In the Arena with the ITA NH Team: Christmas Cookies Are Pretty Neat!

Hello Everyone!

I know what you're thinking,
and the answer is yes, this
picture was taken in Turkeyville, USA.

I hope you are reading this after a very nice Christmas spent with friends and family. I had a great time and ate more than my fair share of cookies and candies to last me until next year. I got a ton of awesome presents this year. My favorites were an iPhone from my parents, a T-shirt from my sister with a map of Michigan that says “I’m from here” on it, and some Reese’s peanut-butter trees that I guess were from Santa because they were in my stocking. All of those were great, but the best gift was from the doctor who I saw last Monday. He told me my foot was basically completely healed and I’m out of my walking boot and wearing normal shoes again – and way ahead of schedule – AWESOME!

I can’t for real run yet, but I am starting to increase the amount of weight I’m bearing on the Alter-G (at Michigan Rehabilitation Specialists) every day. I’m at 60% of my body weight now and am going up 5% per day as long as it feels comfortable. The doc told me that he was almost ready to tell me that I could go out and run but was nervous to pull the trigger for fear something might flare up again, so I’m still taking it easy for a bit just to make sure.

It was really interesting to listen to my doctor, John Grady in Oak Lawn, IL, talk about what was going on with my injury while being able to look at a picture of my tendons on an ultrasound screen. He said that the cyst in my foot had pushed through the bone in two places – one on the top of my calcaneus bone into my ankle joint and two on the outside of my calcaneus bone. Where the cyst had pushed through on the outside I was repeatedly fracturing the bone. That had been going on so long that the bone actually formed somewhat of a buttress around the fracture line. The harm from that fracture was also causing damage to my Peroneal tendon that wraps around the outside of the ankle and attaches under the midfoot. Since that tendon was damaged, my plantar has had to endure more stress than usual and has become extremely inflamed – even after taking time off for my bone to heal from surgery it still has quite a bit of inflammation. So Dr. Grady hooked me up with a shot of anti-inflammatory into my plantar and some brand new custom orthotics, which I’ve never had. They take 3 weeks to make so I’ve been taping my foot every day to give the plantar a little support and relief. I’m really excited I’ve finally got everything in my foot figured out and on the right track, and even more excited that I’ll be able to run pain free for the first time in years!!! All said and done, Dr. Grady spent 2 hours with me in his office and I can’t thank him enough for all of his help.

This is all very cool stuff for me and I was Fired Up(!!!!) when I walked out of the doctor’s office, then had to drive through a stupid Midwest blizzard from Chicago back to Ann Arbor and didn’t get back until 2 AM. While I was driving, I realized that I will be running in Santa Barbara in just a couple short weeks and suddenly, the blizzard did not matter.