:: aaron-77.com ::

My first ambulance ride

2009-02-08T15:07:00.002+10:00

This morning, Emily and I were doing a bit of housework - tidying up, dusting, etc, and getting ready to do some vacuuming. Nothing too strenuous. I stopped for a drink of water before getting the vacuum out, and suddenly started to feel ordinary. Very ordinary. I was a bit light headed, and a bit short of breath, and noticed that my heart was racing.

I told Em I wasn't feeling too good and she suggested I lie down for a bit. After a few minutes I started to feel a bit better, but 10 minutes later I started to get the same feeling. I've not had anything like this before, so I didn't want to take any risks and given I didn't feel like standing, let alone walking anywhere I suggested to Em she call an ambulance.

The ambulance guys were really good. By then I was feeling better, and they checked me out and found everything seemed normal. I was still not feeling near 100% so they transported me to Greenslopes hospital where I was given a bed in the emergency room.

They hooked me up to a few devices and took some blood and told me they probably won't know what it is unless they can catch it on an ECG.

Maybe an hour later, while all but sleeping, it happened again. My heart rate hit about 120-130bpm while they frantically plugged in an ECG to see what was going on. By the time they had me connected it had returned to normal again. They left me plugged into the ECG for about another 2 hours in case it happened again so they could catch the whole thing from start to finish.

At a bit after 2pm, maybe 4 hours after arriving, they told me everything looked okay and I could go home. The blood tests were all fine (except the thyroid test, which they don't do on weekends), and my heart rate looked fine, even when it was really high - despite being fast it was still regular.

So I'm back home now with a referral for some more tests this week to see what's going on. The diagnosis is that it's some kind of Tachycardia.

I think part of whatever is happening may be attributed to me almost going into a panic attack whenever they happen. Having a fast heart rate after exercising feels perfectly normal, but when it starts to happen while you're sitting still feels very very wrong indeed, and it's quite scary.

The perfect end result to this would be that they find I'm just allergic to housework, seeing as that's what set it off :P

One Wild Storm

2008-11-17T15:28:00.004+10:00

Em and I were visiting friends at their new house at Redbank Plains yesterday and got caught in one of the wildest storms to hit Brisbane in the last few years.

The house and cars seemed to survive unscathed, but some parts of Brisbane have received substantial damage. No real surprise given the wind!

Not sure what sort speeds those gusts were hitting, but Amberley (20kms away) recorded 60km/h winds with gusts over 80km/h.

I heart storm season

2008-10-16T08:31:00.003+10:00

We had a really active electrical storm go through last night, and instead of using the dslr, this time I thought I'd go with the video camera. Here's the highlights from about 25 minutes worth:

Perfect weather for the beach...

2008-10-10T12:22:00.002+10:00

I'm off down to the Gold Coast for a buck's weekend, and the mother nature decided to have some fun at our expense and it's supposed to be a wet weekend.

Oh, well - good weather for staying indoors and drinking :)

But before I go, here's yesterday's photo:

Emily got some roses the other day and I figured they'd make a nice subject. Unlike most of my photos, I've done a bit of colour adjustment on this to make it more interesting. Unfortunately I couldn't get Photoshop to play nice with the colour profiles, so it lost some of the reds when exporting :(

Photo a day (or so)

2008-10-08T22:14:00.003+10:00

I'm trying to get back into my "photo a day" routine that I started (quite) a while back. (You can see past ones over at my photo blog.) I don't know how well I'll stick to this, but I'll try my best to pick up the camera as often as I can and find something to take a photo of. With our new view I'm sure that won't be too hard :)

First up, yesterday's:

Believe it or not, this was shot with the lens on backwards. This has the strange effect of turning a zoom lens into a macro lens, meaning super close up photos. I can actually get closer than this to the subject, but didn't want to get the lens too close to the flame. I'll probably post a few more like this in the coming weeks as I play with this technique.

