A couple days ago, my little sister asked me if I wanted to run a 5K with her for George Mason University’s Family Weekend. It’s something that was on my New Year’s resolutions, but I was still putting it off. Impulsively, I said yes.

Fast forward to last night, in which I slept a single hour. John and I had gone to a Chinese restaurant for a late dinner and I’d ordered Jasmine tea, thinking it was caffeine free. Wrong. I was up with caffeine jitters almost all night. It was awful, but somehow, it made it easier to wake up at 6 and get out the door. 

The race started at 8 AM. I finished at 8:33. My sister, who is a workout fanatic, finished at 8:27. My old foot injury didn’t hurt at all! 

I felt amazing sprinting to that finish line, but I’m not about to start running marathons any time soon — one step at a time. I would, however, like to keep training and running 5Ks. This is Washington DC, I have no excuse not to!

And yeah, I’ve spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep.

Outdoors, that is. It was only 1.5 miles, but I didn’t feel any pain the whole time. Tomorrow, I’ll go longer.

I realized it’s been more than 4 months since that fateful evening that I stumbled on that broken Metro escalator. Since then, wearing crutches, then that stupid boot, then nothing but sneakers (even to my conservative workplace), then finally dress shoes with orthopedic inserts, seems to have all paid off. Not to mention the weird foot stretches I’ve had to do daily ever since I took the boot off. And only running on the eliptical and then the boring treadmill at the gym. If anything, I think I’ve been TOO careful.

At my personal training session on Saturday, I pushed myself a little and realized I could jump again without any pain. So today, I wanted to see if running was equally painless. It was. I’m cured!

A couple minutes ago when I got off the metro, I noticed a man about my age laboriously making his way through the station in a wheelchair. He was using a cheap looking manual wheelchair, the kind they gave me at the Katsucon hotel that I could barely push myself.

“Excuse me, could I help you out? I was in a wheelchair myself earlier this year and I know how tough it can be.”

“I’m fine,” he said, between breaths. “And I REALLY. DON’T. CARE.”

I realized how rude I must have sounded to this guy, like an able-bodied girl who sees a charity case where she should see a person. Ever since my foot injury, I’ve misguidedly felt like I was granted membership into some special club, and now I “completely understand” what it’s like to be disabled. Obviously, that’s not the case and I need to get over myself.

I’m sure I can find a better way to help than accosting strangers in the metro station. It’s already bad enough down there.

OK, looks like I didn’t contribute to the Internet yet again, so here is what I have been up to.

Thursday: I left work early and had a complete allergy test. Have you ever had one? They use a different pinprick for each of a selection of different allergies. It turns out I am ever so slightly allergic to feathers, but nothing serious. I’ll find out more next week.

Friday: I FINALLY saw the foot doctor, and I am not going to need surgery. I did have to throw away my dress flats though, which seem to be hindering recovery. I got a doctor’s note to wear my sneakers to work, which is incredible when you remember that my office has a very strict dress code, but they’re the only shoes that can fit my inserts. In a few weeks, I’ll have custom orthotic inserts made that I can put into a wider variety of shoes.

Saturday: I made the most amazing pancakes. But then, my laptop crashed… I don’t want to go into details that could possibly void my warranty. Luckily I live across the street from the Apple store so I brought it over. I couldn’t leave it there since I needed to do a backup, but I was really upset to be without a computer. I asked if they had a loaner program (they don’t.) “What do you expect me to do with my weekend?” I asked them. I guess it wasn’t too bad. I ended up going to the gym — I can’t do cardio but I can still lift weights, do ab exercises, etc.

Sunday: Being without a computer was too much, so 8 AM Sunday morning found me 26th in line for an iPad 2. I wanted a white one with Verizon 3G, and miraculously, one of the 30 iPads available matched that description. It’s a fun toy, but it’s no replacement for a laptop. My goal is to use the iPad for mindless fun like watching movies and playing Words With Friends and my laptop for actual writing and creating. It’s a idea I picked up from Seth Godin.

Monday: Paid my credit card bill. Paid my rent. Realized the reality of just how much that iPad cost. Since then I’ve cooked all my own dinners and lunches and plan to not spend any money ever again. That not being feasible, I’m trying to spend as little as possible in April.

Tuesday: Bought my plane ticket for Anime Boston, but I swear I wasn’t spending money!! This year the convention is covering my flight so I can attend. I was originally planning to decline this year because of issues with my foot and the cost (not a good argument for somebody who just bought an iPad, I know), so my amazing volunteer supervisor, Tuan, offered to comp my flight. So there you go.

Wednesday: It’s been a crazy work week and this was the day that it really caught up with me. I lost a large chunk of the interactive I was building due to an error at drive level. Now I have to double save all my files. This was also the day I got my computer back from the Apple store.

Today: Worked like crazy and caught back up to schedule on my interactive at work. I really want to share it because it has a component in it and I’ve never used one before, but I’ll have to wait until April. I also went back on O-Talk today. And cooked shrimp scampi but I used sweet cooking wine instead of white wine, so it turned out… memorably. Also FINALLY finished the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. If you’re an anime fan, I highly recommend this classic.

