Fly Like an Eagle

OH MY GAWD, I just realized it’s been days since I posted. And honestly? I think that’s a good thing. I’ve been off doing this wild new activity called life - the ordinary, functional, day-to-day stuff - instead of running my usual hourly poll on “so, how’s the foot doing today?” Turns out not thinking about your foot is its own kind of milestone. Progress, dressed up as boredom.

Because this is a BIG week. It’s finally time for the official six-week check-in. The pin comes out of my toe, the foot gets x-rayed, the final boot wedge comes out (spoiler: I already yanked that one myself this morning, sue me), and… dare I say it… we start partial weight-bearing.

Here’s the thing, though. I’ve been “partially” weight-bearing for a while now. Anyone who’s done a real stretch on crutches knows exactly what I mean. After long enough, your bum leg gets tired of holding itself up. Spend an hour upright and that foot does not want to keep hovering an inch off the floor. So it gets set down. Then it becomes a mini balance stick. Then it’s quietly helping you climb out of the tub and stay vertical through an actual, glorious shower. In short: it’s been taking on weight here and there for weeks. So when we’re cleared to put REAL weight on it again this week - pleasedeargod - I’m hoping it just shrugs and says, yeah, we’ve been rehearsing. And my toes, the big one and its neighbor especially, are dying to bend again, which only happens once that long metal nail slides out. I promise I’ll record it. You’ve been warned.

So here we are at six weeks post-op, and it feels like I’ve crossed over to the other side. The side where there’s way more road behind me than ahead. I feel amazing. And apart from the sad little peg-leg quietly forming in front of my eyes, the rest of my body is somehow stronger than it was in the days leading up to this whole thing. I chalk that up to the diet-and-exercise approach I took this time, and I want to dig into the food and the supplements this week - if only to leave myself a note for the next time I land here.

And who am I kidding? There will be a next time. As much as I’d love to solemnly swear off surgery number nine, history has a way of penciling these things in without asking me. So I’ll let future-me sort that out. For now, Steve Miller had time slippin’ into the future, and mine is slipping right past a shish-k-toe, a doomed boot wedge, and one very smug set of triceps. Feet don’t fly. But six weeks in, this one’s about ready to try.