stay talus stay

Feb 24, 2014

I have learned some interesting anatomy stuff through this most recent foot injury. For those of you who are bored to death of anatomy here at WOK, just skip this post. For those of you who are fascinated by the whole body parts study like I am, read away…

My foot was not technically dislocated because dislocated has a specific definition outside of the obvious meaning of the words dis and located. I thought if one or two of the bones that make up a joint are not in the correct location then they are dis-located. Makes sense, right? Well, I guess there is more to it than that. An actual dislocation occurs when the bones are not in their correct location AND they tear the entire capsular sack when they move out of place. If the sack stays intact, it is not a dislocation regardless of where the bones are. Interesting, eh?

Having super defective connective tissue that stretches and stretches and stretches AND stretches complicates things a bit. My capsular sacks don’t generally break, they will stretch to timbukto and let the bones be waaaayyyy out of place and then sit there all stretched out and saggy with little ability to rebound back to where they should be. Even after the bones are put back into their correct places the poor, decrepit ligaments and fascia are over in left field wondering how to get back to home plate.

So most of the time when my joints slide out of place, they are not actually dislocating. They are far away from where they should be and much further out of place than is typical in a normal dislcation and my nervous system recognizes this and starts screaming at my brain that something is amiss, but they are not technically dislocated because the capsular sack is intact. Unfortunately there isn’t a good word to describe what is happening to me. The best word seems to be dislocation, but now that I know it isn’t completely accurate, I am on the search for a better term.

So, my talus was significantly out of place as were the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th metatarsals, but they weren’t technically dislocated…just sprained and super-duper sore.

I was able to see Jeremy today so he could work on my foot and put it all back together again. Good news! The talus stayed in position from Wednesday evening to this afternoon! Hip, hip hooray! Two smaller bones, cuneiforms (not the language, the bone!), were out of place and it hurt like the dickens to put them back, but my whole foot is feeling much better now that they are back in the correct spots and it is all taped back together. I am now back in bed for the night with my trusty robot walking boot and waiting for my sweetie to come home.

My job for the next week is to stay off it as much as possible, wear the walking boot in bed (oh, my, can I tell you I HATE WEARING THE WALKING BOOT WHEN I AM TRYING TO SLEEP), try really, really hard not to injure anything else, and I get to start some really simple bridging exercises that should work the muscles in my foot AND my hip. Last week Kat helped me find a new pair of Danskos to provide massive arch support to the talus while it is healing – so whenever I am out of bed, I need to wear them (they are ugly as heck, but they are doing the job that my ligaments can’t do, so I will bury my vanity in the sand and wear them). I’m also going to up my intake of Vitamin C with a product called Collagen C by my favorite supplement company, Standard Process, and try super hard to nurture a positive attitude. Jeremy says I have had an attitude at the last few appointments and it is true, I have been rather grumpy, so I am going to try to focus on the gazillion positive things in my life.