Dr. Google told me to elevate, ice, and ibuprofen my twisted ankle. So I did. Three days later, it was even more swollen so I saw a doctor. Upon review of the X-rays, the doctor said told me I was going to need to wear a boot and do PT for six weeks to repair my ankle tendons and bone. I thought, “Yeah, but really like six days, right?”
The doctor said I couldn’t walk, train, or run for the next six weeks. This was a pain of a different stripe, I cried.
I pulled myself together and apologized for losing control, explaining that, “I know it doesn’t matter but I’d been planning to do a 10k for my daughter. She assured me that, “Your daughter will forgive you.” I clarified, “She’s dead. I was doing it in her honor.”
“Oh well, everyone else will understand,” she revised. The eternal contrarian, I must explain, “I don’t care about anyone else. I’m disappointed in myself.”
She recalled a story of her sprained ankle and how it meant her son had to drive her around for two months only to have her immediately injure it again two days out of the therapeutic boot because the muscles had so atrophied. I restrained myself from pointing out that the boot ultimately didn’t help her. It would be unfair to say that Constance had a childhood of unrelenting ‘whoas’ but she certainly had far more challenges than having to drive her mom around for two months.
The doctor was just trying to navigate us out of the conversational cul-de-sac I forced us both into. I changed the subject back to the rules of the boot. She said I couldn’t drive with it on. I questioned if that applied to manual or automatic. A moot point given that I only know how to drive an automatic.
I then asked about training I could do that wouldn’t involve my right leg. She suggested the improbability that I relax for the next few weeks. Ever the manic pixie dream girl, I thought of the positive side. Instead of going to the gym and fantasizing that it was a bakery, I can go to the bakery and ballyhoo about my daughter to anyone in shouting distance, boot be damned.
From https://www.instagram.com/rachellejervis: