Not A Blog™

The end of my journey grows closer. It was my hope that I would be able to announce today a narrow window—say down to a week or so—for my demobilization. Even with a specific date, it takes some time for orders to be processed and a day or two for the actual demobilization back through NMPS. (Those who’ve been following my story since the very first update back in May might remember the cluster foxtrot that was the NMPS in-processing. Supposedly things are streamlined on the demobe’.) Unfortunately a firm date was not set today so I can’t narrow it down that specifically yet; however, I’m closer than I’ve been thus far.

I had another appointment with the doc this morning. There were two important things to take away from this meeting. 1) I’m doing well and the X-rays show nothing unusual or wrong with the way my leg is healing. No news here is good news, and previous issues like light bone density have apparently gone away now that I’m using the leg. 2) He wants our next visit to be the last.

The second point is the reason I don’t yet have a firm date. I’m pushing myself to be done in four weeks; he wants to give it six. I don’t want to see him before I’m ready, but neither do I want to waste more time down here than I have to. Additionally—and despite my progress—I have not yet started jogging and that could always prove to be a larger obstacle than I anticipate. What my case manager and I decided was to wait another week, see how things are coming along, then put that final appointment in the system. Whatever that date is, I can expect to be out of here in one to two weeks after that.

If I split the difference and call it five weeks (and barring further unforeseen circumstances), that means I should be demobilizing around the first week in March. I think that’s the most realistic estimate right now despite it depending on many factors.

As for my leg and physical therapy, I keep seeing improvement that—while expected, I nevertheless find surprising. Maybe it’s the rapidity of it. Whatever the case, I can say without reservation that my foot hurts notably less now than this time one week ago, and if it continues to hurt notably less by this time next week, it won’t be long before it no longer hurts at all.

I still have no pain in the bone or around the plate and screws—and this is after adding some hopping exercises and jumping rope to my repertoire of Things I Can Do With My Formerly Broken Left Leg. That is really cool to me, not in the least because I still find myself anticipating pain there every once in a while. Fortunately things have started to go to the opposite (read: normal) extreme where—more often than not—I walk around to do stuff without thinking about it.

My hope is to begin jogging soon—if not this week, hopefully next. Unfortunately, I’m still a little tight in the muscles of my leg despite earnest daily stretching. This may put a damper on my running; I’m not sure yet. But each week brings a clearer picture of the end of this deployment.

-Ted

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