Not what I wanted to hear

Five weeks ago, I rolled my ankle. Not doing anything incredible; I was just reaching for something across my bed of all things. Didn't seem that bad, but it hurt. I treated it with the usual formula (RICE):

• Rest
• Ice
• Compression
• Elevation

It improved relatively quickly. However, a couple of weeks ago, it really began to ache, up into my fibula (One of the bones in the lower leg). My thought was, "maybe you have a stress fracture". So, I got in touch with my old podiatrist by email. Didn't hear back, so when I went to pick up some meds from the pharmacy, I stopped by. Talked with him briefly when he passed by me in the hallway heading somewhere else. Got an appointment, and got some x-rays taken.

Flash-forward to today. I saw him, and we chatted about my ankle, while he found the area of what we call "point tenderness" that was the worst. It wasn't in the bone. The pain I was feeling was "referred pain" (pain that starts somewhere else), probably due to the previous nerve damage in my ankle. Its that nerve damage that allows me to walk on a potentially severely injured ankle without screaming. The pain was clearly in an area of soft tissue (Non-bone). I was figuring he would offer a few options, one of which was injecting it with a cortisone drug to get it to calm down.

Nope. He dropped a bombshell on me. He told me that I need surgery AGAIN to essentially reconstruct the ligaments. Either I overstretched the repair I had in 1993 (and previously in 1992 which didn't take), or I tore it out (I had the extensor tendon from my ring toe harvested in 1993 to recreate the anterior talofibular (ATF), posterior talofibular (PTF), and calcaneal ligaments. Took months before I was allowed to put my foot to the floor after that one, and a year before it was ok to walk without support (Most of the time, I was in a "fracture walker", a removable cast that looks like a ski boot). This time around, it will take cadaveric ligament grafts to fix. Hmmm. Not real thrilled about that, but my tissue isn't usable. And two months non-weight bearing, along with another 2 months in a fracture walker. Hmmm. Thats four months directly out of commission, in terms of EMS work. Ugh.

I don't have to do it immediately, but it does need to be done. My ankle will dictate more than anything when I have to get it done, but I am thinking next summer might be a possibility. In the meantime, the doctor built up the outer edges of my boot inserts to keep me from turning my ankle while walking. He wanted me to be in a fracture walker again, but after we talked, my work boots are a good support for it (just about as rigid on side-to-side movement). I have to be able to work. At least right now.