The Boot Is Not Made For Walking

Here’s an unfortunate India story for you.\
Our first day of work in India, someone had forgotten to tell the driver that we needed to be picked up, so we took a cab. The cab let us off across the street from the office, which meant we had to run for our lives across the chaotic three lanes (approximate… they do not believe in lanes in Bangalore) of traffic. Wait, that’s six lanes because it was three lanes going each way. There was a grassy median in the middle of the street offering some sanctuary to the poor bastards (those bastards being us) who couldn’t run fast enough to make it across all six lanes during one red light (which maybe Carl Lewis could do, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else do it).\
You had to wait for a red light before trying to make the dash, and the red lights are short. We waited for the left-hand turning people to go, the right turn folks, and then had about 15 seconds to cross the three lanes before the go-straight folks took off in a rush of dust, fumes, and most importantly, heavy machinery. I almost didn’t make it. In order to dodge the first intrepid motor rickshaw that was about to run me down, I jumped onto the sidewalk…\
And right into a pothole. I rolled my ankle inward, so I could see the bottom of my shoe when I looked down. I stumbled, caught myself and then swore. It didn’t hurt all that much, but it was definitely weird. It had that wooden feeling of a freshly sprained ankle. It didn’t swell up, and the bruising was minimal, but it felt sprained all week.\
I spent the next week putting two or three extra socks on it, and walking carefully. By the end of the week, it didn’t hurt too bad, but still felt weird, and I had a noticeable limp. Then I came home. The first week, it started hurting. The second, my limp got worse, as did the pain. I went to see the doctor who ordered x-rays. This morning, I went to the same practice that fixed my ACL five years ago, and they said that definitely something is weird. I have an inflamed tendon that’s pulling a bone out of place (and that really hurts. On top of that, I have (before now undiagnosed) plantar fasciitis which is just now coming out because it’s being aggravated by this other thing. And, all of that is aggravating me.\
So, to sum up: I’m stuck in a boot that I can’t take off except when I’m driving, which I’m supposed to limit, for four weeks. If I’m not all better in four weeks, I spent four more weeks in the boot. After that, if it’s not better, I get to have surgery. Have a happy summer everyone!