SURPRISE! NEEDLE IN YOUR ANKLE!

Had an appt with the ankle surgeon yesterday to talk about persistent leftover problems with my ankle. Current theory is that it is, in fact, plain old late-stage bone-on-bone osteoarthritis, thanks to all the bone chips and other cruft they pulled out of my ankle joint having ground things away on one side of the joint. (there's definitely bare bone in the joint - i've seen the pictures.)

So, we talked about treatments, which led to SURPRISE, LET'S DO A CORTISONE SHOT RIGHT NOW! (I knew it was a treatment option, but I sort of thought it was something that required more planning rather than "yeah, sure, get up on the table, let's get the bottle out and do this", but it was a sufficiently shallow shot that they didn't have to do it with x-ray guidance or anything.)

So, let's see how things feel in a day or three and see if that calms things down enough to get more ankle strength and stabilization.

In general, the ankle is doing great. I can walk for much longer than before and when I do have sharp ankle pain, it's sore for a few minutes, not a few days. It's still weaker than its partner, but I was able to walk all around in Las Vegas with no problems aside from one day very late things started to get a bit sore. Things that require more range of motion than plain old walking are still sometimes sore-making - I often limp for a few minutes after I work out at the gym. (yay ice!) I'm hoping this will help that.