I don’t know what I was expecting. I just know it wasn’t this.

I was quite excited when I got up this morning. Today is the day of the final cast removal. We’ve gone through two weeks of ankle elevated above the level of the heart, two weeks in a cast with no weight bearing, a week of minimal weight bearing, and a week of increasing the weight bearing while wearing a cast and walking shoe. Six weeks of either incapacitation or very limited mobility coming to an end. Huzzah!

I had already worked out in my mind that I was going to do the William Wallace thing and yell “Freedom!” at the top of my lungs as we left the doctor’s office.

In all of our conversations about follow up and rehab the word “boot” was never mentioned. Until today. Gut punch.

I don’t know why it brought me up short. Surely I did not expect to leave the doctor’s office and sprint to the car — in reality, sprinting has been in fairly short supply since well before the injury — but I had geared myself up for the six week period. And nothing more.

The boot is huge, even larger than the cast. The good news is I can take it off at night, and she wants me to begin walking a little without it while I’m at home. Her consistent example is peeing and I’m really not sure what the urine obsession is all about. I will follow her suggestion and walk without it at night when I need to go to the bathroom.

The bad news is she wants me to wear it for six MORE weeks. I was not emotionally prepared for that.

I’ll get over it, but there is no joy in Mudville tonight.

Six more %*&$ing weeks…

It’s been pretty cold this week. I’m back to wearing pants now, but my toes have really been cold. The cast is too big to fit a sock over.

I asked Peggy to try to find something that will fit over my toes without being too tight. My piggies need room to flex.

She went to a sporting goods store and came up with a very creative solution.

If you watch football, it is an UnderArmour cap that many players wear under their helmets, but it is a “youth” size. It fits over the end of the cast perfectly, and then the non-walking walking shoe holds it neatly in place.

I shouldn’t be surprised that Peggy is creative. She is an actress, singer, dance instructor and personal trainer, all of which require enormous amounts of creativity to do well. But this creative solution tickles me for some reason.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I think Peggy was afraid I was going to ask her to start driving me again…

My surgeon explains things in a way I can understand. Unexpected, especially for an Ivy League punk. I like that about her.

Today I got the first cast removed. Today is the end of four weeks without being able to put my foot on the ground. She said “IF”, so I have not put my foot on the ground since about 7:00 am on December 20, 2016.

They put another cast on today, and they gave me a “walking shoe.” This is where the explanation comes in. It’s not really a walking shoe, it’s a peeing shoe.

That is the only time I am allowed to put my foot on the ground. That’s all the weight she wants it to bear for the next two weeks.

I asked if I can put it on the ground to get out of the car. Nope. But I can drive. I’m not sure how I am going to get the scooter out of the car without putting a foot on the ground, but I will figure it out. Peggy has got to be tired of taking me everywhere.

To be honest, it doesn’t look a whole lot different than it did two weeks ago, so I just have to take her word for it. I’ve waited four weeks, so two more ain’t gonna kill me.

As long as I can drive.

We had a wonderful holiday season with family in the house. It was really great of them to come and visit since I couldn’t go anywhere. Once LSU whipped Lamar Jackson and Louisville in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve people started heading back to their own homes.

Today is a big day.

We went back to the doctor today for the first time since the surgery. Got the news that everything looks good so far. The surgical bandages have all been removed — kinda gross — and replaced with a cast.

I still can’t put my foot on the ground, but I don’t have to keep it above my heart any longer, which means I can return to work. I’ve worked half-days from the recliner for the past week, but now I can actually return to the office. Of course, I can’t drive so poor Peggy has to take me and pick me up each day. She’s amazing. And probably ready to get me out of the house.

I’m excited to go back and see everyone. It’s a lot easier to harass people in person. Plus, all of the meetings will have to be in my office, and that is a tremendous home court advantage.

The real deliverance will occur when I can bear weight again, but in the immortal words of Bill Murray in “What About Bob?” — baby steps. Until I can take real steps, I’ll take it.

No one who knows me would consider me to be a workaholic.

