Surgery!

So the day prior to heading up to Concord Retreat for Gotta Run Running Camp, I went in to see a specialist about my ankle.  It just wasn't making any progress, even with consistent physical therapy. 

So the Doctor took one look at my MRI, and told me unequivocally that it was going to need to be surgically repaired.  If not, without my calcaneofibular and anterior talofibular ligaments, my foot/ankle bone structure basically was just sloshing around and clattering bone on bone, and would eventually wear through the cartilege and fuse together.  Plus there was a buildup of scar tissue on my anterior inferior talofibular ligament, which was getting pinched on my talus (bone directly under the tibial shin bone) and constricting my peroneal nerve, and causing my shin and lower leg to go numb as I ran.  Not fun.

So today, I went in for surgery to get all this repaired.  After I came out of anesthesia, the doctor told me, "It was a mess in there," and that besides all those ligaments flapping in the breeze, and the scar tissue, and some damage to the cartilege already, there was also a loose chunk of ligament just floating around in there.

In any event, its all done now, and wrapped up in this cast for the next 10 days, then I go into a walking cast for 4 weeks, then a boot (of the plastic, removable variety) for an additional 6 weeks.  Then I get to start returning to running with a Walk-Jog plan.  Awesome.

Ah well!  My ankle is repaired, now we hope it's fixed.