The Healing Heel

Earlier this March I found myself slack lining over concrete for the first time and as I stepped off the line I felt something sharp slip into my left heel.  I didn't think too much of it at the time because I couldn't actually see anything in my heel.  Over the next 3 months I struggled to extract what I thought was a tiny translucent shard of glass.  The location of the foreign body meant that I often had pain with walking and putting on a shoes (that is the rare instances that I wore something other than sandals).

About 10 days ago I was finally able to see a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon.  I knew that if anyone could get this thing out of my heel it would be a surgeon, unfortunate as it was to come to that I felt I had no choice.  My doc used ultrasound to find what he thought represented the foreign body.  He then began to expertly slice away all of the callus my body had built around it over the past few months.  Eventually he found what he thought were multiple tiny pieces of metal, black hard specs littered within the wound.  He created a pinky-finger sized hole and scoop out the flesh all the way to the fascia layer to ensure he had extracted all foreign bodies.  A few photos of the healing process...

Day of "surgery"

Day 3, starting to heal but still swollen.  Used crutches for the first few days.

Off crutches and able to limp around. It's a lot less swollen and now it's off to the airport.

My foot this morning after 10 days of healing.  Stitches come out in a few more days, yay!

This week and next week I am at Captain's Career Course in San Antonio.  This is 14-straight days of classes discussing all things Army.  Overall it's actually a good course with lots of interesting people...I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible although I am looking forward to getting back to a drier climate and hopefully good Leadville training.  Physically sitting all day is very hard on my body.  As with Leadville, we are basically two months out.  On the good side, I have a 50-miler under my belt and a couple 50k's this spring.  Although I wish I were able to train more consistently this summer, I am reminded of Barefoot Ted's Leadville experience, in which it seems he trained a lot less than I have thus far and ran it all in sandals/barefoot.  I think the key to his story, which is very interesting to read if you are a minimalist or Leadville buff, is that Ted has a huge sense of gratitude and wonder in everything he does.  I feel he is a kindred spirit albeit I am less ADHD.  In the end, neither Ted or I have to convince ourselves to be grateful for the gift and self-expression of running, we just always are.