Ankle break, week six: The Whiney Rehabilitation Phase
I was raised not to pick at my scabs. It was explained to me that scabs are our body’s way of healing an injury to protect it from the elements and allow your body to create new skin. That notion made sense to me and it still carries some over-simplistic, naive wisdom. Doctors are those kids who picked at their scabs despite their better judgment and as extra act of defiance to their parents, became professional scab pickers. I went in for my six-week check-up for my ankle and my doctor said that he wanted to remove the scab on my ankle and make sure everything looked okay, and that the tendon wasn’t near the surface of the skin. I remembered my childhood admonishments and said that the scab on my ankle was fiiiine. There was no need for him to break open that sterile tweezers and scissor set, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Now I have to go and make a whole new scab because of his curiosity and unresolved childhood defiance issues.

Then, after cutting off my security blanket of a cast and picking at my scab, he put me in the orthopedic boot that I thought I was looking forward to, right up until the moment the nurse started forcing an orthopedic sock onto my bruised foot and ankle. It was at that point that I officially started to miss my beloved, protective cast. The sock, which is like what the grandmas wear to hold in varicose veins, is anaconda tight, and is supposed to get rid of the last of the swelling in my foot. The twenty pound boot he assigned me is designed for immobility, but I believe chiefly, for locating and then annoying any open wound that you may have in the foot or leg region. Mission accomplished. It has located my open wound and I am sufficiently annoyed.

The best part of this chuckle-fest is that now I’ve begun the Rehabilitation Phase, but I still can’t put weight on the appendage. If you look at the above X-ray, the little arrows point out the one last area that has to heal before I start walking around again. In a month’s time, I have to reawaken my foot by flexing my ankle and toes. How do these inspirational people come back from being hit by a bus and then enter a marathon six months later? I have the intestinal fortitude of a sponge. My rehab is to whimper for one minute and then turn on Comedy Central.