Walking Shoes

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Steve Foster

The day has arrived. I am walking. In regular shoes. Woohoo!

My stride is still not normal. Extending my heel is still difficult so I walk with sort of a hitch. When I slow down  my pace, I seem to walk better. But I find it hard to slow down. I never realized that I had such a fast pace…until now…when I can’t go fast.

Monday was my reevaluation during physical therapy. The downward flex of my foot increased from 5 degrees to 45 degrees. I almost have full motion downward. My upward flex (pulling my foot up toward my leg) increased from -20 degrees to 0 degrees. In other words, I can at least keep my foot flat on the ground without too much strain on my Achilles. The side to side motion of my foot is practically back to normal.

Surprisingly the swelling in my foot is exactly the same that it was four weeks ago. The therapist told me that this would simply take time. I thought for sure that I would be able to see my ankle bones clearly by now.

Wednesday I had a check-up with my orthopedic surgeon. He said that everything looked good. The walking boot was now optional. If I wanted to wear regular shoes I could. I took the walking boot off when I got home. I don’t plan on putting it on again. I will probably sell it on ebay.

So yesterday was my first day walking around in regular shoes. The swelling in my ankle makes the left shoe slightly uncomfortable but it feels much better than the moon boot that I was wearing. I feel like life is returning to normal.

Of course, that’s the danger. The surgeon warned me. “This is when re-injury often occurs. Your Achilles is still not totally healed. So be careful what you do. You cannot resume full activity until six months after surgery.”

I understand what he means. As soon as I put on my regular tennis shoes (or sneakers as they say up north), I found myself wanting to get back into the swing of things. I even threw some football passes to my boys later in the afternoon. It was so nice to be able to share that part of life with them again. And even though I was incredibly careful…at times I could see how I could easily forget my situation. One of them throws the football back at me…it is a little high…and something inside of me wants to jump. Thankfully I didn’t.

Knowing your limits. Realizing your weakness. It is often a hard pill to swallow…especially for a man. That’s probably what put me in this situation to begin with.

I am reminded of my favorite Bible verse:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Corinthians 4:7).

God has given us the treasure of life, the treasure of grace, the treasure of relationship with Him…in jars of clay. That’s our bodies that he is talking about. We are weak beings, susceptible to tiredness, hunger, injury, sickness, pain, death. We are fragile beings…no matter how many push ups or sit ups or pull ups we can do. One snap of the Achilles can put us on the ground. Why did God do this? Why did He put such glorious life in a weak body? Why did He give such a high calling and great task to a mortal being?

To show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.

He made us weak so that we would have to depend on Him.

It is our mortality that drives us to His Son Jesus Christ for eternal life. It is our struggle with temptation and sin that drives us to our knees in need of redemption and grace. And it is our weakness that drives us to His strength.

When I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

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Baby Steps

Posted on January 23, 2010 by Steve Foster

The day has finally come. I am walking!

Well, I guess you can call it walking. I am waddling in a walking boot. Sort of like Frankenstein moving in a ski boot. But it is progress. Major progress. And I am happy to have some aspect of freedom again. The simple ability to carry a book and walk at the same time is a wonderful thing. I never thought that such a basic ability would mean so much to me. I guess I’ve always taken walking for granted…ever since I learned it 39 years ago.

The transition to walking began on Thursday at physical therapy. My walking boot was adjusted from a 10 degree decline to a neutral setting. It actually took two therapists about 15 minutes to figure out how to do this on this particular boot but eventually they got it done.

Next began my baby steps.

The therapist gave me one crutch, held onto the back of my pants, and slowly retaught me how to walk.

I thought I knew how. After all, it is only walking. But in the course of eight weeks, I had forgotten how to use my muscles and had developed some bad habits on the crutches as well.

First, I sort of hopped. I was afraid to put full weight on my Achilles so I moved in short spurts, hopping on my good foot and sort of dragging my bad foot along.

The therapist stopped this and told me to go heel to toe on my foot.

My next effort was still stilted because I was bending my left knee too much and not straightening my leg as I made my stride. She corrected this and then I overcompensated by locking my knee as I walked.

Finally…after taking about thirty faulty steps…and after telling the therapist that she was starting to give me a wedgie as she held me up by my pants…I relearned the stride and started to walk.

The funny thing was that the other people in therapy started to congratulate me and cheer me on. It felt like one of those big moments…like a man walking on the moon…or a bunch of excited parents watching a toddler take his first steps.

