My new BFF

Happily, I’m walking almost normally now. I don’t need the crutches or a cane any longer, altough I’m still a long way from being graceful (although one could argue that I was far from graceful before the surgery).

The foot has improved so much that I’m able to do lots of cardio in the gym (not on the treadmill, though – mostly the elliptical since it doesn’t hurt the foot) in an effort to lose the post-surgery bulge before I have to go back to work.  I can ride my bicycle, but not for very long – about half an hour and the foot’s had it.

I’m still really worn out in the evenings so the semi-hiatus will continue for a bit longer (and I’d like to thank the three of you who are still bothering with me), but things are definitely looking up.  Hopefully I’ll be able to go back to work very soon and take advantage of the sudden surge in production.

In other news, since I’ve never before posted a bunch of pictures of my foot on the internet, I was unprepared for the consequences.

Creepy Internet Foot Fetish Yokel (CIFFY) has taken to sending me angry emails on a daily basis expressing his anger about my posting my decidedly unsexy foot photos on the internet, where, apparently, they have sullied his precious retinae.

CIFFY is outraged – outraged – that there’s a woman somewhere in the world who hasn’t bothered with a manicure (in ‘hore red’, no less), and yet has the unmitigated gall to post such pictures on his internet.

How dare I forget that all photos of any woman’s feet anywhere are for the sole purpose of making CIFFY want to touch himself like the parish priest used to do before Mom found out.

CIFFY’s misspelled rants have called into question my physical appearance, my ancestry, my ‘moarel fibar’, etc… Each email becomes progressively more insulting as I fail to react in a manner that CIFFY deems appropriate.

I’ve had to block CIFFY from commenting on my Flickr photos and here, but he’s still sending me emails using proxy servers (I guess when you sit at home all day on the computer, some actual knowledge manages to seep in).

So, CIFFY, this one’s for you:

Filed under: Uncategorized

Worst. Week. Ever.

All through the surgery/rehab process, people have been warning me about hitting ‘the wall’.

Last week was my wall.

The physical therapy didn’t seem to be doing any good, the foot wasn’t improving,  still hurt all the time and by the time I had done the exercises and gone about my day I could hardly stand up. Instead of coming home and sitting on the computer typing something or other, I sat in the comfy chair in the living room and cried. Every night.

The constant pain was also making me behave in a truly deplorable manner.  Think temper tantrums for small things like the grocery store being out of something I wanted or someone not sneaking the LA left turn* quickly enough.

Did I write earlier that I didn’t understand how people get hooked on pain pills? Scratch that. I completely understand now.  Adding to the general misery was the physical therapist deciding to do ‘desensitization’ on the scar, which involved rubbing stuff against the very tender part of the foot and felt just fucking great.

Luckily, I seem to have moved past said wall – although the toe’s stiffened up a bit, the rest of the foot’s not aching so badly anymore.

Everything is much better now, although I’m still not doing very much with my life other than working out and sleeping.

*Los Angeles, in a stroke of genius on the part of some smartass, for years didn’t have left turn signals at intersections. Anywhere.  In order to make a left turn, one would have to coast out into the middle of the intersection while one had the light and then make the turn in that brief interval between when the light turns red and the traffic travelling in the other direction starts moving.  I’ve never seen drivers in any other city do this – probably because other cities had the foresight to install left turn arrows at intersections.

Filed under: Non-Work

Today, I’m the happiest girl in the world.

Today was the big day – the day I got back in the swimming pool – the day I’ve been looking forward to for weeks.

The physical therapist, who has taken to lecturing me about the evils of overdoing it (to be fair, I usually get the lectures after I come limping in admitting that I’ve done something silly like trying to cram my foot into my bike shoe or doing squats at the gym), made me promise to limit my first swim to 15 minutes.

Which turned out to be not that hard – swimming hurts, but at least it’s a different hurt than walking.  Walking hurts the joint where the toe’s trying to flex, but also really hurts on the bottom of the foot – it sort of feels like the foot is folded under on the sides and I’m putting all the weight on the outside of the underside of the foot. Plus the ankle really starts to ache.  Swimming made the toe flop around which hurt like hell, but just in the joint,  not the bottom of the foot. The ankle didn’t hurt, either. I’m going to call it a win.

I don’t usually bother with a kickboard (the gym pool doesn’t provide them and it’s just one more thing to carry), but for today I dusted it off and kicked a few laps before giving up and going to sit in the steam room (something else I haven’t been allowed to do until today).

I missed swimming. Even though the toe hurt, it was good to be back in the pool.

Here’s a link instead of a photo (for those of you who would like to not look at the gross foot photo):

Foot exactly four weeks post surgery

Filed under: Non-Work