A pop in my ankle
En and I went out to Beaman Park hiking on Saturday. They had a new trail that just opened a few months ago. We didn’t do the whole thing, but we got in a good five miles of hiking through the rolling hills of the new Laurel Woods trail. (We did an out-and-back, but there are options for a six or twelve mile loops as well)
No problem. We hiked around two-and-a-half miles in and we turned around.
Maybe half-mile back towards the car I felt a distinct pop in my left ankle.
The Ankle
I was born with a clubbed left foot. Growing up I had an assortment of braces, orthopedic shoes, casts and nothing really worked.
When I was six I went to the hospital and one of my earliest memories is being wheeled down a hallway with a gas mask over my face breathing in something that would knock me out. I woke up some time later with a giant cast covering my entire left leg with my knee bent.
Two months later I got that cast off and it was replaced by a similar one — this time with my leg straight.
A further two months later I got a boot cast that came up to just under my knee. Now that was kind of fun because I remember being able to kick like a pro! 😆
Six months after the procedure I got the cast off for good. My left foot was now smaller than my right because it was constrained. I also lost the ability to flex my left foot up.
Limitation
When I try to move my ankle it just hit something. It’s not a muscle thing that required stretching. It just feels like one bone hit another bone. Stopped.
This caused all sorts of problems growing up. Most sports were right out… because most things involved running of some type. It’s not like I can’t run; it’s that when I run for more than maybe a mile my ankle just stops working for a week. Those aforementioned bones just got pissed at me and refused to work any longer.
It’s not that I’ve not tried running. But the results were invariably the same.
*pop*
Rounding a slight left-hand bend in the trail I felt a pop in my ankle. I can point to exactly where it was.
See, there it is!
Immediately after that there was dull ache that arrived. It wasn’t enough to stop walking so the walk never stopped.
”Walk it off.”
It worked.
Then I noticed something funky: the weird block in my ankle seemed to go away. There was still something preventing me from flexing my foot up — but it wasn’t my ankle. The limit was now my calf muscle. I mean it makes sense because for the past 40 years there hasn’t been a reason for my calf to stretch at all.
Did my ankle heal itself? After literally 40 years?
What the heck?