And now today's:

Nothing too special about this - just a plain old shot of the sunset from the balcony. I missed a great sunset a few days ago, but today wasn't too shabby. Again, I'll likely post more photos like this. I'll try to find different things to shoot, but I'm sure it will be tough to resist.

It's been good to pick up the camera again after neglecting it for the last few months. The achilles really put the brakes on all my photography work as I couldn't get out and about to do it.

Oh, speaking of the achilles, Monday was the 1 year anniversary of the injury. I can't believe how quick the last 6 months have gone compared to the first 6 months!

The commute

2008-09-17T17:51:00.000+10:00

I'm trying to ride my bike to work most days, but on the days I don't
I catch the cross river ferry and have to put up with views like this :)

All settled into the new place

2008-09-16T20:20:00.000+10:00

We moved in on august 9 and are well and truly settled in and
unpacked. It's been great so far, other than a couple of extra
financial burdens thrown in at the last minute.

The first of these was a rates increase. We're still not sure how much
they're going up by, but the suburb as a whole is going up 27% - among
the highest in Brisbane.

The second was an interest rate increase before we'd even made our
first payment. They've since dropped the official rate, but we haven't
received that cut just yet.

But after Riverfire a fortnight ago it is all worth it :)

We had a fantastic view of everything and had a great night all up.

That'll do for now - Wipeout is on :)

Mobile blogging!

2008-09-16T16:17:00.000+10:00

So that it might inspire me to get back to blogging I have set up
blogging from my iPhone :)

I have lots to talk about with lots going on lately so I'll do a few
small updates in the near future to get caught up.

Quick (but HUGE) Update

2008-06-13T07:47:00.004+10:00

I haven't updated for a while because I've been a bit busy lately, and not entirely because of GTA IV :)

Em and I have bought our own place! :D

It's a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment at Kangaroo Point with a great city view. It was one of the first places we looked at over a month ago, when we weren't yet serious about buying a place - I still have a few months left on my lease, and Em had all her money in a term deposit. All the places we looked over the following weeks didn't quite compare back to this place for one reason or another. So we were rather surprised to find out after 5 weeks on the market, not only was it still for sale, but the owner had dropped the price!

Even though we were still not serious about buying, we both felt that perhaps this was a sign we should get serious. So we did :)

After 3 or 4 days of negotiating, we managed to get the owner down to a price we were happy with. It's now been about 10 days, and after the building inspection came back all good last week, I got the call late yesterday afternoon to say our finance was all good too. So it's now official!

It doesn't settle until July 3rd, so it's not quite ours yet, but it's all but there now.

This is one of the few times in my life I'm actually looking forward to moving! :D

Temporary new home

2008-04-26T21:43:00.002+10:00

Kitty and I are at Emily's tonight (and maybe until further notice) after the hot water heater in my unit decided to leak water through half the unit.

Thankfully none of my stuff got wet, but I'd reckon the carpets are ruined - basically the water got under the carpet and as we walked on it the water was drawn to the surface. There was actually a funny few minutes while I stood there looking at it going "wtf?" cos I couldn't work out what was going on. The kitchen floor was too dry for so much water to have come from that direction, so I couldn't think of any way it could have got wet... then it dawned on me what was on the other side of that wall. (I only really thought of it because I remembered the episode of the Sopranos where Tony's basement floods after the water heater dies)

Good thing a safety switch was installed only a few weeks ago, otherwise all that water might have been live - the switch had tripped and refused to be switched back on so something was definitely waterlogged.

I'm not sure how long it will take them to repair the damage, so we might be here for a few days yet.

:(

Six Months!

2008-04-06T17:56:00.003+10:00

Today marks the six month anniversary of my initial injury. It seems to have gone by so fast, yet so slow.

Today is also the three month anniversary of the second injury. That seems to have gone by pretty quick.

The achilles should now be about as strong as it's going to get, but there's still 3 months to go on the muscle tear. It feels pretty obvious that the muscle still has a way to go - when I extend the leg I can feel the lump that is the scar tissue. It's getting less and less obvious as the weeks go by, so it won't be too long now.

