Yesterday, I was bored.

Today, I’m restless.

Tommorrow, I think I’m going to hit full-on Marge on a plane “LetmeoutLetmeoutLetmeoutLetmeout!” mode.

This is going to be a looooong summer.

It is done.

And the pegleg has arrived:

Yeah, I know it looks goofy as hell, but it works, and that’s all I give a shit about.

More pictures at my flickr page, which will be getting updated quite a bit since I now have a whooooooooooole lot of time on my hands and pretty much no place to go for at least the next 3 weeks.

Whee!

I was a bit busy to post about this in the last week or so, partly because I went to various doctors about five times on top of everything else that’s been going on.

So now, I’ve finally come to a decision: They’re sticking me in a cast and on crutches for three weeks to let the irritation calm down, and then reevaluating exactly what surgery I will need, if any.

Best case scenario, resting this will finally get it to calm down enough to not get re-irritated, and will do so without needing to have surgery.

I’m not terribly optimistic that will happen, but I’m willing to give it a try. And if it doesn’t work, it at least gives a much more targeted area for them to cut, which I suppose is a good thing, though I’ll be frustrated about wasting three weeks.

I am getting the pegleg thing, I’m having them ship it so I’ll be able to try it out next weekend before I actually have to depend on it. Hilarious pictures TK.

I’m still trying to figure out if I can (or more accurately, should) try to make my scheduled trip to Chicago in a couple weeks for Laz’s wedding.

Not having to have surgery yet takes away one of my big problems, but the idea of trying to crutch around all weekend is unpleasant, particularly in airports, though I suppose I could ride the little cart with the flashing light.

Also, my doctors have told me I need to not go in to work while the cast is non-weightbearing, and I’m going to guess that going to Chicago probably falls under the same heading of “prohibited activites.”

Anyway, suggestions of things I can do without leaving my house are welcome. I’m well stocked on DVD’s and I’m gonna bump my Netflix subscription up to the 3-at-a-time plan, and I’m gonna do some studying for the Apple Certified Helpdesk Specialist exam.

However, particularly if I need surgery after the three weeks, I’m gonna need a few more suggestions as well, because I’m basically stuck at home until this thing passes. Whee!

This is getting more ridiculous on a daily basis.

So I went to Dr. Hot Shit, who I’d been trying to get in with for a while (and who I got some strings pulled to get into), in order to get a third and final opinion on my foot.

Of course, he thinks something else is wrong with it than the first two guys seemed to be in general agreement that it was.

The good news is, he seems to have good reason. He took some new X-rays and basically was able to place the exact spot on my foot that has the most excruciating pain simply by looking at them and seeing something that’s been overlooked.

The better news is that if it is what he thinks it is (aggravation of the accessory navicular bone, for those who give a fuck), the fix is a lot less elaborate.

It still means surgery and a month on crutches, but only another month of rehab after, instead of another month in a walking cast and two more months of rehab for what the other guys think it is.

The weird part was, in order to help test his theory, he wanted to tape my foot to address his suspicion, then take some stress off my aggravated tendon (which is aggravated by my calf muscle on the bad leg being slightly too short).

He asked me to wear inch-and-a-half heels, and when I laughed “Do I look like someone who even owns shoes like that?” in his face at this suggestion, he asked me if I had cowboy boots.

And I thought, “Oh yeah, I guess those do have about inch-and-a-half heels.” And then I felt slightly dumb.

So I spent all of today taped up, wearing cowboy boots, and oddly substantially more comfortable than I should have been, given that I was wearing my single most uncomfortable pair of shoes.

So, possibly further details to come. I’m going back to Dr. Hot Shit tomorrow for a follow-up, and then to my original guy to say, “So, nice miss there, buck-o!” on Thursday.

Maybe I’ll even have a goddamn answer to what the fuck is going on. Wouldn’t that be nice?

My boss’s episode shoots one night tomorrow night (yes, Saturday. Don’t get me started.), then starts shooting for real on thursday, so I’m going to be back in the black hole of 16 hour days for a while.

I should have a more concrete update on the Foot Fiasco of ’07 sometime late next week, which I will share with you since I’m sure you’re all dying to know.

Otherwise, just assume I’m working until I pass out, because that’s likely what I’m doing.

So my orthopedist stuck me in a boot for a couple weeks starting last Thursday to try and stabilize my collapsing arch.

The boot is a little hilarious because it has a pump which can allegedly be used to pump up the cast to give more support. It’s about as effective as the pumps in my Reeboks in fifth grade, which is to say: Not effective at ALL.

Anyway, it seemed to be working over the weekend. My boss was out of town Thursday, and I just went to the gym (recumbent bike, which puts just about zero pressure on the ankle, plus arm-based lifting) and then slept all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

But Monday, when I went back to a real work schedule, the façade came down. My job involves a lot of running around, and when you’ve got one of these fuckers on, it’s like dragging an anchor around.

The good news was that it seemed to be doing its job and making the parts of my foot that had been hurting hurt a lot less.

The bad news was, it’s so heavy and immobilizing it’s a) killing the rest of my lower left leg and b) making me absolutely exhausted.

I’ve already made two dumb mistakes at the end of the day this week because I was so tired I couldn’t focus on anything but getting home and getting my leg out of Foot Jail.

Luckily I’ve finally got a second and third opinion set up in the next week, so at least I’ll have some idea of what can finally be done to rid myself of this horseshit on a more permanent basis. And really, rid all you of it too, since I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about it.

Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop bitching about it though. I don’t think this blog would still exist if I didn’t have medical maladies to whine about.

Remember that contraption to replace crutches I was talking about? I was showing the web page to people around the office, asking if they’d ever heard of anyone who’d used it.

Turns out not only had my friend Pam heard of it, she knew the guy who invented it (back in the day when it was called the CanadaLeg), and had tried it out and assured me it worked surprisingly well.

I’m now talking to the guy, trying to figure out if I can get my insurance to cover the cost. I’m totally taking pictures if I get one.

I really want to find out if this awesome contraption is actually a viable alternative to crutches. Because if it is, I’m totally getting one if I have to have surgery.

If I do, I’m totally reusing it at Halloween and being a pirate. Arrr!

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.

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.