The Other Me
An ongoing serial about neurosis, beginning with anxiety that burgeoned through my teenage years, and grew into issues also with depression and OCD, amongst other things.
The Other Me
‘The Broken Road’ vii. Through physio and hard work, I rebuilt my right leg so the calf was only a half-inch smaller than the left calf. But the damage meant I was restricted. I couldn’t walk down stairs normally, or stoop on the right leg to grab something out of a drawer, for instance, because I no longer had that flexion in my ankle. Uneven ground was treacherous, because the strength in the right ankle struggled to support me. I could no longer run. Barefoot, I always had a limp. When I wore runners, I could usually walk okay for about thirty minutes or so with discomfort, but then discomfort…
The Other Me
‘The Broken Road’ vi. Six weeks after the surgery, more x-rays were taken, which determined that everything had healed as it should. The tingling was gone, but the jabs of pain remained, and the foot was still numb. The hair on the right foot, as well as the toenails, grew quicker than on the left foot, and whenever I put the foot down, it immediately turned red. The surgeon brought in a nerve specialist, who said if I had any feeling – which I did, as slight as it was – then it would recover. They estimated about eleven months. But I was now diagnosed with something called ‘Complex Regional…