indestructible superhuman machinery

My brain is on fire! Fire!

And my fibula is not. My fibula is not on fire!

This stress fracture has just never seemed right. I can walk, jump, skip, climb, jog... as long as I'm not wearing shoes that touch my ankle. I don't have a limp. I don't wince when I ascend or descend stairs. How can that be a stress fracture? I didn't get it. And it was annoying the crap out of me to feel so completely fine except when I strapped on my running shoes. I couldn't shake the idea that it was just bruising from breaking in my new shoes.

So today I went to a sports medicine doc, and he made me squat on one leg, squat on 2 legs, flex, and point, and bend, and twist, and nothing hurt. Nothing. The only time anything hurt was when he was jamming his thumb into the outside of my foot. (Incidentally, it is unfortunate that the only way to assess pain is to cause it. I wonder how many times Dr. Sports Medicine has been kicked in the face while assessing possible stress fractures.)

At the end he shrugged and said, "Eh, maybe it's a stress fracture, maybe it's just some bone irritation. You don't seem to be too uncomfortable."

Right! I said. Exactly! This is exactly my point!

So he sent me home with a complicated ankle wrap and a disclaimer: If it's a stress fracture, this ankle wrap isn't going to matter. And he left me with the wishy washy: Try an easy run around the block. See how it feels. Decide if you want to keep training.

I follow directions. I strapped on the ankle wrap and ran around the neighborhood, and I felt GREAT! Which means: I'm in! At least, I'm not out. I mean, yes, there's a difference between 5 minutes around the block and 5 hours around the city, but... the dream is alive. I'm going to keep training.

You know what else is awesome? That I swear I had a sign on my way to the doctor. Only, I didn't recognize it as a sign until about an hour ago.

On the way to the doctor, I watched a young man cross the street. He was wearing an ankle monitor. He looked like someone I would have dated once upon a time. I laughed when I imagined someone spotting an ex- wearing an ankle monitor. And then I wince-laughed that that wasn't an entirely far-fetched scenario for me--that in fact, many years ago, I did see an old romantic interest featured in a "stupid criminals" blurb (no joke). And just last year saw very public news of another old flame's bad decision. And if other previous romantic interests have remained out of jail, it's probably only by luck.

And then I thought about my history of making very very bad romantic decisions, and, in my head, I designed a Bad Decision ankle monitor that would set off an alarm any time you were about to do something stupid. Hypothetically, for instance, declaring romantic partnership with anyone with known and multiple substance abuse issues, or someone with overt holes in his ethical character, would signal the arrival of Dumb Decision Police who would intervene.

And then I went to the doctor, and he gave me an ankle wrap, and it worked, and it was awesome, and I'm going to keep training for the marathon, and as long as the ankle wrap holds through greater distances, I will run a marathon on October 17, and it will be super terrific. I didn't think of the ankle monitor story again until Mark and Bridget said, "Hey, that looks like an ankle monitor."

And so it does. And I hope it's a sign that this is the fix (Universe says, "Hey, Patresa! You need to wrap something around your ankle!") and not a sign that this is the dumb decision that will signal Dumb Decision Police ("Hey, Patresa! Don't be dumb!"). And I'm not going to worry about the 1.5 weeks of training lost and the fact that I never ran the last 2 long runs. I am not going to worry about that at all, because I am obviously some kind of indestructible superhuman machinery.