Baby Steps.

I am hesitant to celebrate pre-maturely.

HOWEVER.

On Friday, I ran up several flights of stairs several times. And then I rode on the bike for half an hour. With high resistance.

Just to see what Foot could do.

I was a little nervous about waking up the next day (that's generally when Pain and Foot become great buddies). I prayed superuber hard for Foot to be on my side....and Foot was. Morning came and I was pleasantly surprised. I even went snoe showing yesterday with my buddy Curt to see if Foot could handle some gentle hiking with the snow as a cushion....AND THE HEAVENS SMILED UPON ME!!! I woke up this morning....NO PAIN.

THIS IS A MIRACLE. I will now begin to celebrate Foot's progress (probably prematurely) via some lovely pictures of my and Curt's snow shoeing expedition yesterday. We went up to Brighton, found a couple trails, decided they were boring, and proceeded to bushwack our way up the hillside into the great unknown. Well, turns out it was pretty well known to all the skiiers at Brighton who were suddenly skiing past us. HA HA. Ever snow shoed up a ski run?

Things I Can Do Now That I Couldn't Do for an Entire Year Before Having Surgery:

1. Sleep with my quilt over my foot. Before, it was too much weight. I slept with my feet out of the covers for a year.

2. Trot down a flight of stairs instead of gingerly walking.

3. Ride a bike.

4. Take normal steps on hard surfaces.

5. Keep my shoes on while sitting. Before, shoes = pain.

6. Do anything that requires putting weight on my tippy-toes. I can reach for high things. I can sit at my desk right now typing with my foot under my chair up on its toes instead of flat on the ground. I can go up on my toes while brushing my teeth just to revel in the fact that I can.

7. Jumping pictures. Expect plenty more in the future.

8. Plan all the fun things I'm going to do this summer - I'm gonna do Lex and Scott's infomercial work out program, I'm gonna learn how to mountain bike, I'm gonna take up trail running, and HIKE HIKE HIKE HIKE HIKE HIKE HIKE. And camping that will require hiking to get there. And many other wonderful, glorious things.

And I'm spending the entire summer with Scott, Lex, and Boys in North Carolina again because I DON'T HAVE TO HAVE SURGERY AGAIN THIS SUMMER!!!!

Knock on wood.

I don't mean to celebrate prematurely. I'm just really really really really grateful and happy that Foot has made some sort of progress. Because there has definitely been some progress. It could very easily take a turn for the worse any day. But I got to go SNOW SHOEING yesterday. And it made me breathe hard, and today my legs are sore. And if Foot goes back to pot, I will at least be able to remember that once, after a year and a half, I got to be sore for a day. And that's a beautiful thing.