Ankles

Maybe it’s bad luck. Maybe it’s age. As I near the “big five-oh”, I found myself in the doctor’s office, once again. January was Shingles; February was my foot injury (when I was chased down like an escaped prisoner by that kid and his Pug) For March I decided to keep with the foot problems and injured my other foot; but I didn’t even know it.

As I was golfing one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I started to limp. This was strange since I didn’t notice the pain first, I just started limping first. This was so gradual, but by the end of the round I was looking like Grandpa McCoy from old time television. It could have been the floppy hat or the piece of straw I was chewing on – but the limp made me look just like the real McCoy. At the time, I was kind of playing golf like him, too.

I figured I must have stepped on something wrong or mildly twisted my ankle. The next day I got up and it was much sorer. I stretched it out, used a little ice and could walk once again, after work I went down to the nursery and picked up some needed garden supplies. Dragging potting soil and mulch around made my hobble become more severe as the day wore on. The next day it kind of hurt when I got up, so little more stretching and ice - I could move it yet again. Late that afternoon was spent organizing year-end files under the house, hauling boxes in an out. Friday, when I woke up, I couldn’t put any weight on my foot.

Ice and stretching didn’t work this time, I was stuck. I didn’t want to call Mary home from work to take me to the doctor’s office. She told me to go the day before when I could walk and I just knew I would have heard the dreaded “I told you so”.

So I army-crawled into the living room and found a thick dowel I had left over from a recent closet remodel. I pulled myself upright and proceeded to make my way around the house. Getting in and out of the shower was quite eventful as I had to do a pull up on the shower door railing to get in and out, wondering the whole time if it could support my weight. Every time I went anywhere in the house, Tucker thought I was playing some new game and tried to bite the end of the make shift cane. It’s hard enough to hop on one foot using a stick instead of crutch but when you attach a Beagle at the end of it – that makes it much more challenging.

Hours later I had made it to the doctor’s office on little baby steps and a hop while I leaned on the dowel for support. It literally took me about half hour to go fifty yards up that street. The doctor told me that I had Achilles Tendentious. It sounds like a condition but it was essentially an injury I incurred on the golf course and it worsened by working in the yard and going up and down stairs under the house.

Mary was none too happy about leaving work early that Friday afternoon to pick up crutches for me, but when I told her about me shambling up the street to the doctor’s office with my chewed up stick, I think, just for a moment, she felt sorry for me.