Atrophy is Real
All right, today’s Monday, the 27th of March 2023. I just finished taking a shower and a thought came into my head. I noticed that my right calf is like half the size of my left calf. I think it’s from atrophy. At least I hope it’s atrophy, and not some other muscle wasting disease.
I’m a little nervous about the atrophy. Because, I don’t know. It’s just a part of me that is nervous, I guess. My friend Chad’s dad had polio when his dad was a kid, and it left one of his calves basically with zero muscle. Maybe I’m vain that I don’t want the asymmetry?
By the way. I know that I don’t have polio. I just chose it as an example of something from when I was a kid, that I noticed about another person. And to be honest, it was something that I was afraid of, or really wanted to avoid at all costs, if possible. Yet, people were really nervous about it when I was a kid. Polio, pedophile kidnappers, and quicksand.
We took polio vaccine or whatever. I recall it was a sugarcube with a brown spot on the bottom. The medicine was the brown spot, and they put it on sugar cubes to make it more palatable for kids. Polio is a very rare disease these days. In fact, my kid never got vaccinated against it. How quickly the national obsession shifted…
Alongside the worry though, there’s also a lot of progress. My foot does not hurt at all, when i hit something with it, or stuff like that. That is big improvement from just a week or so ago. It’s going to take a while to fully recover.
You know, it only took me less than five seconds to break two or three bones in my ankle. And it’s taking weeks and weeks and weeks to get to the point where they’re even gonna let me put weight on it.
And it’s going to be weeks and weeks and weeks after that, until I’m able to build strength up enough in my leg to start seeing something closer to parity between my two legs.
It’s just interesting, how worry can Short circuit your brain. I had a plan for today. It involved concentrating, and being able to concentrate on grading and giving feedback. I don’t know how that’s gonna go.
I am realizing that my whole body was/is affected by this sudden change. Suddenly, I can’t use my dominant leg. The fall happened five weeks ago, and today is the first day that i’ve really started to come to terms with the Mental aspect. I was keenly aware of how much I didnt like to exercise, but now I’m going to have to do it if I want my legs to be strong again…
It’ll be alright. Just need to be patient and give it time.