When I am paying attention to what I'm doing I feel like I have barely any limp left. When I'm tired, distracted, or trying to walk quicker it comes back.

I did a fair bit of walking last night for the Lions game, so the leg was very exhausted today and I was limping noticeably. It was a good reminder for me, though, that I do still need to take it easy for another few months yet.

I can see through time!!!

2008-03-11T20:20:00.002+10:00

I bought a jar of Patak's vindaloo paste (hot) a few months back that I've put off cooking while Em was here because she's not trained up on hot foods (yet!)

Tonight I was struggling a little finding something to cook that appealed to me. My eyes settled on the jar and I figured tonight was the night. :)

I had a brief moment of wondering what I was getting myself into when I opened the jar and almost couldn't breathe. I figured it's concentrated stuff, so that's probably to be expected.

After simmering for 45 mins or so the rice was done so I served it out and had the first mouthful...

ZOMG HOT!!!

I think my nose started running that second. I realised right then and there that my curry skills were about to be put to the ultimate test. Not only was I faced with the bowl full in front of me, but a quarter of a jar serves 2 people, and I'd cooked up half a jar's worth! So I have at least 3 more generous servings ahead of me, not including tonight's.

Normally when I cook for myself, I put the leftovers in a couple of containers, and finish it off in the next few days. For instance, last week I cooked a green curry chicken (another of my hot favourites!) and had it for dinner and lunch for the next 2 days straight. Yes, I like green curry chicken that much :D

This, however....

I'm a little scared to have too much of this in too short a time span for fear of what it might do to my digestive system. :/

I guess the good part of this is that the leftovers should last for a while - I can't see anything surviving in that! :)

SHAZAM!!!

2008-03-06T10:06:00.003+10:00

I'm a huge fan of icanhascheezburger.com and have always been tempted to share some of my favourites here, but sadly I enjoy too many of them for that to be possible.

I'm making an exception for this one, though, because I still get such a good laugh out of it! :D

Could this really be it...?

2008-02-20T21:23:00.004+10:00

Could I really be free of the boot? Finally? For reals?!

I did a lot of walking without the boot around the house and at work last week, but still wore the boot at all other times. Saturday I ventured out boot-free, though I took it with me in case the leg got tired, or the worst happened. I even had a short drive of my car! 20 weeks to the day since I last drove it. So good to get behind the wheel again :D

The leg went well on the weekend, so I made the decision on Monday to not only go to work without the boot, but to catch public transport. That went as well as I could hope, so I've been completely boot-free since then.

The calf definitely seems bigger. I've been getting Em to take photos every few days, but the photos don't really seem to show the difference that well. The tendon feels really good. The location of the second tear feels good. It's even hard to feel where that tear happened - it was a noticeable lump before, but now it doesn't feel much different to the other leg.

The biggest concern I had initially was actually with my knee, which took a little bit of coaxing before it was happy doing all this work. It's since improved and is bothering me less and less. I just need to get out of the habit of sitting on my foot while at the computer. Since coming out of the boot the old habit has kicked back in and I'm sitting on my foot. Yes, the bad foot. The foot doesn't mind, but the knee has a fair bit to say about it when I stand up. Thankfully I don't seem to do it at work, so I only have to watch myself at home.

I still have over a month left before the 6 months is up since the first injury, so the tendon still has a little bit of healing left. Then it will be another 3 months from that date until the muscle tear is fully healed. So I still can't do anything too active just yet, which sucks because I weighed myself recently and I'm heavier now than I've ever been. :(

I am getting on the exercise bike now and then for some low-impact exercise on the leg, but it's also for the rest of me. I'm hoping in maybe a month I can get back on the treadmill and do some walking, maybe getting on my real bike around then too. Another month after that I might hopefully be able to get back to running again and start over again on trying to get fit.

But no more netball!

Update - almost there

2008-02-11T19:36:00.000+10:00

My time in the boot looks like it's almost up. The leg is feeling really good. I'm getting around in the boot really well. I'm even going without the boot around the unit a bit (and making sure the cat is nowhere near me!)

