Don't Stop

Today is a time machine. It points backward and forward at the same time, and I’m standing right in the hinge of it: six weeks post-op, to the day.

First, the backward part. Facebook reminded me that nine years ago today I was sitting on the patio of our hotel room, watching the Pacific roll in on Maui, and then later that evening perched in Fleetwoods on Main Street for happy hour. What makes it a little bittersweet is that (a) this same foot was recovering back then, and we were NWB way back then too, and (b) Fleetwoods had just opened. It was an amazing bar on Main Street in Lahaina, owned by Mick Fleetwood, of Fleetwood Mac fame. We fell for it instantly and went back a couple more times that week. Sadly, that bar was destroyed almost exactly three years ago, on August 8, 2023, in the Lahaina fire. It still hasn’t been rebuilt.

On happier news, Facebook also reminded me that three years ago I got a fresh set of x-rays of my left foot after the big surgery, and I’d genuinely forgotten this is exactly what’s in-store this week. Things that will definitely be in there: that gnarly long nail going through the heel (ouch!), designed to fuse the newly cut heel bone into a domed shape and build a new arch for the foot, and the long nail up the midfoot, which holds the bones in place for the additional osteotomy that adds to the arch (I think!). Hopefully the two smaller nails in the fifth metatarsal never get put into this foot. Those were the reward for breaking that sad little bone when I tried to return to running far too quickly. Those two outer metatarsals will need time to adjust to the extra load now that the foot isn’t rolling inward, and they tend to get really cranky once we start weight-bearing. Journal readers, consider yourselves warned: my posts might take a turn for the pessimistic for a bit, depending on how loudly those guys decide to yell at me.

So that’s the shape of today. One foot in a Maui memory that no longer has a bar to come home to, and one foot about to find out what six weeks of healing actually built. The song in my head is the Fleetwood Mac one, of course, because it fits both directions at once: yesterday’s gone, and there’s no sense stopping the clock now. The heel nail and the midfoot nail are already written into this week’s x-rays whether I like it or not. The cranky metatarsals are a maybe. Fleetwoods isn’t coming back, but I am - one careful, partial-weight-bearing step at a time.

Don’t stop.