House of Pain

So, first the good news.

I am 100% weight bearing on my ankle. Crutches? Long gone. The bionic ski boot? Bid it adieu this past Sunday. My car is back in my garage. The bath bench no longer resides in the bathtub; it's currently being used as a shelf for my bath gel and shampoo and conditioner.

And now for the bad news.

I really hate to be a complete wimp about this, but walking without the boot hurts. It hurts a lot. There are a lot of muscles in my ankle and leg that I haven't used in over two months, and apparently they've atrophied away to nothingness. I'm now walking with a slow shuffling kind of limp, which I'm sure is probably pretty amusing to watch. Children who have just learned to walk are currently more graceful than I am. And stairs... I have decided that stairs are a tool of evil.

Oh, and the swelling hasn't gone down. As a matter of fact, it's worse now that I've taken off the bionic ski boot. Last night my ankle was the size of a softball, with bruising under both incisions. I was wearing an elastic ankle brace, and I had to take it off because it was constricting my foot too badly. I currently have one pair of shoes that will actually fit around my mutant ankle, so don't look at me funny if I show up to a formal occasion wearing my black Grinch sneakers.

Of course, the freakish size of my ankle might have a little bit to do with the fact that MyoMom and I completely went overboard on the interior decorating thing on Sunday afternoon, and the original plan of assembling two CD racks led to shopping at WalMart for window treatments and curtain rods, framing prints, and redecorating half of the kitchen. What should have been 90 minutes of work turned into an all afternoon affair, and we still have the bathroom to finish. But after that I'm DONE. (It's only taken 10 months, but I think that I'm almost completely moved in.)

And I'm sure that setting up tables and chairs for three classrooms at work on Monday morning didn't help matters either. Oh well.

In an effort to make me walk like a normal human being again, my orthopedist has referred me for a month or so of physical therapy. Or, as I like to call it, Chris and Tammy's House of Torture, Inc.

Yes, that's right. While the local courts are busy attempting to prosecute Larry Flynt for the millionth time, they've apparently deemed it perfectly OK to physically abuse patients recovering from injuries. Medieval torture devices like the rack and the iron maiden have given way to the cross trainer, the BAPS (Biomechanical Ankle Platform System) board, and the diabolical slant board. (Who would have thought that so much pain could be extracted from a simple wooden plank slanted at a 20-degree angle?)

The pain dealers (or therapists, as they prefer to be called) are cheerful folks, smiling while they mete out their punishments. Upon seeing me wincing with pain while doing rapid plantar flexion exercises, my "therapist" grinned with satisfaction. "Good," she said encouragingly. "Now do two more reps of twenty seconds."

Twenty seconds? Seemed more like twenty minutes. Twenty excruciating minutes.

Finally, when they've run out of humiliating ways to inflict pain upon my ankle, I am given a reprieve. For the last fifteen minutes, electrodes are strapped to my ankle, which is then wrapped in an ice pack. (The electrodes are attached to a TENS unit - that's Transcutaneous Electrical Neural Stimulation for those of you playing at home. I just call it the Tingly Machine.) I get to read my book while my ankle gets electrocuted and becomes frostbitten. As intimidating as the machines look (and yesterday I got to use the big one - they had to wheel it over to my table), it's actually pretty relaxing. Well, it is until you hop off the table and realize that you can't feel your ankle. Walking back out to the car is always an interesting experience.

But even sadder than this whole torturous tale is the fact that I do this twice a week, and I pay for it. And I faithfully do what exercises and stretches I can at home every night, in preparation for my next session of pain. I know that all of this is supposed to help, but it certainly doesn't feel that way when I'm there.

There's a word for people like me, and that word is masochist.

Someday this will all be over. Someday my ankle will stop hurting. Someday I'll be able to walk at a normal speed and not look incredibly stupid. Someday I'll be able to wear another pair of shoes besides my sneakers.

I'm really ready for someday to be now.