No pain, no gain

It didn't actually hurt!

Despite gleeful assurances to the contrary from several people beforehand, on Friday when they moved the angle of my ankle from the equinus (tiptoes) to the semi equinus (not quite so extreme tiptoes) position I felt no pain at all. Nausea and lightheadedness, yes, but no pain. And the nausea is apparently fairly common when a cast is removed and was there well before anyone moved my ankle. Very strange.

And there was good news too. When I had the accident the A&E doctor told me I would be in a cast for about six weeks. The following day the orthopaedic doctor told me it'd in fact be twelve weeks (three months). But on Friday I was told that having had the first cast on for 5 weeks instead of 4, the next one could be reduced to 3 weeks in the semi equinus position. I replied that this would obviously be followed by another cast but was told that I might have just a heel lift for the remaining time. I'm not 100% sure what that means because at the time I assumed it'd be something put into my own shoes to decrease the length of my tendon (i.e. lift me kind of onto tiptoes) but since then I have heard a credible suggestion that it will still be some sort of cast/bandage/whatever so I don't know for sure. I'm also guessing and indeed hoping that the crutches will no longer be necessary but I'm expecting to use walking sticks for a while. That's speculation though.

I've spoken to work, and they have offered to get me collected and taken back home every day while I can't drive (I had assumed that as soon as I get the heel lift I'd be able to drive but I've since been disabused of this notion!) and they will also put measures in place so that I can work in a downstairs office to save having to tackle the stairs. This is really good of them, and is much appreciated. So the bottom line is that I may well be back at work about a month before I thought I was going to be, albeit still unable to walk or stand normally.

Various plans I had to fill in my time (family tree research, scanning old photos and updating my website amongst other things) might now be returned to the back burner. But I'm happy to do this if I can get back into some sort of normality. Having recently had lots of time to sit around and, perhaps rather worryingly, think, I have realised that I have been subconsciously reassessing what things are important to me and what things aren't, with somewhat surprising conclusions. Surprising to me anyway.

I've now had a qualified acceptance of my offer on a new flat. It could still technically fall through (although this is hopefully unlikely) so I will still hold back from providing fuller details.

I like the sentiment in the image in this post.