Good news first? Why not. I'm happy to discover that I can walk like a mofo in the cast, even if it's a bit uncomfortable -- but, more importantly, I've found that I can also walk a bit -- okay, "limp" would be the more appropriate word -- on that leg even without the cast. I could probably stand in one spot on both my legs all day, and not even break a sweat. So cool -- should I become stranded somewhere without crutches or a cast, I could still eventually make it to somewhere else. Without crawling, even. So yeah, it would seem all good.

Except, of course, that it isn't. If everything that was good tended to be all good, we wouldn't bother differentiating, now would we?

The bad news is -- and yeah, I was noticing this weeks ago -- that previously broken bone did not heal exactly as it had been before. When I attempted to point out this discrepancy to my doctor and others, I had it explained away by muscle atrophy, by continued swelling and so on. And hey, we know you must never question a surgeon's authoritay.

So what's my glitch, then? Well. You know how there's that bone (I think it's the bottom of the tibia -- which I think is the one I broke. Okay, there's the one big bone which I think is the fibula, and there's a smaller one. Damn it Jim, I'm a diarist not a doctor!) So right -- there's that bone on the outside of your ankle that kind of juts out a bit? You know, right above your heal, just below your shin?

Well, my left ankle no longer has that particular feature. Essentially, imagine if someone took a vice and pressed and pressed on that bone that sticks on, until it was smashed pretty flat -- which would mean of course that the displaced bits of bone now go forward and back instead of out. That's pretty much what I'm dealing with. Well, that and the fact that it seems an entire chunk of that tibia or whatever had been displaced, and in just slapping a cast on it we just went and let it heal wherever it happened to lay.

So yeah. I'll be able to walk again, but I must henceforth go out into the world as a freak. I mean, my personality already made me a freak anyway, it's not like I needed a physical deformity to help me out.

But so long as I get full use of it back, I suppose I should complain, right? So I no longer have perfectly gorgeous ankles. I suppose there's worse things.