Brace Yourself

Since about the time that I started walking, I've been at odds with gravity. Balance has never been my forte, and my ability to fall down ended my careers in ballet, gymnastics, and being normal long before age 12. When I started playing basketball in middle school, I thought that I had found a sport in which I could really achieve, but gravity got the last laugh. Throughout about 6 years of play, I turned/sprained my ankles too many times for me to remember. By my senior year of high school, I would step onto the court looking like a mummy from the shins down thanks to my trainer's less than expert taping job.

As some of you may know (i.e., the three people who have probably read this blog), I've had some issues with my ankles throughout my training. After seeing a physical therapist for a few weeks, I made an appointment with a real doctor to get everything checked out since I was still having some pain in my right ankle/Achilles. Well, I finally had my appointment yesterday, and I have a verdict:

Achilles Tendinitis

Apparently, my screwed-up ankles have been slacking, and my Achilles have been making up the difference. Now, they're both angry (esp., the one on the right) and have decided to protest.

Luckily, the doc didn't tell me that I couldn't run, but she did give me a lovely device.

Along with icing and stretching my Achilles, I get to wear this totally comfortable (sarcasm) night brace to bed for at least the next two weeks. It's especially sexy now that it's 90 degrees in Boston with no A/C in my apartment.

In other news, after a good stretch, I ran 3 miles tonight at the gym in about 28 minutes, and I'm pretty sure that that is a personal best!!

Teeter Totter

If you know me well (or even not so well), you know that I tend to fall down a lot. Thanks to a pair of bad ankles, I have the balance of a teeter totter, and if I ever need to stand on one foot during a sobriety test (God forbid that ever happen), I will undoubtedly fail even if I'm as sober as a judge.

So when my ankle tightened up a few weeks ago during a run, I decided to make an appointment with a physical therapist (PT). I sprained my ankle pretty bad last summer when I was running, and I thought that consulting a PT in the early stages of my training would be a good precautionary step to avoid any problems down the line.

As my PT started to go through the standard set of questions about the reasons for my visit, I got the distinct impression that she thought that I might be wasting both of our time: I don't have pain most of the time. I can walk up and down stairs with ease. I can't remember which ankle I got tendonitis in a few years ago.

And then she started to check me out, and her tune changed. Here is a random assortment of statements that she made during my visit:

• "Did you realize that your ankle is swollen right now?!" (To which I answered no.)
• "So, most people's ankles can turn in to a 30 degree angle... yours goes to 45." (she explained that that was a bad thing.)
• "Yea you have a lot of scar tissue."
• "Hmmm... you know... you may have one leg longer than the other."

So after about an hour of poking, measuring, stretching, ultrasounding (apparently it's not just for pregnant people), and icing, my PT went over a few stretches and told me that I would need to come back twice a week for the next two weeks at least.

The good news is that I can continue to run, and who knows, maybe this will help me be a little less awkward in day-to-day life, as well. I need all the help I can get.