I've got something strange and wonderful and supposedly impossible and incredibly annoying going on in my right ankle.
In 1982 or '83 my lower back went out Big Time. Any movement at all caused sharp pain, the kind that the body absolutely won't move against. After I was several days flat on my back, my right lower leg caught fire. It quite literally felt like it was being blistered in red licking flames. I screamed a lot. At that point, Ex#2 had brought Daughter (who was 7 or 8 at the time, and staying with him while I was bedridden) to visit. He called an ambulance to take me to the ER, where I was shot full of painkillers and sent home. No x-rays. I don't think they believed me how bad it was.
Eventually I was able to move again. We don't know exactly what was going on in my back, but the swelling or whatever had "killed" the nerves to my lower right leg. That's what had caused the fiery pain - the nerves dying.
The skin on the outside of the shin and calf and the top of my foot was left completely numb from just below the knee to the toes, and I had no innate sense of position in my ankle. Sometimes when I walked, the foot didn't lift, it flopped, and I'd come down on the top of my foot instead of the sole, and I'd fall down. Or the toes would drag and trip me. It usually happened at work, when I'd be walking in the hall with my head turned to the left talking to someone. They'd always be startled when I went down, but I was never hurt because I kind of "rolled" down.
Eventually I learned to lift the front of my foot a bit more than usual. When people take a step, there's one point just before the foot moves forward when the toes are pointed downward. If you watch me walk when I'm not thinking about it, you'll notice that the front of my right foot is lifted a bit earlier, and the sole is usually kept parallel to the floor. I'll bet nobody ever noticed it before. It's one reason I seldom wear high heels - it's very difficult for me to get any kind of stride in them without catching the right heel on every step.
Well, after ten years had passed, I was told that I'd never get those nerves back.
Weirdest thing. I've noticed that the over the past five years, beginning more than 15 years since the nerves died, the numb area has been steadily creeping down my shin. I can now feel touch. It's almost dull normal above the ankle. At and below the ankle, it's a bit fuzzy, like through fabric, but it's there. When I move my ankle around, I can mostly sense the position (signaled by the pull on the skin).
The nerves are coming back!
That's the "strange and wonderful and supposedly impossible" part.
The incredibly annoying part is that I think the deeper nerves inside the ankle are beginning to regenerate, and it feels like tiny worms wriggling around in there. It's not a nice feeling. It's very distracting.
But isn't it strange and wonderful?
Pretty soon I will learn to walk again!
~~ Silk
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