But I have one final hurdle to overcome before I really come out of the boot for good. That's this:

The right leg is about half the size of the left. Granted the left is larger than normal at the moment from having such a workout the last 4 months, but the right is still not strong enough to really support my weight.

Flexibility-wise it's better than it's been since the start of all this. But strength-wise it's not as strong as it was last time I was out of the boot. Part of me feels that's what caused the second injury - the calf had to suddenly do a LOT of work and it just wasn't up to it. So my goal in the last week or so left in the boot is to build more strength in the calf. I think in the last 2-3 days of going just a little bit of time out of the boot it's already bigger and stronger than it was. Hopefully another 5 or 6 days makes a difference.

Couple of funny videos

2008-02-01T12:00:00.000+10:00

To keep me inspired to continue blogging once the foot ceases to give me something to talk about I'm going to start posting stuff I find on the net I feel needs to be seen. This will likely be predominantly youtube videos. :)

Here's a few to start off with.

Hawaii Chair Infomercial:

I have NO idea how that would help you lose weight, nor any idea how you could work at a desk with that thing jiggling you every direction!

Take On Me... with a twist:

This guy plays A-HA's Take On Me with hand-created flatulence. Pure gold!

THX Dramatic Look

This is like that prairie dog dramatic look thing, but completely different. O.O

Powerthirst

This is good for hours and hours of enjoyment. FOUR HUNDRED BABIES!

and of course...
Powerthirst 2: Re-Domination

What if everything you ever wanted.... came... in .... a... ROCKET CAN!

Not so long this time around

2008-01-19T10:32:00.000+10:00

I had my visit to the specialist yesterday to see what the plan is with the new injury.

First thing he did was check the damage himself. He was really happy with how the tendon feels, so that's good.

Then he decreased the angle on the boot. He said the angle I had it on (which was erring on the side of caution) was too extreme. If it was at that for too long I would have risked all the muscles shortening even more and having further problems. So it's at 15 degrees now, but I'm to try to go to 7.5 degrees later in the week. The goal is to be at 0 degrees in the next few weeks, and to be out of the boot in a month.

It's feeling quite good now, with just some discomfort when the calf is stretched past where it's happy to go. That's one other thing I have to do in the next few weeks, is give it a stretch every now and then.

So the next month shouldn't be too bad - the current angle is almost manageable, but in a few days it'll be coming up some more. By then I should be almost walking normally on the boot just using a crutch or two for balance.

Overall it's set me back 6 weeks in the boot, then a further 3 months on my total recovery time. So no sports until 6 months from the new injury. I think I can handle that.

Not again.... :(

2008-01-11T21:27:00.000+10:00

I was doing really well last week. I was walking without the boot, although I was still using one crutch most of the time and strapping the ankle just for a bit of extra support. I was resuming my life. I even went to a couple of open inspections last Saturday to check out some units.

Then Sunday night I had just finished cooking dinner and before I sat down to eat I decided to answer nature's call. As I was walking into the bathroom to wash my hands and just before I got a chance to turn on the light, I discovered my cat was asleep in the doorway. By "discovered" I mean "stepped on". Gave me a hell of a fright, and in trying to get off him in a hurry I must have kind of jumped, and I heard a snap. :(

I immediately assumed the worst, and put the boot back on amid waves of pain. After I recovered a little from shock, I tentatively tried moving the foot, and was surprised to find that I could move it. That and the fact that there was more pain in a different location to what I remembered. In the next few hours I had talked myself into believing that I was wrong and that it was the achilles again and that the last 3 months work had been completely undone. That was a seriously depressing thought.

Fast forward to today and after a painful ultrasound yesterday, I find out that it's not the tendon itself this time, but the musculotendinous junction: that's where the tendon becomes the muscle (or vice versa). The muscle has a 60% tear in it.

