Not So Fast

"Let pain be your guide," answered Doc when questioned how far I could push things during rehab.

Oh ya! It's finally time to feel wonderfully shitty, I rejoiced as if the reins that have kept me in check for the last 2 months were released.  Pain from my Achilles surgery will not thwart my desire to get back running on the single track trails, I boldly told myself.

Weaning myself from the Crutch Brothers was a top priority. Together, they giggled in stereo when they tripped me and found it even more hilarious when I would reach for them and they'd fall to the floor. As they layed there laughing, I'd cuss up a storm while struggling to hop over to them with my bad leg up in the air. After grabbing them with a choke hold, they'd snicker knowing how they were next going to further chaff my upper torso into tender, raw meat.

Slowly I'd ease more weight off the crutches and onto my bad leg that was imprisoned within the boot.  Many called it a walking boot, but it caters to walking as much as a downhill ski boot--may as well have a bridge plank strapped to my foot! I figured in a day or so I'd ditch the Crutch Brothers, but they delightfully cheered, "Not so fast" as pain delayed our tumultuous divorce. But, within about a week, I bid them farewell with the finger (actually 2 middle fingers...one from each hand), after storing them in the barn.

I've gimped around in the boot for way too long. Once again, my impatience to rebounding from the surgery is not to my liking as pain infuses its profound will. I always viewed myself having a high tolerance to pain, but this surgery has me questioning otherwise.  As I slip my withered leg out of the boot and ease pressure onto my healing foot, I immediately feel the anchor points securing my tendon to the heel. Tension on the Achilles tugs on the anchor points which quickly transform into huge railroad spikes sledgehammered into my heelbone. If I stretch a little too far, pain rockets up my leg screaming, "Not so fast!"

I want progress to be noticably measureable, not something measured in hair widths.

My dreamy visions of pitching the crutches and tossing the boot away in a scant few days has been vetoed by pain. My hobbling around like a severely maimed Hunchback of Notre Dame is quite the wake up call to my believing Doc that it actually is going to take a long time to recover. I just hope his full year to complete recovery comment isn't applicable...I'll be talking to my invisible friends, outloud, if that ends up being the case.

And, when the pain allows me to attempt a trail run, I can't imagine how slow I'll be moving. This current process is preparing me well for that inaugural run which I know will be not so fast.