26 April 2008

The Broken Foot Saga

When I went home in Jan/Feb the trip started with a bang. About 4 hours after I landed I went out to play basketball with my friend Tom. All was going well until the end of the night when I landed on another guys foot. Something didn't feel right. The next day it was confirmed that it was broken and into a cast it went. So I was on crutches and in a cast for a few weeks. I finally ditched the crutches after about 3 or 4 weeks. That left me with the cast. The cast was supposed to be on my foot for 6-8 weeks (but most of the time 8 weeks). I left it on and at the 6.5 week point I went to get an x-ray. The news was not what I wanted to hear, the doctor recommended I stay in the cast until the 9 week mark. The problem was that Tom was coming to visit me in Taiwan and we had plans to go to the beach. It's hard to lay around in sand and swim in the ocean with a cast on. So I made the decision to cut the cast off myself. I used a Swiss Army Knife a-la MacGyver...it actually came off with relative ease. I hobbled around with Tom during his visit and slowly but surely my foot seemed to get a little better. Soon after Tom left I got more and more confident with walking and a couple of weeks ago I even started playing basketball again. I was limited in what I could do but it all seemed to be getting better. This past Tuesday I went harder at basketball and I felt it afterwards. I came home and my foot was throbbing and it was not good. In fact the pain stayed for the next couple of days. So I broke down and went to the hospital. The doctor took one look at the x-ray and said that I shouldn't be doing much on my foot. He said it was about 80% healed and that I should try to stay off it for one more month at least. Boo hoo! I want to play basketball so badly, especially with the NBA playoffs on, I get so pumped. Alas, I'm forced to sit around for a few more weeks.

The worst part isn't being away from basketball or the small pain here and there it's the effects on my body due to the lack of exercise. I've put on about 7 or 8 lbs during this broken foot time. That's no good fro someone trying to go in the "losing weight" direction. I made a commitment to myself today to get back in the gym and try doing some exercises that don't require foot strength. I went in tonight and worked on the rowing machine and then did some upper body dumbbell stuff. I just need to do something to fight off the fat and the laziness. Please pray for me as I try to stay in shape during this time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makes me feel a bit better that it is taking me so long to get better. Sorry, Chris.
I was told that if I had been hit by a bus it would take a long time to get healthy. But now I know it would take a long time to get better if I played basketball and broke a bone it would take just as long to heal. Not that I would be playing basketball, but I could have been hit by a bus as it went by while I was gardening.
MOM

Grandpa Steve said...

keep up the attempts and discipline.

Perseverance pays off!

And tell your mom to not do her gardening so close to the bus stop.

Archives