It's a good result in that the achilles seems undamaged this time, meaning its healing process should be continuing fine (still 3 more months before it's finished healing), but it's a bad result in that I've got another period of time on the crutches, and possibly in the boot. I say possibly because I haven't seen the specialist yet, so I don't know what the recovery procedure is for this sort of injury. There's no surgery option, so it will be a rest-it-and-wait process, but I don't know if the boot will be needed, and if so what angle it needs to be on etc. All I really know at the moment is that if the foot comes up much at all from where it is (boot is at 22.5 deg again) there is pain. Quite a lot of pain. So as annoying as the boot is at this angle I'm leaving it where it is for now because I figure no pain means things at least aren't getting worse.

That's where things stand for now. I'm not quite back to square one, but for the time being I might as well be. At least the outlook isn't as bleak as I initially thought and hopefully in the next month or two I can be boot-free again.

Edit: Wow, hadn't realised it had been 5 weeks since my last post. The time really flew once the boot came up to zero degrees.

Grumpy old man

2007-12-03T20:14:00.000+10:00

I felt this afternoon that I'm becoming a grumpy old man. A bitter, twisted, grumpy old man.

It's been 8 weeks now since the injury and I'm sick of just about everything. Sick of the boot. Sick of the crutches. Sick of being stuck at home. Sick of having to go places. Sick of the aches and pains. Sick of not being able to drive my car. Sick of everything.

I got the boot replaced again on Friday, but got told an interesting tidbit: the boot isn't supposed to take my full weight. That's the first I'd been explicitly told that. Everything else I'd been told up until that point was that the boot will allow me to walk almost normally, and the crutches are for balance. So since Friday I've been having to get around without asking the boot to support my weight. That means I can stand up straight on it, but that's about it - I can only rock my weight forward ever so slightly before it's going to put the force through the boot in a way it's apparently not designed for.

Trying to walk like that is asking a lot of my right knee, and it's not liking it too much. So I'm having to avoid that as well, which means if I want to get around without the crutches - or without using them (and my hands/arms) to support my weight - I can only put the right foot forward a little, then bring the left up beside it. It's a slow way of getting around.

This afternoon on the walk from work to the car I barely used that leg at all and relied totally on the crutches. I'm able to cope with that much better now, but it still took it's toll and left me exhausted. Climbing the stairs at home made me realise that when I get exhausted I get extremely irritable and impatient and every little thing frustrates me. In fact I don't even have to be exhausted to run short of patience with something that poses any obstacle.

Maybe I've always been like that. Maybe my current state is only exaggerating it. I don't want to be like that though. Frustration never helps anything. But it's difficult not getting frustrated when every small task is made a thousand times harder, without something stupid not cooperating along the way.

At the start of this I'd not imagined just how physically demanding this was going to be. There's almost not a part of me that's not affected by this: my right foot hurts if the boot is too tight; the right shin took a beating a few weeks back; the right knee is being asked to do things that it can't quite do, the right quadricep is doing the work of an entire leg; my back is constantly askew (and really pointing that out to me of late); my left foot and knee are taking most of my weight; the left quadricep is sore tonight for some reason; my hands have calluses from the crutches; my wrists aren't liking supporting my weight; neither are my elbows; and neither are my shoulders. Thankfully my chest muscles have learned to cope with the extra work, so they've been ok lately. But just for a bit of fun my neck decided it'd have a bad night's sleep and give me headaches all weekend just gone.

The only part of me that's not complaining right now is the achilles itself. The right calf is even able to tense up now: it's beginning to feel like a muscle again and not just useless fat.

The one glimmer of hope I have right now is that I have another checkup in eight days time, at which time the boot should be brought all the way up to zero degrees. Hopefully at that angle the curved sole of the boot will allow me to return to some form of normal walking without bending it all to hell.

I think that might be the main cause for my frustrations - not uncooperative inanimate objects but the fact that there's still 5-6 weeks of all this still ahead of me. :(

PS my work's Christmas party is this Friday. Yay for booze!

Edit: wouldn't you know it - this post is refusing to publish on my blog. Grr!

