Pinkie Toes. Do we really need them? (Part 3)

Read Part 2 here

After 14 hours of travel from Allentown, Pennsylvania back to Anchorage overnight on Monday through Tuesday afternoon, I crashed hard when I got back to the house. I went to bed at 7pm and slept until 7am. I brought back with me yet another cold and a bum toe.

It's been hard to be in Anchorage and see the mountains and the gorgeous weather (it was over 70 degrees yesterday) knowing that I may not be able to fully enjoy it the next few weeks. Brian did a Kincaid bike race Tuesday night that I had planned on doing and that stung a little bit, but I tried to keep positive until I knew what was really going on with my toe.

In the three days after the surgery my toe began to sag again. I tried lifting it, but it wouldn't budge. By Wednesday morning the muscles in my pinkie toe were atrophied (yes there are muscles in there) and it was hanging down as far as it could.

I went to a podiatrist in Anchorage on Wednesday afternoon. He said it could be one of three things. One, the tendon could have detached again. Two, my muscles could be weak from not using them for a few days and I would need to build them up again. Three, my tendon could be pissed at me for cutting it in half and it may be protesting.

After examining me he determined that it was probably still attached (yay! no more surgery) and that it was most likely a combination of the last two scenarios. I tried apologizing to the tendon, but apparently I'm not getting off that easy. He showed me some pinkie toe exercises that I need to do over the next few days and told me that I could come back in on Monday and get the stitches out.

But the best part of my visit was this.

"Can I ride a bike?"

"Sure. I don't see why not. Do whatever you can tolerate."

Yay!

So now I'm pumping iron with my pinkie toe and hoping to continue on with my plans for the summer. So much better than I thought this was going to turn out.