Right now, Titanium is holding my right ankle together. A six-inch-long plate, seven screws, and two rivet-like fasteners are all working to brace my fibula so the bone can heal, and to tie it to my tibia to prevent my talus from spreading the two apart and sliding up and in between.
I have had an astoundingly physical and exciting life. My career in the military has taken me around the world, into combat, rappelling from helicopters, and living on mountain tops for weeks at a time, but….
But I’ve always been healthy. I’ve always been whole. (for the most part)
How it happened
I wish I had a harrowing story of how I rushed to save a baby from a burning building, but the truth is I was playing with my dog Duchess. We chased after the same ball, and I beat her to the spot. In one breaking movement, I planted my right foot while reaching down to field the ball intending to grab and go.
In a perfect storm of sorts, my foot found a solid purchase in the grass, likely in a small depression or hole. I dislocated my ankle and caused a spiral fracture in the fibula.
The real damage done to my ankle isn’t a broken bone, however. The real damage is all of the ligaments and tendons that were pulled, and stretched, and torn.
Mending bone is easy, and so far not too painful, but the pain from a severely sprained ankle is debilitating.
Why it happened
Accidents happen, right?
I’ve always been an active guy. I walk every day, love to strength-train with weights, and I’m no stranger to most activities.
In the case of breaking my ankle, however, I blame my footwear. Yes, I probably shouldn’t be running around like a 20-year-old at my age. Still, if I hadn’t been wearing zero-drop minimal shoes, I probably would have gotten away with only a bad sprain.
It’s conjecture at this point, but one of the reasons I switched to zero drop minimal shoes was for the gained stability. For me, in the past, it has been nearly impossible to sprain my ankle while wearing similar footwear.
The only sprains that I have had in life have been a product of wearing footwear with a raised heel. The higher the heel (like in a combat boot), the higher the chance I would roll an ankle.
Ironically, with shoes like that, I can feel when it’s going to happen. My body instinctively knows when I’m about to roll an ankle, and I have always been able to bail out or compensate in some way to lessen the injury.
Wearing minimal shoes ultimately tested my ankle strength until the point of failure. Now my ankle is destroyed.
On the bright side, at least I’ll have a cool scar to show off in the future.