It was sort of neat experiencing this little “fellowship of the suffering.”

I have been in therapy three times a week for two and a half weeks. I have become a “regular” of sorts. And I have gotten to know many of my fellow “therapees” (is that a word?). The bartender after knee surgery…the accountant with the neck pain…the union worker recovering from back surgery…and a host of others with heating pads wrapped around their shoulders, knees, necks, or ankles.

The fellowship of the suffering.

Our conversations begin pretty much the same. “So what did you do?” “Did you have surgery?” “Is it getting any better?” “How long you got?” Like we are all prisoners waiting for our release date.

The common experience of suffering opens the door and then further conversation ensues. Despite all our differences, we are still human beings experiencing our weakness and frailty firsthand, seeking to get better, and encouraging each other in the process.

Why isn’t the church more like this?

I thought the other day, “Should the church really be seen as spiritual therapy?”

Okay, the word “therapy” sometimes has negative connotations in today’s world but it is actually a biblical word.

Therapeuo. Used in the New Testament 44x. Meaning “to heal, to cure, to bring back to health.” Of course, it is primarily used to refer to physical healing but there are certainly spiritual implications as well.

We are all sinners. We are all spiritually suffering. We all have a “ruptured Achilles” that we can’t repair on our own.

Christ is the Great Physician who performs the surgery. And then in the body of Christ, the church, we learn once again how to walk…encouraging each other and cheering each other on as we take baby steps in faith.

Perhaps we don’t experience the “fellowship of the suffering” because we pretend we are not suffering. We pretend we have it all together. We forget our weakness. And we fail to confess our sins to one another and pray for each other so that we may be healed (James 5:16a).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his classic Life Together noted:

It is possible that Christians may remain lonely in spite of daily worship together, prayer together, and all their community through service—that the final breakthrough to community does not occur precisely because they enjoy community with one another as pious believers, but not with one another as those lacking piety, sinners. For the pious community permits no one to be a sinner. Hence all have to conceal their sins from themselves and from the community. We are not allowed to be sinners. …So we remain alone in our sin, trapped in lies and hypocrisy, for we are in fact sinners. However, the grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to comprehend, confronts us with the truth. It says to us, you are a sinner, a great, unholy sinner. Now come, as the sinner that you are, to your God who loves you. …The mask you wear in the presence of other people won’t get you anywhere in the presence of God.

Only those who recognize their sickness go to the doctor (cf. Luke 5:31). Only those who see their sin come to Jesus. And only those who know they are crippled and who want to walk again, go to therapy.

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Slowing

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Steve Foster

In the fall, I preached a sermon series through the New Testament book of Philippians. The theme was “Finding Joy in a Stress-Filled World.” In preparing for one of these messages, I remember reading an excerpt from John Ortberg’s book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.

Ortberg talked about the practice of “slowing”—“cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait” (p. 83). His examples stuck out in my mind:

  • Deliberately drive in the slow lane on the highway.
  • Chew and eat your food slower.
  • Find the longest line at the grocery store and stand in it, ignoring how quickly the other lines are moving.

Why in the world would anyone do this? Because “hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day” (p. 77).

clockWe are addicted to hurry.

According to Dr. Meyer Friedman, the cardiologist who pioneered studies on Type A personality, stress, anger, and heart disease, we suffer from “hurry sickness”—“a continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time, frequently in the face of opposition, real or imagined, from other persons” (p. 78).

Friedman gave this diagnosis of American life in 1984. Things have only gotten worse since then.

While on Christmas vacation, I had the opportunity to read the entirety of Ortberg’s book. (It is a good one and I would recommend it.) Reading back over the section on “slowing,” I realized that, with my ruptured Achilles, the Lord is giving me a crash course on the subject.

All of life has slowed down for me. Getting ready in the morning takes longer. Walking is slower. Accomplishing tasks takes more time. And getting up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom takes forever!

This past Sunday at church I had to walk up to my seat using my crutches. I was trying to obey the therapist and keep putting weight on my foot. This reduces my walking pace to a crawl. I can scoot faster on crutches if I just pick up my lame foot and move. But I chose to walk slowly. It was amazing the number of people I could meet and greet during that time. I got to my seat late…but enjoyed the stroll.

Slowing is not easy in our culture. We are ruled by the clock. I wonder what life was like before people wore wristwatches. I suppose that people had more time for one another. Tasks were less rushed. Appointments and meeting times were more general and loose in their starting and ending.

