So what's up with your ankle? and what about Nats?

My vague twittering once again is resulting in some questions. After posting a blurb about the recent ankle surgeon visit, I got a few questions from all you really awsome people out there, so maybe I should just tell the whole story (mostly) in a quick blog post. So here is the story, as boring as it may be:

Most of you know I had my ankle reconstructed 12/28/09 after having some long term problems that really become worse once I turned onto the cross thing. Running, jumping, and cutting sent it over the deep end. I had some major problems with my recovery. Most of which was some nerve damage from cast compression that made for a very painful recovery. I have just now begun to gain the full function of my great toe back from this. I also had a rare complication of having a tendon sublux over my fibula bone, that still continues today and is getting to be very painful as the season rolls on. I am not able to run for my training or do too much skills practice on barriers as a result of this snapping out of place all the time. I have also continued to have foot pain. Adding all these up I have had lots of ankle specialist consults, tests and the whole bit and needed to see the best ankle guy I could find. So I did.

Dr David Porter with IU sports medicine in Indy may be my hero soon. After seeing him yesterday I was confident that he will be able to help me get over the difficulty that has been haunting me for 2 seasons now. Basically and complexly, I need some major work done. This doesn't surprise me since I have been pretty far off my normal since the year began. According to him, my previous reconstruction does not have my ankle bones lining up at all the right angles. This is causing the joint to articulate in the wrong positions. I also need to fix the painful tendon subluxation. So the plan is this (bear with my medical terms, I will try to simplify): He is going to make another incision then undo the previous reconstruction and tendon grafts that were harvested from my calf. He will then "hope" to get a good piece of graft and lengthen it and do another type of reconstruction called a Brostrum repair. After that, he will pull the tissue and skin back a little further and take a look at one of my ankle ligaments, the AITFL, and see if it is okay, and repair it of not. Next he has to reconstruct the tendon subluxtion problem. This is done by drilling a "ledge" in the fibula to give it a groove to fit in again and will then reconstruct a sheath to hold it in place by drilling some drills holes to place anchors in. Plus, take out all the crap that doesn't belong in there like spurs and sutures from before. Close it up with some nice sutures and place in a cast and that is a wrap! Yeah, that pretty much is gonna cover it. And yes, with words like "drill, and anchor" this will hurt. I know, I did it before on a much lessor scale. I'm already gonna start storing up ice to put on it.

(THE ankle man: Dr David Porter)

I'm a really sad about the fact that I face another major surgery and have another long recovery in the off- season ahead of me. Surgery just plain sucks and I have had my share of it over the last 3 years. This will actually make my 6th surgery in that time frame and it is such a crappy thing to do and I can't stress how much it takes to get over it. However, I am pleased with the feeling that I think I will have good results this time and having confidence while going under the knife is very helpful. I am really looking forward to healing up and approaching a cross season with the proper training, of which I have never done.

So based on the fact that I need major surgery, I will not be attending the National Championships this year in Bend, OR. This was based on a couple factors:

1) I really would like to get this done as fast as possible to get back to training for next season and that means December. 2) I also would like to do it before the end of the year for insurance reasons. 3) Also, since December is our busiest time of the month in my own anesthesia world, I don't want to ask my group to give me all of December off to race and have surgery. 4) Plus, the bling needed to have surgery and pay for a trip to Bend would be a lot, and I don't want to break the bank doing so. I would like to pocket that money for next year to hit all the USGP races and maybe do a trip to Belgium for some cross racing over there.

That's the ankle update. For now, I'm gonna put it in the back of my mind and focus on the remainder of the season. I have the Indiana State Champs ahead of me, JingleCross, and a few more OVCX races to rack up. Until next time.... thanks for reading!