DJ-Ortho's gonna rock da house

Surprise, surprise, the hospital still didn't have any heel wedges in stock so I smugly produced my own set and was told "at least you've got some initiative". Most upsetting was the boot: certainly not the Beckham Boot- the picture in the last post showed him in an Aircast which at least looks as designed as a snowboard boot and is supposed to be quite light. Mine was made by "dj-ortho", a moniker I fully intend to adopt for the next podcast. Imagine a heavy canteen tray with a pair of flattened bicycle forks sticking upwards from it. Then get a one size fits all foam sock thing and 5 Velcro straps that tighten over the foot and calf, tightening around the bicycle forks to hold it in place. Imagine that the Velcro straps are preferentially drawn to sticking to each other in a monstrous tangle when putting it on, rather than to the appropriate parts. Imagine also that gravity on the wearers leg is increased by a factor of four. This explains why you don't see dj-ortho wearers hanging about on quaysides or river banks- they know if they fall in it is a certain "cement boot death" and the inquest will conclude that the mob did them in. (oh my God as I write this I can hear my wife in the other room on the phone laughing to her friend about my club-foot..) Now we mustn't forget the wedges, these add the extra exhilaration of wearing one high heel in your heavyweight school dinner tray.

With hindsight I can laugh at my naivety thinking I would get a magic boot and I could start really working my tendon. It seemed when they took the plaster off that my foot had been replaced by a corpsefoot or a dead fish. It was all pale and puffy and lots of plates of smelly yellowing skin on the sole. You could easily deduct from looking at the waxy effigy that time of death was exactly 4 weeks ago. It was the opposite of a phantom limb. This thing had nothing to do with me and had obviously been forgotten by my brain during its incarceration. So standing up in dj-ortho was a kind of sick sensation- "no way can I put my weight on my heel!" as if it was all going to give way. Then after wearing my boot for a while, my corpsefoot had transformed into "old lady's ankle"- that jacket potato oedematous look that smooths over the shape of your anklebones. Even my 80 year old mother still has lovely slim ankles.

Luckily this effect settled overnight with my foot ramped up on its 4 pillow stack.
I have now got used to waddling along with this contraption although there are some drawbacks. The huge footprint significantly increases the chance of standing in dogshit. In fact I have just come in the door and brought in a dollop of foxshit which is far more shitty. The leg lengthening means my back goes through all sorts of strains and I end up externally rotating my hip to avoid the feeling I am going to snap my knee backwards. This ends up resembling a hesitant jazz dancer who is about to go into an ambitious spin but just can't quite commit. Over and over again with each step. In fact every time I go out there is a circle of hip clubbers stood in a circle around me clapping to a Ronnie Laws tune, whilst I get the beer towel hanging from my back pocket to wipe my brow..