I have been finding it particularly difficult to keep up with a lot of work and professional matters in 2015. The image of ‘just another bag lady’ came up at a physiotherapy session and the discussion about  how many bags it can take to keep things dry!  I am just another bag lady!  I’ve been putting my foot in plastic bags since about August last year!

I never thought I would learn to detest plastic bags so much, or tape, or the tangle that I could get myself into.  Big white plastic bags – and foot cast. Urgh! Since mid 2014 an old foot injury just kept getting worse, and after much orthopedic tape, moon boot weirdness, crutches and whatever else, I finally scored myself some surgery.

Long story short – Flexor Digitorum Longus (FDL) tendon transfer to posterior Tibial tendon (that’s a toe tendon transferred to my tibial tendon); a calcaneal osteotomy (cutting the heel bone and shifting it toward the inside of the foot); percutaneous Achilles tendon lengthening; and all tidied up with a nice screw, and titanium spacer. My new tendon is only 1/8th the strength of the posterior tibialis tendon it replaced (well it was totally ruptured, so wasn’t any good to me), so it takes 12 months to regain normal capacity.

Short story long – disrupted life (can’t walk for months yet).  Hence the particularly lackadaisical approach to this blog. It’s enough to keep up with work, and online commitments to students. It’s my goal to catch up eventually. In the meantime, everything ordinary is now a calculated challenge to get done.

Here’s a ghosty image of me hiding behind my  XRay  which I am holding up to the light in order to see my metal ‘additions’. Now my friends keep cracking jokes about metal detectors and airport security. Sigh.  But the good thing is I’m no longer tangled up with plastic bags.  Goodbye bag lady. Something positive at last :-).

Image: flickr photo shared by Pulpolux !!! under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC ) license