Ankle/Foot Update

I went to my orthopedist yesterday, and apparently my feet and ankle are thrashed.  Which I could understand if I'd been, oh you know, a runner for 10 or 20 years...heck, even five years.  But seriously, I had less than 18 months of running before my ankle injury, then a year off, and now 11 months of running.  I should not have the issues that I do.

Anyway, my ankle is "gristly" - his word, but it's a pretty apt descriptor.  Xrays just showed swelling and a slight bone spur but nothing worse - the pain is coming from the repetitive motion of  the gristle rubbing over the ankle bone.  My left foot?  What a mess.  My self-diagnosed bone spur on the top of the foot is just that...caused by arthritis.  What???  For crying out loud - nothing like hearing that word after days of feeling gimpy and creaky.  The xrays also showed a nice bone spur on my heel, but I haven't been bothered by that, thankfully. 

My doctor said he wished I would stop running.  Forever.  Hah!  Sorry, but no.  It's not that bad, and I'm nowhere near ready nor willing to call it quits.  So to hopefully (fingers, toes and everything else crossed) get me through the race on Sunday, he agreed to give me Lidocaine injections.  That's how much I want to run my race - I was willing to let him stick a needle between the bones in my foot.  And yes, the foot injection hurt like a MFer - no two ways about it.  But shortly after, my foot felt better than it has in ages.  The ankle injection didn't hurt nearly as bad (larger joint for the needle to go into), but it also still hurts a bit.  I'm to stay off my feet as much as possible until race day.  Can do - well, except for the expo.  But I figure I'll be good as new by then!

Here's a picture of the xray of my left foot and all the mess:

 

Pretty gross, eh?

The ankle xray wasn't as exciting - just a bunch of mush.  Oh, and at some point, my ortho would like for me to try wearing running shoes where the heel is more raised than the Newtons.  Sighhhhh.  I have an old, but hardly worn, pair of Brooks that I'll test out, once the pain has let up.  But I'll wear the Newtons (the old ones, not the hurty pink ones) for the race, as there's no way I can switch shoes that soon.

So to recap:  I'm old and decrepit, arthritic and falling apart.  At least I didn't get the "if you'd only lose weight, you'd feel better" lecture - yes I'm clinging to the little things at this point.  Thank you all so much for your kind words in yesterday's post; it made me feel better just reading what you guys wrote.  And I promise, tomorrow will be a much more upbeat post.