I remember spending two summers in Central America on mission trips. The Hispanic culture down there was less dictated by hurry and stress. Church started around 9am and continued until they were done. No one checked their watches…except us Americans. Fellowship and relationship were more important than the time-conscious pull to do more and more things in less and less time. Half the time we don’t even know where we are going or what we have to do…we just know that we have to get there or do it in a hurry.

I am starting to rebel against the hurry and hyper-drive of American culture…and the American church. I have to. I am becoming too burnt out, too driven by tasks, too stressed. Perhaps that is why the Lord “caught my heel”—not to trip me up but to slow me down.

God is not in a hurry. Indeed “a day to Him is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day” (2 Peter 3:8). This is not a mathematical formula but a simple statement that God is not dictated by time. He operates above time. He created time as a servant not a taskmaster.

As God’s children, we are called to “number our days” (Psalm 90:12) and  “make the most of every opportunity” (Colossians 4:5). We are not called to stress ourselves out with endless tasks or with a feverish rush to accomplish more and more things. Our addiction to hurry, instant spirituality, quick fixes, and steroidal church growth are not indications of a healthy church but a sick one.

It takes time—deliberate time, slow time—for “the tree planted by rivers of water” (Psalm 1) to be planted in God’s soil, to become rooted in God’s Word, to be nourished by the water of the Spirit, to meditate and contemplate God’s glory, to produce the fruit of God’s character.

Weeds grow fast. Trees take their time.

Or as Ortberg notes, “Following Jesus cannot be done in a sprint. If we want to follow someone, we can’t go faster than the one who is leading” (p. 79).

And the One who is leading has told us…

28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Lord, help me to slow down. To walk not sprint. To rest not race. To redeem the time not rush it. To savor life not overschedule it. And, Lord, if I start going 55 mph in an Autoban world, please keep me from being run over.

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Physical Therapy Begins

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Steve Foster

I started physical therapy last week at the same place my wife went after her knee surgery a year and a half ago. (I guess we are getting old when we start sharing physical therapists.)

I didn’t know what to expect but I was ready to begin. With a six month recovery time, the sooner the better.

The therapist is very good. She is personable and has the right balance between pushing you and being gentle with you. I need that balance.

The swelling in my left ankle

The swelling in my left ankle

She began by measuring the swelling in my ankle. The swelling is very noticeable particularly around the Achilles. To increase mobility, the swelling (and the scar tissue around the incision site) has to be one of the primary issues to address.

I am amazed at the amount of fluid around my shin and ankle. It is particularly noticeable after I take off my hi-tech moon boot (aka walking boot). Little bulges of fluid are all around my leg. The first time I noticed this I freaked out. I have heard so much about the danger of blood clots that I worried that these little bulges could be indications of clots. But thankfully the bulges disappeared after a few hours.

Therapy begins with fifteen minutes of heat around my ankle. It feels great. I spend this time lying on my back and relaxing. It is a perfect time to pray, reflect, and rest. It is so hard for me to do this in normal, every day life. I get distracted too easily or start thinking that I need to get up and do something. However, as part of therapy, I find myself just focusing on the moment and enjoying it. I hope I can replicate this more and more in my “real life.”

Heat is followed by infrared light therapy and then a massage of the lower calf and the area around my Achilles. The area around my heel is not sensitive or painful and the stimulation around the incision site feels great.

The heat and the massage are obviously the best parts of therapy.

Next comes the exercises. This is where things get “less fun.”

First I slowly flex my foot up and down thirty times, then side to side thirty times. During the first therapy session, my flexibility was minimal to none. Today (my third session) I could tell a big difference. Not that I am anywhere close to normal but I can definitely see improvement.

After this, I take a towel and pull the top of my foot toward me, stretching the Achilles in 30 second intervals five times. The exercises are not necessarily painful. Everything just feels incredibly tight and even the slightest movement takes a lot of effort. I also feel at times that my Achilles could “pop” which is not something I want to happen again. The therapist assures me that it won’t. I am taking her at her word.

I work on “foot circles” next. With my legs hanging off the table, I rotate (or try to rotate) my foot thirty times clockwise and then thirty times counter-clockwise. Today I also worked on a BAPS board which was not too fun. I really feel the tightness in my Achilles as I rotate my foot on this board.

