Apparently the bionic thing isn’t available yet, I’ve decided to take my own, with enhanced functionality. This is my birthday present to me. Last year I bought myself a new toilet seat. Seriously.

I have 3 issues:
- Severed ligament
- Damaged cartilage
- Bone edema (fancy word for swelling)

In case you don’t follow my life in detail, I have a chronic sprain situation. Years of soccer with about 10 sprains and then 3 bad sprains in the last 3 years — the last two occurring just before Kona in 2007 and 2008. What a relief to understand why it felt like there was a rod being jammed and twisted in my bone (it is swollen, which doesn’t feel so good — I didn’t know that bones could basically bang into each other and cause bruising). Horray to understand that I feel incredibly unstable, even walking, because I have a missing ligament. And to think I get to rid myself of that strange clicking. On top of it, it will feel like my foot works.

Although it appears that I’m really tough to race IM on this malfunctioning joint, the real scoop is that I’m a wimp. When I asked, “will I be able to push off when I run?” my doctor smiled. Check him out by the way: www.txortho.com – Dr. Brannon Smoot – quite a guy. He said that I have the functionality and my muscles are actually quite strong (25 years of rehab on the same injury does have a few perks); however, my body wouldn’t let me because of the pain. I guess I’ll have to work on my mental game or practice holding on to a hot stove. Or maybe that’s why we sense pain to begin with. Yeah, I’ll believe that so I feel better about myself.

This means that I should have plenty of time to work, blog, and become a Facebook junkie. Or practice push-ups on the ball (since I usually do that only annually, at camp).

Autumn is freaking out because I can’t ride my bike (ok, he said 2-3 weeks, then I can ride a trainer, but we have to visualize riding to school after 2 weeks or Autumn will disown me) with her to school for awhile.

So there it is. My mom is coming to visit, so I signed up for the earliest date and time possible – Monday 11:30 central time. Send me some positive thoughts or heavy duty drugs.

If they are willing to take photos, maybe I can figure out how to post them.