Another one bites the dust

2007-11-29T18:30:00.000+10:00

The new boot is broken.

It seems I've improved on my boot destruction technique, because it only took me 3 days to break this one. I think I even did a better job of it, too. It's not cracked, but I have no idea how it hasn't yet.

Here's the damage:

That bit on the right was pretty much straight this morning. And at about lunch time when I gave it another check. Yes, I'm a bit obsessive compulsive about the boot, but I think it's to be expected after the last one.

Here's a closer shot:

I have no idea whatsoever how that happened. It's almost folded over on itself. That's not even the direction I'd imagine the force of my weight going.

So I have to rearrange my day again tomorrow to go back to them.... again. With maybe 6 weeks still to go in the boot I hope...HOPE... that this will be the last time I have to go back to them. Good thing they weren't open when I noticed the bend - I was furious!

Well, at first I was speechless. I didn't even tell Em - I just held out the foot and pointed at it in stunned silence. This was at the bottom of the stairs, so after I'd climbed the stairs at a frustrating pace (back to 1 step at a time to avoid using the boot at all) I took the boot off to give it a closer inspection and almost threw it. As if it's not been enough of an inconvenience the last few weeks, this is making it a complete pain in the ass. What else is the boot for if not for walking on?

Free hardware upgrade!

2007-11-26T17:16:00.000+10:00

I finished work early this afternoon and headed back to where I got the boot from to see what they thought of the state of it.

They were a bit surprised at the condition it was in. Doesn't seem like they've seen it happen before, but thankfully they gave me a replacement boot and sent the old one back to the manufacturer. The new one seems a tiny bit smaller than the old, which hopefully means it's a little less cumbersome. It's a lot less stinky, that's for sure :P

Hopefully this one lasts a little longer than the last. It only has to last about 1 week longer than the last to make it to the end. :)

So much for getting around easier

2007-11-24T09:57:00.000+10:00

The boot is broken.

After noticing a week ago that it was flexing quite considerably as I put my weight on it, I mentioned my concerns about it breaking during the checkup on Tuesday. He said he's never seen anyone break one of these boots. So I guess I'm lucky enough to be the first to do so.

It's not entirely broken as such, but it has a noticeable bend in the metal bar that runs up the left side of it. This bar (with the rotating mechanism about a quarter the way up it) is what supports my weight as I walk on it. This bend has been there for a few days, but last night I noticed it's gained a crack now as well. I figured this would only be a matter of time, cos you can't flex metal that often that much without having adverse affects.

Here's a shot of it:

So now it's Saturday morning and after a bit of ringing around we've discovered there's nowhere we can go to get this replaced. So I'm stuck till at least Monday struggling around on the crutches again. I can put weight on the boot fine, but only so long as it's flat on the floor. I'm not at all comfortable putting weight on the toes end of it any more. If I do so and it breaks completely then it would likely put all my weight on the achilles, which would be a bad bad thing.

In order to get our early bird parking on Monday we'll probably go to work early, but then leave a bit early and go throw this boot at them on the way home. The crack is only one of the problems I've had with it - the stitching on one of the straps came completely undone and after trying a safety pin I ended up literally stapling it together, and the velcro on the metal bar is starting to come unstuck and will eventually fall apart as well. At $240 I would have hoped it would last a bit longer than this, considering it's only lasted half as long as it's needed.

Half way rid of the boot

2007-11-20T14:49:00.000+10:00

I had my first checkup this morning since getting the boot.

Seems everything is going well and he's happy with how the tendon is feeling. So the boot has come up to 15 degrees (from 22.5), which will stretch the tendon out and force it to lengthen some more. This new angle is feeling much better. I can all but walk on it now, though I still half need a crutch or something for balance. It should make getting around much easier.

