Tortuous Torture

-A device that tortures me in a very devious way? Game Ready. This thing compresses like mad and it takes me a solid 1/2 hour to warm up after wearing it for 15 minutes. It's painful in a really good way - kinda makes me realize what it must feel like to be a car being compacted at a North Pole junkyard in January. (Also, in case you were wondering where the "tortuous" part comes in, there is a lot of ankle and foot bending involved in the physical therapy, and frequently it feels completely unnatural, even though my other foot does it all completely naturally. For an hour and a half, twice a week, PT's all torture, but all for the best.)

(See? It looks really cool, like an awesome gaming system console...until you realize it's attached to an awful contraption via hose and cable...)

With help of the twice-weekly torture, I felt myself get through a turning point on Sunday afternoon, and the swelling and pain have been substantially less since then, and I'm doing some every day things a bit more naturally since then. Also: my body does not try to protect itself quite as much (read: wince back from any ankle and foot movement whatsoever) since then.

-Tennis tortures me. Not only the injury, but also attempting to watch it. I only saw part of the Federer-Del Potro match yesterday, but what I did see was slightly agonizing, but in a good way.

-Playing my violin for the first time since May tortured me last night. Just like my ankle and foot are unbendable lately, so are my fingers, apparently. At least none of my strings were broken when I opened up the case last night.

-Losing my flip-flop callouses tortures me, 'cause either I'll have to suffer through regaining them for the next few weeks, or just call it a season and be done with them until next spring. Both are torturous ideas. I'd really like to try on boots right now and get a new pair in preparation for winter, but I'm mentally and physically struggling with that. I don't want it to be winter yet! I can't get my foot in that boot because of the swelling, so I can't really test for fit at the present time.