Fang versus Rhino Horn

“Whoa!” blurted the surgeon while sliding my x-ray in front of the fluorescent bulbs.  Bones of my right foot and ankle were illuminated and my riddle was finally solved. 

For months I ran trails with pain in my Achilles tendon that I elected to ignore. It’s nothing, I’d tell myself and push through the pain to enjoy Mother Nature.  Good music and thoughts helped drown the pain, but after suffering too many months, my self-diagnosed Achilles tendonitis needed a professional opinion.

“See this here?” asked the surgeon while pointing to my heel bone that had a stalagmite jutting upwards. “That’s a bone spur that grew into your Achilles and you broke it off at the base,” he added.

SHIT!  Are you kidding?  What to do?  What to do….

After bantering back and forth, the surgeon made the procedure sound simple.  “I’ll cut down to the heel bone and remove the Achilles.  Once the tendon is flapped over, I’ll grind and reshape the heel bone and then extract the fang (yes, he called the broken spur in my tendon a fang) and then tack the tendon back onto the heel bone.”  This procedure sounded rather gruesome since he was talking about MY tendon being detached and MY heel bone being ravaged by a grinder.  But, it was either surgery or live with a busted bone spur digging at my Achilles.

Ten days later, I was lying on a hospital bed being prepped for surgery.  Sensors were attached and wires dangled in all directions when the anesthesiologist told me to roll over on my hip.  Under my hospital gown, I wore a pair of boxers.  Due to all the jostling around during preparation, said boxers became butt floss and crept up for a deep and classic wedgy.   Being trapped in a spider web of wires, I began to unhook some for freedom.

“What are you doing?” demanded the anesthesiologist.

“I got a wedgy and despite the situation, I still have some modesty,” I replied, maybe slightly uptight, while repositioning my boxers.  (Yes, I’m shy about by little white ass.)

“Here, this will help to relax you,” the anesthesiologist said while showing me a small syringe filled with clear fluid.  I wonder how he knew I needed “relaxed?”

The very next moment, I heard myself talking in a far away tunnel and then, in the blink of an eye, I was fully conscious.  Like a switch had been flipped, I was jabbering to 2 ladies who apparently had dressed me.  It seemed surreal.  I was dressed and had a gargantuan cast on my right leg.  Where did the time go?  What possibly had I been saying to the 2 ladies?  Did I maintain my modesty?  What if, heaven forbid, my boxers again morphed into a man-thong?  

I was whisked away in a wheelchair and my wife drove me home where I went straight to bed.  Pillows were stacked for my throbbing leg as I nested in others.  Pain pills provided a weird sleep, never fully engulfed, but right on the edge where my hearing became more acute.  A mouse fart or a leaf fluttering off the window was easily detectable.  But, oddly enough, after 15 minutes, I would fully awaken and feel like I had slept for 20 hours.  Pain killer junkies? I don’t get it…this is no fun at all.

With plenty of time on my hands and nowhere to go, analysis of my throbbing leg revealed a study of physics.  Pain was slightly altered when all body parts were in perfect alignment.  My pelvis demanded precision placement on the mattress which aimed the femur in the proper direction.  The tibia/fibula were picky and required exact angles leading into the cast.  Then, my toes could not be pointed pigeon-toed, but ever-so-slightly duck-footed to relieve any pressure on the raging boo-boo at the back of my foot.   What about my other leg?  It’s sporting a pasty white compression sock to ward off blood clots, you know, the kind elderly ladies wear.  I’m not sure how effective it is since my not-so monstrous calf muscle allows the so-called compression sock to slide down and wad up around my dainty ankle.  Yup, pure sexy.

I sit here applying physics, slipping into and out of weird sleep patterns and dreaming about gliding through trails lined with pine trees. 

Doc said the broken spur was a fang, I contend it was a rhinoceros horn!