I don’t know why I feel the need to write all this down in public. Somehow, it helps me justify not blogging on Otaku Journalist. Maybe I should start a diary?

Went to personal training this morning. It’s actually the third Saturday in a row that I’ve gone, even though I’ve been injured. Really, this is the only time I seriously exercise these days, at least while my foot is like this.

Sometimes, being injured feels like being in a secret club where people on crutches eye my boot with knowing looks, and nice men with canes sit next to me on the Metro. Most of the time though, I feel bad about all the running, biking, and walks around DC that I am missing. Likewise, in personal training, there’s a lot of exercises we used to do that I no longer can right now and it brings me down. I think my trainer can tell.

So today, he gave me a kickboxing inspired workout where I slammed my fists into the punching bag and kneed a martial arts pad while holding his neck and yelling. And then, pushups until I collapsed.

I feel so much less frustrated now.

P.S. I said I had a foot appointment on Thursday, but it got canceled. Now I’m going on Friday.

If it is getting better it’s almost imperceptible. Maybe it’s staying the same. I wear my walking cast only every other day: I wear it all day and my foot feels great — it must be getting better! — only to not wear it the next day and regret it as soon as I limp to the Metro. When I have my walking cast on, I can walk (awkwardly) for miles; when I’m wearing sneakers or flats (the only shoes I can still wear), it’s like I have a set number of steps assigned to my foot each day before I collapse.

Today, I wore the walking cast. I sat in priority seating on the Metro without feeling guilty. Presently, an older man with a cane sat down next to me. “People like us need to stick together,” he said. He asked about my injury and I told him the story you’ve already heard. I asked him about his cane and he said he had arthritis. “I don’t mind though,” he said. “Because I’m still luckier than 99% of people alive.”

He said his arthritis came from playing sports in high school and college, and then being an agent for sports players for thirty years. On this particular day though, he was reading a book about caring for old dogs. He has an aging Labrador, age eight. I have an aging poodle, age twelve. So we talked about our elderly mutts for a while.

As people got on the train and filled up the seats, he told me about a time a younger woman knocked him over while trying to dash for a seat. I told him about the time I stood in my cast while people in priority seating pretended not to notice me. We both agreed that the Metro really needs new trains and escalators, but disagreed on how.

The whole experience made me realize that I really need to volunteer with the disabled again. For me, this is temporary. For others, it’s much longer than that. Everywhere I go, I think about mobility. John and I went to the National Mall on Sunday, and all I could think about the gravel walkways was how difficult it would be to wheel over them!

On Thursday, I see the orthopedist, who will tell me when my foot will heal. He’s the same one who told me to limit the use of my walking cast (to prevent healing with a limp), so I hope he has some advice I like better this time.

I feel like I’m explaining this a lot, so I’ll put it all in one place.

I was commuting home on the Metro. I was at the Gallery Place/Chinatown station where the escalator is broken. So there’s just one, turned into stairs, and people are going up one side and down the other. It’s crowded and I was angled to the side trying not to hit anyone going the other way. Near the bottom, the stairs were irregular heights (since it’s an escalator, not stairs really) and I lost my balance and fell.

It happened really fast and all I remember is saying “I’m OK!” before I hit the ground. Also, somebody moving out of the way so I didn’t fall on them. And a guy going up the escalator saying “Ooooooohhhhhh shit.”

I was embarrassed so I hurried away as quickly as I could, but noticed my foot wasn’t cooperating. I managed to get a seat on the metro, but an older woman was glaring at me (I think she expected me to give up my seat.) Miraculously, my boyfriend John was on the same car so I was able to say, “John! I hurt my foot!” and kind of explain it.

I iced it and elevated it all evening. But in the middle of the night, when I got up to use the bathroom, I realized it was a lot worse. And really swollen. So on Friday, I went to the doctor. Well, John took me. Since it’s my right foot, I can’t drive!

Now the doctor was really stumped — I couldn’t get an appointment with an ankle specialist so I saw a sports medicine doctor. He said I either had a bad break or an extra bone in my foot, and after two X-rays, prescribed an MRI. He also gave me an air-cast and crutches and forbid me to put any pressure on it until we knew what was up.

We stopped by the apartment to pick some stuff up, but when it was time to drive to the MRI, my car wouldn’t start! Luckily, some friendly maintenance men jumped it for me… but told me the battery was dead and it wouldn’t start until I got it replaced. So we detoured at an auto-parts store on the way.

The MRI went smoothly, but I couldn’t get an appointment with a foot specialist to interpret it until today. The specialist said I have a sprained ankle and the ridiculous swelling and pain are from an extra bone in my foot, which is raised where the tendon is swollen. He told me I can walk in my air-cast — no crutches needed, but I am getting a second opinion tomorrow, so it might be back to the crutches.

I learned that having an extra bone in one or both feet is actually pretty common! The foot I have it in is almost a half size larger than my other foot, so I guess I should have seen that coming.

Of course, I might find out tomorrow that I actually have a broken bone and need surgery or something, so it’s not celebrating time yet.