Not A Blog™

I only realized as I was preparing to post this week’s update that I never actually posted last week’s. I don’t have any particular excuse for this. I vaguely remember that last week’s update went out on Monday, so that may have had something to do with it. In any case I’ve included both here for completeness and time-killing purposes.

I also think this is probably a good time to announce my intended return to the Not A Blog™. I’ve been considering when to start writing again, originally thinking I should begin at the New Year, then thinking I should wait until I was a little further along with my recovery. (Let’s be honest: this was a convenient excuse for procrastination.) Time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself and write, right? Right. If all goes according to this very tenuous plan I’m planning, Not A Blogging™ returns March 2.

Week 39

While things continue to progress to that next date of note—March 4—I don’t have much new to report. It’s rather a matter of overstating the obvious, I think, to say that every week brings greater improvement than the last. I’ll say it anyway, because that is what’s most important to me at this moment in my life. This past weekend has seen my leg become significantly stronger than even one week ago.

Like with any sort of exercise, I see the largest jump in ability any time I take a break after a period of exertion. I skipped a step in the walk-to-run regimen last week. (Rather than going from the “run five minutes, walk two minutes” cycle to the “run five minutes, walk one minute” cycle, I went straight to the “run eight minutes, walk three minutes” cycle. All three of these cycles repeat for about twenty minutes, but the 8+3 cycle has more continuous running, which is key.) I finished with a cycle that involved ten continuous minutes of running and, aside from ongoing out-of-shape-ness, had no problems. All that to say: I’ve been pushing it.

We had a glorious 96 for Valentine’s and Presidents’ days. (A 96 = 96 hours of leave, or four days. In other words, a four day weekend.) My last PT session was Thursday morning, which will give me a five day break before my next one. After just four days of rest, I feel like I could spring into action and run a straight (albeit slow) mile and a half. The ten minute block from Thursday got me close to a mile (0.94 miles, to be precise), but I’ve still got a ways to go before I’m back to PRT shape. Of course, I’ve always had to work at that even without a healing broken leg.

So physically, I’m feeling great. I’m always able to feel the pressure of the plate on the bone—a most unusual situation—but it doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t seem to act as an impediment to running.

Mentally—well, I’m optimistic, if not slightly melancholy. Having just spent another four days at home, it’s difficult to say how much more meaningful it is to be here. More obviousness, but it has to be said. Medical hold—between the persistent illnesses and injuries, the vaguely condescending admin staff, ever changing expectations, and general incompetence of people who really should know better—it ultimately ends up being one large, perpetual pity-party that, at the very minimum, is anethema to one’s salubrious efforts.

Four more weeks, give or take.

Week 40

Again with the short update. I don’t have much to add to this week aside from a little bit of news from my case manager and a little bit of progress in my running. There’s good news and there’s bad news—although compared to a lot of what’s happened before, the bad news almost doesn’t even qualify as “bad”. It’s more like mediocre news. So, mediocre news first.

I went for my longest block of running on Tuesday. The plan was to run for a straight fifteen minutes and I decided to push it up to 5.8mph. (Previously I’ve been around 5.5.) This went fine. I hit the fifteen minute mark, jogging along, and realized that I had run about 1.4 miles—just a tenth of a mile short of PRT length. I was way over my time limit, of course. (To hit that, I have to be doing more like 6.8 mph.) But I was feeling pretty good and so decided to push ahead to an even 1.5 miles of running. And that is when, as they say, disaster struck.

Well, that’s overstating things a bit. What happened is that I ended up with a sharp pain shooting up along the inside of my ankle. Against my better judgement, I pushed through it, hit the 1.5 miles, then immediately backed down to walking. Well, limping. I wasn’t doing good, anyway.

It’s what I get for overexerting myself, I suppose. I said I was afraid this might happen and, sure enough—I finally reached that limit of too much. “What can I say?” I asked the head therapist sheepishly. “I’m a motivated sailor.”

Fortunately, this story does not have a bad ending. My foot was sore and I was back to limping the next day, so I put off running again until the end of the week. I was feeling better by Thursday, tried again on Friday, and succeeded without any trouble. So it seems like if I stick to the plan I’m fine. I can hardly complain about the “set-back” of having to repeat a day since I’m so far ahead of schedule already. I fully expect to press ahead without further problems next week. Well, that’s my goal every week. Sally forth.

The good news (if the positive resolution of the previous story wasn’t good news in itself), is the extra work my case manager is putting in behind the scenes to help me transfer out of here as quickly as possible. (At least, this is what he tells me, and I have no reason to doubt him.) Apparently it’s possible to get a lot of the paperwork done ahead of time, so that it only needs to be signed and dated after my next visit with the doctor. It sounds like one of those things that I will never realize the full advantage of. The only thing is to wait and see how quickly things move after March 4.

-Ted

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