A little background will help…

In 2005 I needed back surgery to correct a disc problem. Microsurgery, quick recovery, but still surgery with its requisite dangers and warnings. I took two days off to have the surgery on Thursday morning with the expectation of returning to work in some capacity on Monday.

After I regained consciousness post-surgery, Peggy walked into the recovery room to discover me on the telephone solving a problem for one of my employees.

I had been sedated for more than three hours. I have no memory of putting my phone under my pillow before the surgery, but when it rang I reached under my pillow and answered it. And answered Greg’s important question. Peggy was not amused.

So, when we scheduled this surgery she was very insistent that I schedule sufficient time off to be able to heal completely.

Today is two days post-surgery. I told everyone in my office to give me the rest of the week since I was going to be taking pain medication for three days — I take no responsibility for decisions made while under the influence of prescription narcotics.

So, today is December 22 and my entire family is coming to town for Christmas. Actually, my Dad came for the surgery so he is already here. Everyone else is arriving this weekend. Which means grocery shopping, or as many of the natives down here say, “making groceries.”

I was set up in my chair with everything I could possibly need for a couple of hours, so Peggy and Daddy went to the grocery store. Got all the stuff we need for the weekend. Got a few extra things just for fun. And came home to this…

Yes, it was a work call. Yes, I am under the influence of prescription narcotics. But I am also not very good at being still and I am just a little bit bored. Two days in. Out of two weeks.

The call came from the CEO, so not one of the people I had warned not to call until next week. I did give her my narcotics disclaimer, and then we talked for the next thirty minutes about a problem she needed help with.

Peggy is, again, not amused and is making noise about taking away my phone. It is currently under my pillow… 

I’ve never seen anything like that before…

I’m sure there are situations in which this proclamation is a positive thing, but I really can’t think of one. It certainly is not what you want to hear coming out of your surgeon’s mouth. Fortunately, I was still unconscious, but that meant it was Peggy that got the news.

The morning started well enough. We arrived at the surgical hospital at 5:30 for our scheduled 7:00 procedure. The doctor came in to see us — in her scrubs and wearing no makeup she looked about 17. Drew on my leg in Sharpie to show where the incision would be (and, I suppose, to make sure she didn’t operate on the wrong leg, though that didn’t occur to me until later). Told me what she was going to do. Sounded like something she had done before.

The anesthesiologist came in and told me what he was going to do and gave us instructions for what we were supposed to do when we got home. Again, great information delivered by a man who has clearly done this thousands of times. I nodded off to sleep with great confidence.

When I wake up Peggy is in the room with me. After nearly thirty-seven years together I’m pretty good at reading her. What I’m reading is not comedy.

“Remember how young she looked when she came in this morning? Well, she looked her age when she came back in,” was her opening. “She told me she had never seen anything like that before.”

While we were preparing for the surgery the doctor had explained the plan. Go inside, reconnect the severed ends of the tendons, even tighten them up a little bit so that the ankle would be better after surgery than it had been before the injury. Not bad for an ankle that has been broken three times and injured several other times. I’m pretty sure that while she described how great it would be that little blue birds flew into the room and lighted on her as she spoke.

The birds are dead.

When the surgeon got inside my ankle she discovered that all four ends of the two tendons were essentially ribbons; she was unable to reconnect them. Instead, she used all of the “usable” pieces she could find and attempted to make one good tendon out of them.

“If this is going to have any chance of working you have to follow the recovery and rehab directions to the letter,” she said.

What I thought:  It’s my damn ankle so of course I am going to do whatever it takes to make it work. And my wife is a personal trainer and an inveterate rule follower so she is not going to allow me to do anything other than what I am supposed to do.

What I said: “What do you mean IF?!”

I am at home in a lovely red recliner chair. The anesthesiologist was correct and I have felt no pain because we followed his post-op suggestions. Peggy picked up a very stylish scooter for me to use when I need to go to the bathroom or move from my chair to the bed. My foot will not touch the ground for a month. My family is coming to visit for Christmas because I cannot travel. We are going to follow the rules.

If…