LOST and a broken heart

so i'm a LOST junkie.  it's true.  i tried watching it a few years ago, and got really bored with 'the hatch' dragging on for as long as it did, so i stopped.  then mike and i started from the beginning through the beauty of the roku [we love you, roku!], and it was o.v.e.r.  we were like fiends, ripping through seasons in mere days, anxiously awaiting the next season to come out on netflix ["wait, i have to wait 2 whole weeks??!!  nooooo!"].  it was bad.  tonight was the last episode before the multi-hour sunday final event, and i'm scrambling to find someone to cover me at work so i can be home to watch it.  it's a sickness, i tell ya.  and i'm not even really a t.v. person, but it's just that good.  keep your fingers crossed that someone in the starbucks corporation understands my need to be home sunday night.

so last thursday on facebook, i had a status update in which i said, "jill *****'s heart is broken", having not thought ahead of what people might assume.  it just was.  no, mike did not do anything to hurt me.  i recieved an onslaught of love and support from friends, which was amazing.  i really do have the best friends a girl could only wish for.  the cool part of this is that it's my reality, so that is very rad.  i will now share with you, my beloved readers, why my heart was broken.  some of you already know this.  for the rest of you, it's like so...  [be warned, this might be a long one]

as many of you know, i did the reggae run last october, after i got the new leg.  it was rather important to do this particular 5k, as it is done in memory of maria olberding, who was actually mike's cousin.  she was brutally murdered by some looney kid from kentucky while running her usual route through ault park.  he's still locked up.  she loved reggae music and running, thus the bird of the memorial run.  it's a massive event, and pretty much every relative mike has is in town for it.  ault park being as hilly as it is, this is not an easy run, even for skilled runners, and since i've never acutally ran and i'd never done a 5k, i decided to walk it.  mike, my mom and my brother walked it with me, but mike stayed at my side the whole time because he's awesome like that.  i finished it in 1 hour 7 minutes, which may seem like a long time to some of you, but don't forget that i'm on one wheel, so i was quite proud of my time.  i ate what seemed like an entire animal's worth of meat things after, then we had a few beers and enjoyed the reggae band with some of mike's family members.  it was great.  once we got home and i took off my shoes, however, i had this extraordinary pain in my legs.  i could barely walk and i was in tears. 

i made an appointment with my primary, and he sent me for xrays, and decided that i had a stress fracture.  i did the things he told me to do:  elevate, ice, rest, compression, etc.  this went on for a few weeks, but my pain never let up.  he sent me to see an orthopaedist.  orthopaediest sent me for an MRI.  the MRI showed two torn ligaments, so i was put on sabbatical at work for 6 weeks while i donned a rather unsexy boot thing that took a one-legged gal like myself a little while to get used to, since no part of my body was actually touching the ground anymore.  6 weeks later, i went back to work, and it was like i never was off at all because it still hurt.  i just dealt with it for a while, and finally got so tired of the pain, i went back to primary doc and asked for a second opinion.  he sent me to foot and ankle specialist fella. 

after 3 weeks of painful waiting, i went to see him on thursday.  he took new xrays, and he delivered a heavy hand of bad, bad news.  now before i get into the bad news, i have to preempt with 2 things:  [1] my worst case scenario was that they were going to tell me that i was going to have to have surgery to repair the 2 torn ligaments, and i've already been under the knife more times than most of you have had, combined, and [2] mike was out of town at a financial aid conference in newark, ohio, which is apparently the armpit of ohio.  in any case, he was not here.  now for the bad news.  foot and ankle specialist fella came in with one film from the fresh round of xrays and said, "well, it's certainly not a twisted ankle..." as he put the film onto the lightbox and flipped on the switch.  he then points to two bones and begins to tell me that they are deformed, either from overuse after 32 years OR [and this really messed me up] it could be related to my other birth defect, meaning it was just always like that, since the day i was born.  say what??  now, this was sort of the equivalent of him telling me that i was adopted or something.  pretty heavy stuff.  and i was then in shock, as he continued, telling me that i would need to wear an 'arizona brace' for 3 whole months, and at some point in my life, the pain might get so intense that i would consider foot surgery to fuse all the bones in my foot together, leaving me footless.  wth.  i floated out of the room, fighting back tears.  as i made my follow up appointment, i texted mike to see if he could dip out of the conference, and started to feel tears streaming down my face.  i fled the office, booked it to my car and broke down crying as i answered mike's call.  i sobbed through the whole conversation, drove myself to work, collected myself, clocked in, worked the shift, then went to karaoke, where i did not sing, i just drank.  worst news ever.  even worse than ligament surgery, and that's bad.

today, i called my primary, explaining what i was told.  he was going to call the foot and ankle dude and convo about it, then call me back tomorrow to discuss.  at this point, i have no idea what's happening.  i know that my not-sexy arizona brace is being priced out for the making, but that's it so far, so i am hoping to know more tomorrow.  i am also hoping for a 4th opinion, that 4th dude will agree with 1 of the 3 diagnoses i've been given, and that this pain will go away soon, because i can't really take it much longer.  it's made me grumpy and distracted.  i don't like either of those.  i need answers.

so there you have it, kids.  the source of my broken heart.  and foot.  or not.  to be continued...