pain update

The hip pain continues to fade. I keep my trekking pole with me, but I walk around without using it these days, except perhaps in the evenings, after I've done a few thousand steps. In another week or so, I'll try weaning myself off the "old-man stick," as some of my colleagues inelegantly style it. I still have a good bit of stiffness in the hip joint, which means I'm still limping ever so slightly (because I normally lumber, it's hard to notice the current limp given the rumble-roll of my stride); I experience occasional flares of pain if I shift sideways too quickly or twist my left foot too far. In my current state, I doubt I could break into a run, but running no longer seems like an impossibility.

This is a delicate phase to be in: I'm still vulnerable to repetitive-stress injuries, but there now seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. I haven't visited the orthopedic clinic in weeks (and the clinic has never called to find out where I am—how's that for patient followup?*), but I may go visit it once, without my "cane," to show off my Buddha's-birthday miracle.

May the graph of my condition continue to trend upward.

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*I have received some random phone calls from numbers I don't recognize. In all fairness, those calls could have come from the clinic. Then again, they might have been mere spam.


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