Tomorrow morning, my right foot and I are headed to a local surgical center where an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in foot and ankle rehabilitation will operate to treat my recently diagnosed Lisfranc fracture. If you care to read on, read on.
How it happened: flag football. When: on the day of the SuperBowl. Specifically: during the SuperBowel, a big-game-day tradition that pits Dave Lane versus Manny Patel in a match more competitive than you’d imagine. I was on Manny’s team. It was early in the game, but already a key fourth-down conversion attempt by the bad guys. I jumped up to knock down a long pass from Dave, knowing that an interception would have been as good as a punt. It was a very smart and graceful play. The landing was not. I rolled my ankle forward and to the side. In retrospect, I think I felt a snap. Not wanting to be a wuss (as I was two years prior when I took a bad step and tweaked my knee; but not like last year, when I was voted MVP, thankyouverymuch), I kept playing. I limped along as best as I could, but then I rolled it again. That was it. (At least my team went on to win.)
After a couple of days of optimism and denial, I went to the aforementioned doctor. A weight-bearing X-Ray revealed a jacked-up foot. A Lisfranc fracture involves the ligaments on top of your foot, the ones that hold the metatarsals in place. Surgery is required to screw the bones back together and hope the ligaments heal. I’ll be in bed for the rest of the week or more, off my right foot for a month and a half, and then walking in a special boot for at least a month and a half after that, working my way to a tennis shoe for about four months or so–assuming all goes well. Doc says it takes about a year to get back to normal, even though my “normal” will never be the same again as it was before last Sunday.
I share this news with you to explain my future lack of blogging. But who knows, maybe I’ll blog while bed-ridden and on a Hydrocodone high. And maybe I’ll solve a crime, like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. Or maybe I’ll just sleep for days on end.
I do not share this news in search of sympathy. If you’re going to feel sympathy for anyone, please feel compassion for my wife. She now has to take care of a baby all on her own and deal with all of the crying for no reason, frustrating fussiness, odd sleeping schedule, weird diet, and poopy pants. PLUS, she has to look after our seven-and-a-half-month-old child. (The timing of that last joke was off. I apologize. My swollen foot is depriving my brain from much-needed oxygen.)
Be careful out there, FrontBurnervians. And watch where you step.
