Great Wall
Monday, January 21, 2013
Survival Kit
So, I was home alone today when the UPS man stopped by. This is a pretty typical occurrence but it's usually for my mom's work. So today I went and got the package and casually glanced at the address label. It was for me! I don't know about anyone else, but I always get super excited whenever I get real snail mail. I opened up the package and inside was this awesome survival kit from my study abroad provider! It had a shirt, pen, notebook, luggage tag and backpack (of course, a free backpack comes the day after we buy a brand new one online, but I'm not complaining)! It's really weird, but this thing is actually starting to feel real now. T minus 27 days!
Monday, January 7, 2013
Gambling
One week ago today, I went gambling. And by gambling, I mean I got surgery on my foot. Which doesn't sound like a big deal, but the healing time for this kind of surgery is 4-6 weeks, and I leave for China in, now, 5 weeks. But it had to be done.
Okay, so a year and a half ago, I broke my foot by playing kickball barefoot. Of course, I managed to miss the ball and kick the ground. Ouch. I had what's called an "avulsion fracture" on my first metatarsal (by the big toe) which means that a chunk of bone got pulled off by my tendon. I was in a boot for about 2 months. But once I healed, I noticed that I couldn't move my big toe very much and I had a lump of bone kind of sticking out of my foot. It didn't hurt or anything, but the bump would rub on shoes and generally be annoying. So, this most recent Thanksgiving break, I had an appointment with my podiatrist (whom I've been seeing since I was in 7th grade) and I asked him to x-ray my foot. He did and it turns out the chunk of bone that came off when I broke it was lodged in my big toe joint, and was possibly causing cartilage damage. Needless to say, I needed surgery. So we scheduled it for New Year's Eve, almost exactly 6 weeks before I leave for China. On New Year's Eve, the doc knocked me out, numbed my foot, and went to work. He shaved down the bump and took out the chunk of bone in my joint, which turned out to be about the size of a pea (seems pretty big to have floating around in a foot). I went home that same day with my foot all wrapped up in gauze and looking something like this:
I've been spending the past week on our couch with my foot elevated in the hopes that the healing process will go well and I can still go to China. On Friday, I went back to the podiatrist for a dressing change and snapped this picture of what was under that bandage (warning, it's pretty nasty):
Thankfully, my doctor said that it looks like it's healing really well and I should be good to go for studying abroad! I guess sometime gambling really does pay off.
Okay, so a year and a half ago, I broke my foot by playing kickball barefoot. Of course, I managed to miss the ball and kick the ground. Ouch. I had what's called an "avulsion fracture" on my first metatarsal (by the big toe) which means that a chunk of bone got pulled off by my tendon. I was in a boot for about 2 months. But once I healed, I noticed that I couldn't move my big toe very much and I had a lump of bone kind of sticking out of my foot. It didn't hurt or anything, but the bump would rub on shoes and generally be annoying. So, this most recent Thanksgiving break, I had an appointment with my podiatrist (whom I've been seeing since I was in 7th grade) and I asked him to x-ray my foot. He did and it turns out the chunk of bone that came off when I broke it was lodged in my big toe joint, and was possibly causing cartilage damage. Needless to say, I needed surgery. So we scheduled it for New Year's Eve, almost exactly 6 weeks before I leave for China. On New Year's Eve, the doc knocked me out, numbed my foot, and went to work. He shaved down the bump and took out the chunk of bone in my joint, which turned out to be about the size of a pea (seems pretty big to have floating around in a foot). I went home that same day with my foot all wrapped up in gauze and looking something like this:
I've been spending the past week on our couch with my foot elevated in the hopes that the healing process will go well and I can still go to China. On Friday, I went back to the podiatrist for a dressing change and snapped this picture of what was under that bandage (warning, it's pretty nasty):
Thankfully, my doctor said that it looks like it's healing really well and I should be good to go for studying abroad! I guess sometime gambling really does pay off.
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