On Friday, the therapist put a towel on the floor, had me place my foot on it, and then told me to work on scrunching up the towel with my foot. Ha! I sat there and stared at my toes for over a minute. I could move my toes up but I had no ability to curl my toes downward to grasp the towel. It was frustrating to be totally unable to do a simple exercise. My brain was communicating to my foot but my foot was saying, “Are you kidding me?” After six weeks off, my foot muscles are not ready to go back to work just yet.

My moon boot (aka walking boot)

My moon boot (aka walking boot)

The final exercise is in my walking boot. Using my crutches, I walk back and forth across the room trying to put more and more weight on my foot. The first day I put very little weight on my foot. Today I found that I could go heel to toe with a lot more weight on my foot and little less discomfort.

The session ends with my foot elevated in an ice pack with electro stimulation for about fifteen minutes.

Usually I try to relax and pray during this time but today the TV was blaring with Judge Judy. I find that hearing adults argue over petty disputes and Judge Judy yell, “Shut up!” is not conducive to rest and relaxation. I guess it reflects the challenge of all of life…trying to find God’s peace in the midst of life’s stresses, disputes, and arguments. Even when the spirit desires God’s rest, the noise of the world is constantly seeking to interrupt. It truly takes discipline to be a disciple.

Lord willing, I will be able to walk without the use of crutches in a week or two. I am eager to get my mobility back, even if it is with an enormous moon boot (actually it reminds me a lot of a ski boot).

I will not take walking for granted ever again. I understand now why “the lame leap for joy” when they are healed by Christ’s power (Isaiah 35:6; Acts 3:1-11).

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Atrophy

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Steve Foster

The cast came off yesterday. After six weeks of being in a cast, I was ready for the next stage…the walking boot.

I wasn’t sure what to expect at the doctor’s office. My sister-in-law had told me that they use a small circular saw to cut off the cast. That didn’t sound too comforting. I was always taught not to stick body parts underneath a circular saw.

Cutting off the cast

Cutting off the cast

Sure enough once I got into the doctor’s office, the first thing I noticed was a small circular saw connected to a vacuum cleaner. Unique combination. “Saw off your leg and suck up the blood,” I thought.

Actually the blade was rather small and the nurse assured me that it is designed only to cut the cast and not the skin. Not sure how they do that but I trusted her. But then she said, “Whatever you do, don’t pull your leg away from me.” Hmmm… let’s see…this won’t cut you, but just in case it does, don’t pull away or it will cut you worse. I was apprehensive again.

But the process wasn’t bad. It took about 3-4 minutes and the only thing that irritated me was the noise.

Once the cast was cut, she used a small crowbar to snap it apart.

I was curious to see my left leg.

There was not much left to see.

The effects of atrophy

The effects of atrophy

I now know firsthand what atrophy is. Six weeks of inactivity had reduced my leg to bone, skin, and a piece of flab that I assume was once my calf muscle. My skin was dry and cracked. As I rubbed it, skin and hair came off in my hands. Lovely. I am glad my wife didn’t marry me for my legs.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw my leg. I did know one thing…the road to recovery was going to be very long.

The doctor examined the incision site and felt the tendon. Afterward I was fitted with a walking boot. It was set at a ten degree decline to take pressure off the tendon. I was told to keep the boot on whenever I was walking or standing. I could take it off while resting, sleeping, or taking a shower. That was nice to hear. I was also told to start putting weight on my foot with the boot on. Sounded easy enough.

Then the doctor left.

When I stood up, I thought I would give walking a try. After all, it is a walking boot. As soon as I put full weight on my foot, I shot of pain went up my calf…or the piece of flab that was once my calf. I immediately realized that even putting weight on my foot would be a challenge. Walking would have to come much later.

Atrophy. Seven weeks ago I was walking, running, jumping. I wasn’t in great physical shape but I was able to do pretty much anything I wanted. One split second…one snapped tendon…changed everything. Now I can’t even flex my foot much less walk.

In six weeks, every muscle and tendon associated with walking withered away. That’s not long when you think about. Don’t use a muscle in six weeks and it’s pretty much gone.

It’s a good reminder that what is true in the physical realm is also true in the spiritual. Drift away from the Lord. Stop reading His Word. Stop praying. Stop going to church. Stop caring. Pretty soon you are further down the road than you could ever imagine. You are weaker. You are uninterested in church. You start rationalizing, excusing, doubting, faltering. Walking with the Lord has become impossible….though you still think you are fine.

Train yourself to be godly… (1 Timothy 4:7).

You have to use your spiritual muscles every day or they will wither away.

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