Archive for March, 2008

I won’t sugarcoat this.  Breaking your feet is damn painful.

I headed off to bed loaded up on Vicodin and in spite of that, spent the entire night clutching my blanket and gasping every time my foot sent shooting bolts of pain straight to my brain.  And it wasn’t the occasional shot, but a full out, shock-and-awe type bombardment of pain.  It finally relented around 5am and I immediately conked out from sheer exhaustation.

The reprieve didn’t last too long, because a hour later, I was jolted out of my sleep by an new barrage of pain.  I tossed and turned around for a bit before I gave up and rolled out of bed.  I was so fuzzy and worn out from the ordeal, I could not even pull myself up on the crutches.  I crawled across my bedroom floor, to the door so I could pull myself up with the doorknob.

That’s when it hit me just how utterly fucked I am with just one good foot.

The pain faded to a dull throb soon after and I was able to hop around the living room a bit, get some work done and actually change my pants without being floored with pain.

I see the orthopedic doctor on Thursday afternoon.  I’ll find out then whether I’ll need surgery, or if they can cast the foot and let it heal on its own.  I’m really hoping surgery wont be necessary, but from what I saw on the x-rays, its a mess down there.

But then again, what do I know about feet?  All I know is that I’ll never take two functional feet for granted again, and that broken feet totally puts a damper on EVERYTHING you try to do during the day.

I can’t wait for this all to be over.

I went out climbing w/ Gabe after work today.  I gave Suspended in Silence (v5) a few tries before firing up the final top out.  Its really an awesome problem, requiring an steady focus and careful climbing.  After climbing down, I pronounced it my new favorite v5 problem!

I wanted to get one last climb in for the day, and I was feeling pretty good about my chances, so we headed over to the classic highball, Jedi Mind Tricks.   After figuring out the tricky start, I found myself easily climbing up the flake edges.  I reached the top and what remained was a little sidepull to the right and a move for the lip and I’d be done for the day.

Then my foot slipped.  I found myself plunging downwards some 25 feet.   Normally this isn’t a problem if you hit the crash pads right.  Which I didn’t.  My right foot hit the edge of the pad and rolled right off.  I felt the intense shock and pain shoot through my foot.   I knew immediately that I’d probably broken it.

In the fog of pain, I saw Gabe coming up to me to ask if I was allright.  I was okay, but my foot wasn’t.  Fortutiously, a runner happend to run by, and Gabe scrambled to flag him down.  I tore off my climbing shoe and started thinking awful thoughts such as, “Shit, I wont be able to climb for months.”  I was more pissed about potentially being put out of action for so long than anything else.

After a couple minutes, the pain started to subsidize and I started to entertain thoughts that I might have just badly sprained it, but my foot just didnt look right.  I wasn’t kidding anyone, especially myself.

The runner and Gabe helped me hop back to my truck and we drove back to town and rolled into the emergency room.  The nurse who came to my assistance, you could immediately tell that she’d seen this a million times already.  She quickly asked, “Were you climbing?  How high?  Did you hit the crash pad? Did you roll your foot off the edge?”  After confirming all her suspicions, I was wheeled in for a X-ray.

Shortly after, the doctor confirmed my worst fears.  I’d seriously busted my damn foot.  It was broken in several places on the heel and the bone above the heel.   The doc then added, “you’ll need to consult an orthopedic and most likely will need surgery.”

Great.  Just great!

So, this amazing climbing run here in Bishop is going to be on hold, for a good bit – while I get my foot fixed up.  I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do.  I could stick around here, or head somewhere else while it mends.  A lot of this will depend on whether I’ll be able to drive after the surgery.

With Gabe’s is-it-sprained-or-is-it-broken-toe, and the skin on my middle fingertip down to its last layer, we took a day off from climbing.  Gabe found some information about a old abandonded mine about 40 miles south of Bishop.  We headed out there after lunch to take a look around.

I have a camera bag, with two DSLRs, and mabye six, seven lens.  And what I take with me?  Just the 5D and a 35mm prime.  I’m just really simple like that.  I thought it’d be fitting to run the pictures thru with a sepia effect as a shout out to the old skool days!