry’s Blog

I drove mine into a river following bad GPS directions and it was swept away, I must make amends…

Special bonus quote with hilarious British town name:

Although the track is signposted as ‘unsuitable for motor vehicles’, the driver carried on and found herself at a ford in the village of Sheepy Magna.

courtesy Dave Barry’s Blog

So much so that he decided to do his impression of Stephen Colbert in front of the Gigantic Damn Television: