Day 56 - Feb 15 - No more bandages

Things are progressing well. I think today I will stop dressing Right#2 as the two wounds are dry and are no longer oozing. Geez that took a lot longer than I thought it would though. Walking has become much easier since my last post. You wouldn't be able to tell that I have injured feet seeing me walk down the street. I can go five days, ten hours a day in dress shoes barely noticing them. I even did 30 minutes on the elliptical about two weeks ago and was no worse for wear. The people in the locker room still look at me funny when they see my feet: "Buddy, you better get your shower shoes, you don't want this fungus!", I tell them and they run away with a disgusted look on their face. (Just kidding I don't really say that - leaving my malaise to their imagination is much more cruel - heh heh ;) )

The damage is deep though. My toes are still discoloured and I don't know if they will return to normal. My big toes are still firm and waxy looking at the ends instead of supple like they should be. On the surface, the skin is highly sensitive and delicate. They itch like crazy sometimes but I've been able to resist scratching. I have lost a total of four toenails and I expect to lose perhaps one more. Those lost are growing back slowly. Deeper in my toes the feeling is still not there. Or rather - it is - come to think of it the fact that I can feel the INSIDE of my toes is kinda weird no? I don't recall being able to do that before! Let's just say that the feeling in my toes is pretty abnormal - but at least they're functional. The worst part now, or at least the painful part, is on the little toe side, the part of your foot that pressures the outside edge of your ski (for you skiers out there). Although the skin didn't really get much damage there, the freezing went deep into the bone I think and it hurts to stand on the outside edges of my feet (cause I do that all the time you know). Yesterday I went for a hike in N.Van with Shari and Cedar and I had no problem on the up. Coming down though your toes are naturally jammed into the front of your boots/shoes - my toes weren't very happy with me. Oweee. I fully expect this last phase of recovery to be very, very slow, but it seems that from about now forward, my feet shouldn't hold me back from most of my activities - although running or skiing should probably wait - hold on, those were my activities before... okay I take that back. But hey I can walk normally!

I have taken pics of this and the last post but haven't gotten around to posting yet. Just need to get unlazy for a second to do that. Perhaps now. Perhaps not. Okay I did it. Wow they look good!