During the checkup when the doctor asked me to stand on the boot, I mentioned how it tends to put backwards pressure on my knee - something I have a little bit of a phobia of after a minor netball injury maybe 8 years ago. He asked me to sit again and had a bit of a play with the knee and said there's definitely some damage to the anterior cruciate ligament. Regardless of the achilles injury, the damage to the ACL is enough that he would have suggested I not return to netball. It had always been a concern to me and I was always very mindful of that knee when on the court. I'd had it checked by my GP a while back but he couldn't find much wrong with it so I hadn't seen a reason to stop playing. At least I know now that it wasn't all in my head!

I'm booked in again in 3 weeks time to go to 0 degrees on the boot. That should come soon enough, given I feel I can probably return to work full time now. I'm actually booked in on the last day my doctor is at work before he takes a month off over Christmas. So that means the next stage - which should be 3 weeks - will be 4 as I wait till he comes back to work. At that time the boot will get the flick (yay!) and I'll return to more normal footwear.

That's not the end of the process, though, as he said at the end of that 3 months in the boot it's still only about three quarters healed. So I will still have to take it easy for the following 3 months.

The good news is that when I mentioned that I want to replace netball with cycling, he said I should be able to get on an exercise bike as of right now. So I might give that a try maybe later tonight to see how it goes. At least I can get some exercise in in the next 6 weeks to combat all the eating that's usually associated with Christmas. :)

6 weeks down...

2007-11-17T16:06:00.000+10:00

It's been 6 weeks almost to the minute since the injury, but it feels like it's been about 6 months.

Em said the other day it feels like it's gone really quick, but for me it feels like it's been forever. You know how time seems to go quicker when you're busy? I've spent around 4 days a week for the last month and a half on the couch, so time has been going really slowly for me. :/

I have my first checkup on Tuesday, so I'll get a better idea of how much longer I'll be stuck in the boot for. It can't be soon enough though. I'm at the stage where it's feeling pretty good so it feels like the boot isn't necessary any more, so it feels like it's just being nothing but a nuisance.

I take the boot off from time to time to air my foot out and what not, and my leg muscles are depressing me quite a lot. It's insane how much smaller the right calf is so than the left. Here's a photo:

So after the boot comes off (or maybe before?) I'll have lots of work ahead of me to recondition those muscles. If not I'll be walking in circles for a while :/

Recovery, week 3

2007-10-21T12:29:00.000+10:00

As the 3rd week of recovery begins I feel that things are going very well. The foot has been quite good the last few days, giving me very little grief at all. I'm getting used to the boot: getting around on it, sleeping with it, and showering with it. The crutches are still a little annoying, but I'm getting used to those as well. Having some more confidence in the boot (combined with how good the foot feels) has allowed me to put a bit of weight on the toe end of the boot as I use the crutches. Taking that bit of weight off the crutches is so good!

I went to work on Wednesday and Thursday last week. That went quite well. The commute to work is great - it's a little over 15 minutes drive, which is amazing given Brisbane's growing traffic problems. Getting from the carpark to work isn't too bad, though getting back at the end of the day is a little bit of a struggle. Sitting at the desk all day is fine. However, after the combined effort over the two days I was completely exhausted. Both Friday and Saturday mornings I had a good sleep in, and have basically been trying to rest up all weekend so I can try and get in 3 days work this week.

The plan for the next week is to try and work I think Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. I was going to aim for Friday instead - alternating a day at work with a day of rest - but Em has Radio Lollipop Day this weekend, so she'll be at Central Station super early Friday morning collecting donations. So to go to work I'd either have to go in then with her, or find some other way in. We also have a work function on Friday night, so I think if I go in Thursday instead then I can sleep in Friday to save up some energy for that night. Then Saturday morning is the go karting that I'd organised with friends. If only I could participate :(

So this week will be the most I've attempted since the injury just over 2 weeks ago. On one hand, I can't believe it's only been 2 weeks so far - it's seemed like forever already. But on the other hand, I'm already one third of the way to the first checkup, which seems to be approaching fast. I can't wait to get the official word on my progress - as I said, it's been feeling really good lately and I'm starting to see a faint speck of light at the end of what at first appeared to be an impossibly long and dark tunnel.