Walk Tall

As I lay upon my bed I began dreaming
how it's gonna be, the day that I am free
(The Jayhawks)

Tomorrow is the day I try to walk. Tomorrow is the day I try that function that is so basic and mindless for most humans. Tomorrow I lean to the right for the first time in two months. Tomorrow I try to stand tall with dignity.

It's been more than two months since the injury and more than six weeks since the surgery, and it's time for me to go see the doctor again. According to Plan Gordo, outlined in a previous blog entry, tomorrow begins the "partial weight-bearing" phase. That means starting to walk again with the aid of a single crutch or a cane.

Bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and the other parts of your musculoskeletal system are strange beasts. They don't just heal themselves with rest and time. You have to actually get up and use them to fully repair bone fractures and return your joints to something resembling their original working order.

So it is that I wait for tomorrow with a sense of nervous anticipation. I am excited to move to the final phase of healing. But I am anxious, concerned that this is the point where I will be in significant pain and likely be unstable for a while.

I have, after all, lost a lot of muscle mass. My right leg is distinctly smaller than my left, which is conditioned from months of doing all the work. Since the post-surgery cast came off, I've been flexing my ankle and writing the alphabet with my toes, and I think I can do a pretty good A-Z. But that doesn't mean I'm ready to start strut around with my usual swagger.

I figure it will come with time. Time needed to work out the ankle and remind it of what walking is like. If I can remember, that is...if walking is like riding a bike (which I think I can still do.)

More than walking, though, I'm looking forward to driving again. I've kind of banked on being able to drive myself to class this semester, so I can finally leave Mari Elise and all the other friends who have so kindly driven me to campus alone. I have a parking pass and everything, and I'm hoping to make a regular two-minute commute. And to go out and do things that previously were out of reach.

I must say, thought, that I haven't really been suffering too badly during this crutchy time. I am incredibly fortunate to have family and friends that support me just as well as my aluminum extremities do. People have been incredibly patient and accommodating, and I've had a pretty active social life despite the fact that I move at about 1/2 mile per hour.

I even went to Vail. Yes, I'm probably the only dumbass who traveled all the way to a world-class ski resort with an injury, as opposed to the poor souls who hurt themselves on the mountain. (Photo on your right: someone, not me, enjoying the powder at Vail.) But despite the fact that I couldn't cruise the powder with my friends as I so longed to, I still had a good time, hanging out with people, playing Guitar Hero, and even getting to sample absinthe.

(Note for the record: absinthe, a strong licorice-tasting liquor, recently became legal in the United States. This version lacks wormwood, the notorious ingredient that supposedly caused hallucinations -- though a recent New York Times article noted that any such nefarious effects were really just drunkenness blown out of proportion.)

Classes have resumed for the semester. I am back to trying to better myself through higher education, or at least having something to do. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to successfully complete "Magazine and Feature Writing" given the amount of in-person work I will need to do with my gimpy self. But I shall soldier on and make the State of Colorado proud. (Well, they do sort of pay for my education.)

Tomorrow shall some answers come. Good night.