Of Ankles and Endurance

A year ago at this very time I was staring down the barrel of yet another ankle surgery. Although I understood that it meant another long recovery and lots of pain, I was willing to undergo the event because my physical and mental well being was shot due to a constant and unyielding routine of pain that left me more willing to have an amputation rather than go another day distracted by my physical failings.
I expected to be able to regain most of my range of motion and to build back up the muscles that had atrophied in the previous years of inactivity. As previous posts have detailed, there were a couple setbacks in the healing process. In the end though, am I glad I had my ankle replaced? Yes, it was worth it, even without the gains that I thought I would have.

The constant grinding pain from bones in constant contact has subsided. I can move more smoothly most of the time, and I can even walk up slight inclines with less trouble. Some muscle mass has been regained, and I make a little more progress each month. However, my range of motion has not increased much at all since the surgery. Each morning I must deal with tendons that have tightened up during the night. I stumble around in pain as those tissues warm back up and loosen up enough to allow for a more normal gait in my step. If I stop for more than ten minutes, it all tightens back up and I start all over. My ankles bones no longer grind, but everything around them is still in excruciating pain. I still need to be careful that I do not roll my ankle on rough terrain.
To top it off, there is the issue of my knee. It sounds like a plastic bag filled with sand, glass and ball bearings. My ACL is still messed up and would likely benefit from its own turn under the scalpel. When I get tired my knee tends to buckle at inopportune moments.
The ankle itself is not fully "baked" either. Bone healing has been slow and who knows what sort of "maintenance" it may need in the future.

So what's the end result of the past year? I've undergone a permanent transformation of part of my body. The past five years have changed my outlook toward my mortal shell. I see it more as strictly utilitarian. Flawed, temporary, broken, expendable and detached. My body is just something else I hold a cynical view toward. If it breaks, I don't care; in fact I sometimes find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wonder when another incident will find me and finish the job...just waiting for George to put me out of my misery.
Until then, I just keep finding ways to occupy my time and enjoying what I have and dreaming of my own little farm, filled with little white rabbits...