Being back at the gym all the time on top of three nights a week of physical therapy leaves me very little free time to do goddamn near anything else.

I like being back at the gym because it’s a massive stress reliever, but it kills an extra hour to hour and a half out of every day I go.

That hour to hour and a half gets killed out of every other day by physical therapy, so with four days a week at the gym and three at PT, plus minimum 10-12 hours a day at work, there ain’t much left.

I find it ironic that in order to get in shape to enjoy life, I have to pretty much commit to not having one.

A cast itches, there’s no two ways about it. It’s absolutely maddening when it’s in an area I can’t reach, but usually if I ignore it, it goes away pretty quickly.

The one thing that’s making me batshit crazy right now is the place where my stitches are itches. And it won’t stop.

I could reach it to scratch it if I found a long enough item to scratch with, but I’m supposed to get the cast off and the stitches out tomorrow, so I can’t risk a) ripping stitches or b) getting anything infected.

So I have about 13 more hours to sit here, trying to ignore the massive itch on my foot, and hoping this at least goes away long enough for me to get some sleep.

Why is my new computer still bouncing around Shanghai tonight? Why is it not in my hot little bored little hands?

Oh well. At least it’s in FedEx’s hands now. I guess I’ll distract myself by continuing my Shield marathon.

Edit: Yay, now it’s in Anchorage! I’m going to drive myself crazy with this.

I was a real goody two shoes when I was growing up, so I’ve never actually been grounded. Lately, I feel like I’ve been getting a taste of what I missed out on.

It’s been about six weeks since the first cast went on, and I’ve barely left the house. I do still have TV privileges unlike a grounded teenager, but I don’t have much else.

Even when I could sort of walk after the first cast but before the surgery, the longest I’ve been out is for a few hours.

I bought a tank of gas before the first cast. Even picking up and dropping off my mom at LAX, it’s still half full.

I’ve got another week in the cast and then a couple days of trying to decrease the atrophy enough to come back to work.

All I want is to get out of the apartment to do more than wash all my bedding or get the mail.

Why does it feel like it’ll be a fucking eternity before I can do that?

It’s called the “it takes a lot of effort and pain to get up” diet.

It forces you to ask yourself: Exactly how hungry am I? Generally, the answer is: Okay, not that hungry. Also, ow.

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.

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.

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.

As you may have noticed, blogging has died down a bit recently. It’s not because I have nothing to say, it’s just because I have nothing interesting to say.

The weeks are all the same: Mr. Cranky Ankle gets better, then gets worse. I go to work. I come home. I watch television on my Gigantic Damn TV. I get cranky about doing PT at 7am because it means I have to get up at 6. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On the weekends, I watch more television and movies because Mr. Cranky Ankle seems to have something against me leaving the house and participating in life, because every time I try, I end up taking several painful steps backwards in my efforts towards recovery.

I could bore you all to tears with repeated dissections of my various recurring activities, or possibly a diatribe or two about my near-constant lack of sleep because of either the ankle, the cat, or some combination of the two (like when Chaplin slept on my bad ankle and I didn’t wake up until he’d clearly been there for a couple hours).

Instead, I’ll simply post this one whining rant, and you can reload it over and over again, and it’ll be just like having me there.

Technology. Ain’t it grand?

Still no MRI of DOOOOOOOM yet, apparently the delightful folks at Blue Cross thought I could do with a weekend of sitting in my apartment and watching Rear Window.

I had to take the trash out today, and when taking the trash out and getting the mail leaves you whimpering in pain, you know something’s fairly seriously wrong.

Also, I went to put on a pair of jeans I bought recently today and experienced everyone’s favorite delightfully distressing “they won’t zip!” moment.

Actually, not even just that. It was more, “They won’t zip and simply having them buttoned is crushing my kidneys!”

This despite being purchased at the same time as another pair of pants of the same style and size, which I wore Friday with absolutely no problem.

I double-checked the size on the tag sewn into the pants, and it claims they’re my size. I had a lot of Chinese food last night, but I don’t think I had that much.

Damn you Old Navy, and Damn you to Hell, Mr. Cranky Ankle!