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My Achilles Surgery Journey So Far
Leaving the Port
I recently had Achilles Tendon surgery to get rid of some nasty bone spurs in my left heel. It was 6 years in the making before I actually made the decision to have the surgery. It was actually pretty easy for me to not only decide to do it but to actually have the surgery. All I had to do was lay back and let it happen.
Leaving Sight of Shore
The time immediately after the surgery wasn’t that hard either. I went home, rolled around on my little knee scooter for 4 weeks in a cast. It was annoyingly inconvenient and painful now and then but it wasn’t really hard. Then I got out of the cast and got in a walking boot for two weeks. That was a bit harder because I was meeting resistance, I was pushing the heel a bit and it was not happy about it. It meant more pain and more worry. But it still wasn’t that hard. I was restricted by the boot in what I could do and the pain level was high enough that I could pretty easily tell when I had gone too far.
On the Open Sea
And now it is 10 weeks after surgery, the boot is off and it has become harder. Why? Because my willingness to actively work on the recovery is front and center. I have no external restrictions, only my own judgment of how far to push, when to pull back, when to push again. It’s all up to me, even if I do have advice from a Dr. and help from a Physical Therapist. And what is helping me decide all this? Having my home port in mind. What is my final destination?
Entering the Port
My final destination is to be back to running healthy and run a marathon by the one year anniversary of the surgery. That is the port I am sailing for. That is how I will know if my voyage has been successful. Now, the truth is I could be blown off course by something beyond my control and have to recalibrate that goal. That is always the case in any endeavor. But I am not overly worried about things I can’t control. What I am focused on is what can I control? I can control my dedication to reaching my goal and I can control the actions I take to reach them.
While every step is important, knowing your final port of call is really critical because otherwise it’s very hard to gauge if you are being successful in your endeavor or not. It also becomes V]very hard to want to go through the pain and unexpected setbacks that are always apart of a substantial journey without a positive goal ahead.
So, set your sails and prepare for that journey you want to take. You can do it!
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-1887, Congregationalist Minister and Abolitionist