gimp report #2

Hi. How was your weekend? Mine isn't over yet, even though it's technically Monday. I don't go back to work until Thursday, and that's only because our boss lobbied for us to be back in the office and earning money instead of taking a five-day-long break without pay.

I guess I should write another gimp report (see the previous one from February 21 here).

It's been about 17 days since I injured myself. I still haven't engaged in any serious distance walking, but I have had a few scattered days on which I've walked a total of 90-plus minutes. Those walks have not motivated me to resume walking every single day. As a result, the depression continues, as does the relapse to poor eating habits. On Sunday, I did not go visit the bicycle guy again, but there's a chance I might do so later today (Monday). A bike is a better long-term investment than a gym membership.

Purchasing a bike and being put on mandatory unpaid leave—these are two factors that will definitely fuck up my budget. I can no longer guarantee being done paying off my debt by July 16; the actual zeroing-out of the debt will more likely be September 16, two months later. That might change, depending on what happens with the COVID-19 pandemic. Traveling outside of Korea might not even be possible, especially if it means being quarantined upon arrival in either Qatar or the United States. Perhaps the universe is telling me that 2020 simply isn't a good year for overseas travel.

As for the actual meat and gristle of the gimping: I'm not really limping anymore, but I do still experience aches and pains in my right foot, which still feels too delicate for me to risk long walks, however tempted I might be to go walking. The injured foot is still slightly swollen, and it's still sensitive to pressure applied to the top of the foot, along the middle metatarsals (the long bones in the middle of the foot; your toes are called phalanges).

Another problem has arisen over the past five or so days, though: my right knee is acting up, as if it were remembering its ACL injury from 2008 (ACL = anterior cruciate ligament, the ligament that's often torn in knee injuries). The knee still has its range of motion, but there's a slight grinding feeling that comes and goes, as if the meniscus (the squishy pad between the upper femur and the lower tibia) were being ground down to nothing. I'm reminded of Bruce Wayne's doctor visit in "The Dark Knight Rises": the doc tells Bruce he simply has no cartilage left in his knees, hence poor Bruce's need for a cane. I'm obviously nowhere near that point yet, but the grinding is cause for some concern. Perhaps this, too, is another message from the cosmos: stop overeating and lose weight now, so as to save your knees from death by pulverization.

I'm tentatively projecting the return of my ability to walk at around March 15 or March 30. Spring will have arrived by then; days and nights will both be pleasant, with the best part of spring being from about late March to the first week of May. (May is when the weather goes from pleasantly warm to unpleasantly hot; Korean summers are four months long.) Who knows: if I buy a bike now, I might even be a halfway decent biker by the time we hit the beginning of May. According to the MyFitnessPal app, a few hours' moderately paced biking will let me expend roughly the same number of calories as the equivalent time spent walking. And biking is a better cardio exercise for me, so there's that benefit as well.

So that's how things look right now. Slight swelling of the right foot; slight sensitivity; some aching when walking short distances; some knee pain. None of this is tragic; I just need to watch myself a bit better than I currently do. I'm no longer in my twenties, as people around me love to keep reminding me. Sigh...