I'm healed!

Today was the big day: follow-up appointment with the podiatrist to make sure that everything had grown back together the way it was supposed to. I made it to the office for my 10am appointment and he almost immediately had me in for another x-ray. Nothing to see here, folks, the bone had healed. According to him that bone has now lost some length, but I sincerely doubt I'll notice. My feet are practically the length of canoes (though strangely this hasn't at all helped me with swimming) so maybe that's not even such a bad thing.

After hearing that bit of good news, I told him about the barrage of issues I've had over the past 18 months or so. SI joint, knee, cuboid bone, stress fracture... he had me walk in bare feet for him. It didn't take him very long before he decided that my right side is "significantly" longer than my left. He said side, not leg. I don't know where the extra length comes from, but he guesses about a quarter-inch. I realize that this is the kind of thing that people can often be told when it has more to do with things being out of alignment than anything actually being physically longer or shorter, but then again I've also read stories of people who had chiropractors adjusting them to even out leg length discrepancies only to knock hip joints out of alignment because these people did in fact have actual bones in their legs that were different lengths. Given that this particular podiatrist is literally world-renowned in his field, I'm going to go ahead and trust him.

He fitted me with some orthotics to even me out a bit and I'll go see him again in 6 weeks to see how things are going. But things are looking good. I'm going to add a bit of walking into the mix to help with the soft tissue, which has been weakened due to lack of use, but my first run - all 15 minutes of it - will be on Wednesday. This should be interesting. I think I'm going to have to find a trail so that nobody can see how ridiculously slow I am. Even on my short little bike rides so far I get that pain in the back of my throat from minimal exertion - that strange taste I always remember from my first basketball practice after an off-season in which I once again had forgotten to do anything to stay in shape - so I can only imagine how it's going to feel when I finally go out and try to run. I'll just try to be happy that I am actually able to do it, and maybe in another month I can panic again at how slow I am and how hard it is.

I can't wait for the routine of normal training again. Not doing any of my normal stuff puts everything else out of whack. What time should I go to bed? Why have I still not motivated myself to put my tri bike back together? Surely it is not because I really missed riding my old road bike, although this has at least justified having kept it instead of selling it. Just because I don't have a bunch of smelly workout clothes doesn't mean I don't have to keep up with laundry. See, the system just gets thrown out of wack. But anyway, soon enough.

At least I am no longer fractured and broken. Now I just have to try and stay that way.