Let me remind you that 2 Februaries ago, I fell on some ice and broke my right ankle. Specifically, I broke my distal fibula, dislocated my ankle, and tore a ligament into pieces. What followed was several months of convalescence, a plaster cast, a walking cast, a go-cart, and crutches. It was grueling and I've been very careful about where I put my feet since then.
On Tuesday last week, I was leaving the parking lot to catch a commuter bus to work. When I stepped on the sidewalk my right foot was on a patch of black ice. I was on my hands and knees in an instant. I got up, walked over to the bus shelter and sat down before the fat, salty tears could flow. I honestly don't know how I made it because my knees were wobbling terribly.
Of course, I had to let Employee Services know because it happened on University property and they told me to go to Employee Health right away. I figured that I was banged up pretty good, but nothing was broken, but they insisted on Xrays. I didn't fight it - I wanted to make sure too. Let me present to you my right ankle.
So, to orient you, you're looking at my leg as if we're standing face to face. The big thick bone on the right is the tibia (the weight bearing bone) and the thinner bone on the left is the fibula. If you look closely at the fibula, you can see the screw holes where they removed my hardware in December.
The tiny bright spot to the right of the tibia is a metal button that holds the Kevlar band in place. The band was there to stabilize the dislocation until everything could heal. My Orthopod decided to leave the band as he didn't want to muck around in my ankle trying to remove it. The holes will eventually fill in, but it will take some time. I'm happy to say the quality of my bones looks good (according to the Orthopod) and the fracture has healed very well.
Employee health also took Xrays of my knee and my foot. They were really making sure everything was okay. Because I work here, I could pull up the radiology reports and read them. I was intrigued by this: "Prominent plantar surface calcaneal spur." Hmmm, 'prominent'? The calcaneus is your heel bone. It's what takes most of the force when you're walking/running/standing. It should be a smooth, squarish bone.
I started to wonder if the spur had anything to do with my plantar fasciitis that I've had off and on for a couple of years. Of course I had to go look at the Xrays.
Prominent, my ass, that thing's HUGE! I've seen lots of foot Xrays in my time here - I've never seen anything that big. I could be a Nazgul and never have to strap anything on to make my horse do what I want it to do!
Just for comparison, this is a left calcaneus (not mine). This is the whole foot, but see how smooth the calcaneus looks there on the left of the picture? No spurs on this person!
I know that getting older is better than the alternative, but geez, could I catch a break anytime soon?
Comments