Anyhow, here are some random broken foot related thoughts to chew on...
The trip to Denver wasn't the apocalypse I feared it would be. That doesn't mean it was all roses. The trip proved to be worthless. The "seminar" myself and my co-worker attended was three days of pointless drivel that could have been snipped down to one single email or a twenty minute phone call.
The whole time I thought of an old United Airlines commercial from when i was a kid. It was about a company struggling with some of their nationwide clients and to get everyone back on board the boss decided to send a sales person to each of these clients because a handshake was better than a phone call. Well maybe in 1985 when that phone call might have necessitated rotary dialing 11 numbers. But in 2008, an email will suffice. Especially with the crap this seminar covered.
But crutch-wise there was no catastrophe in Denver. Thanks to American Airlines, I got to experience the regional jet for the first time. For those of you who have done any sort of travelling in the last ten years, you are probably familiar with the regional jet. They seem to be all the rage with the airlines, especially when flying to a po-dunk town like St Louis. They are actually quite nice, however they are not the idea aircraft to board while on crutches. In fact we did come close to crutch related horror while deplaning in Denver. Instead of maneuvering the jetway all the way to the plane's door, they left about a three foot gap. Then they put this little bridge thing between the two. So my turn comes to get off the plane and this bridge is too narrow to crutch over, so I decided to hop it. And I nearly knocked the bridge right off in the process. Though I'm not sure the damage would have been too bad, as the fall would have only been about four feet to the ground.
On the way back though, American did me a great favor by cancelling my flight home on the regional jet and rebooking me on Frontier Airlines. Frontier is one of those airlines that has TV at every seat. Man, that is the only way to fly! As soon as I turned it on and started flipping around, I found an old episode of my favorite cartoon from my youth, Voltron!! That flight home was the best flight ever! So I gotta hand it to Frontier Airlines!
And while we're doling out 'I gotta hand it to's we might as well throw someone 'in the crosshairs'. It's this guy!
Kent Ehrhardt of Newschannel 4. Since I have had this broken foot, St Louis has experienced snowstorm after snowstorm after snowstorm. The one we got yesterday was the biggest of the bunch, with 12 inches at my house. And this clown, just hours before we got dumped on called for two to five inches of snow. And he was sure of it.
Yeah, yeah, I know this isn't that big of a deal, but he does it all the time! A few years back we all went to bed thinking the blizzard of the century was coming because 'Count on Kent' called for ten inches of snow overnight. Schools and businesses canceled for the next day. Grocery stores were pillaged. and we woke up the next morning to nothing! Not a flake!
My point is, Kent, stop trying to predict snow. Just tell us that it will probably snow and that you have no clue how much it will be. All weathermen do this, but I really don't like 'Count on Kent', so he is in the crosshairs!!
Oh, one other thing. I was driving around the other day when I overheard my left shoe telling my right shoe about all of the things he missed while I had my cast on. The trips to Miami and Denver, all the snow, the Superbowl, etc. It was so cute! It was one of those moments as a shoe owner you just wish you could bottle and sell.
So, I've bee walking a bit. Not a whole lot, but I've definitely been walking. All my foot can handle at this point is slow walking. Agonizingly slow. So I usually crutch to the general area I need to be and then I walk around there. That severe sensation of "my foot is asleep" is gone and now it just gets achy from six weeks of no use. The good thing is that the discomfort I felt before the cast is gone, so my five years of college mind believes I am healed!!
And then there's this. I had the follow up MRI yesterday. If you've never had an MRI, it is simultaneously simple and a pain in the arse. When I had the MRI back in January to confirm the broken bone, I was an MRI virgin. They lay you down and secure your foot and then slide your foot into this tunnel. Then they give you headphones to listen to the radio because the MRI machine is quite loud. So I'm all comfy and good to go when the dude goes, "Okay, this will take about an hour."
An hour! WTF!? It's 2008, this is the best technology can give us? And you have to be completely still throughout this process. The MRI goes through a series of scans and each one lasts anywhere from two to eight minutes, during which time even the slightest move would require a do over of that scan. And sure enough, near the end of the hour, I started to dose off and I got the Jimmy Leg twitch. So it is simple in the fact that you just lay there. But a pain in the arse in that you can't move and you have to do it forever!
Anyhow, I'm getting my two year old ready this morning when the phone rings. I let the machine pick it up and it was the nurse at my doctor's office. "Hello Mr With the Broken Foot. We received your MRI results this morning and it does show some healing. Go ahead and keep your appointment with us for Friday morning and we'll see you then."
"Some healing"? What the hell does that mean? Is that, "There is some healing to suggest that 10 more weeks in a cast should completely heal it?" Is that, "There is some healing to suggest that the cast didn't work at all and we'll talk to you on Friday about your surgical options?" That could mean anything.
So I called back and sure enough "some healing" translates into the cast did everything they had hoped it would and that we're probably going to discuss some rehab options on Friday. She reiterated that this is a terribly difficult bone to heal and everybody I talk to with any sort of medical background cringes when I tell them I broke my navicular bone. So that is a little worrisome. But not worrisome enough to stop me from walking up the stairs when I got to work.
So there you have it. I am no longer Rob With the Broken Foot. Should I change the title of the blog?
