If you’ve been following my tweets for the past week or two, then you probably already know I recently had to have surgery on my left ankle.  The back story is, I have been having some ankle pain for a several weeks now and recently found out I had floating bits of bone in my ankle joint that were impinging the joint and making mobility darn near impossible and incredibly painful to boot.  While we were in Atlanta shooting Michelle & Ben’s wedding, I moved my ankle wrong somehow and ended up locking it up entirely.  The pain and swelling made it nearly impossible to walk.  I sucked it up and shot the entire wedding on what I considered a dead foot.  You should have seen me dragging this useless limb around, I looked like Brad’s handicapped sidekick Egor as I waddled around on the wedding day getting my shots.  Brad did an amazing job taking charge and letting me have a back seat for the day.  As soon as we got home from Atlanta, we called the doctor and were scheduled for surgery within days.  What was supposed to be pretty minor surgery (get in, get the bone fragments out, and go home) turned into something a bit more extensive while on the operating  table.  There was more damage inside the joint than the MRI had shown an my 90 minute surgery turned into 3 hours complete with bone drilling.  Mmm sounds delightful right?!   Poor Brad was left in the waiting room wondering what was happening as the surgery went into double over time.  Eventually the surgeon came out and explained how cartilage had to be removed due to the extensive damage and they had to drill into my bone to cause scar tissue to grow a cartilage-like mass to buffer impact from here on out.  My one week on crutches “easy recovery” turned into six weeks of crutches with more pain and discomfort than I had initially prepared for.  Thankfully we have been able to reschedule most of our sessions that require lots of walking.  The doctor said everything looks great and I will heal up good as new, but for the next six weeks I’m rocking the mechanical armpit extensions for mobility.  Here is a little glimpse into what my life has looked like for the past week.  I call it livin la vida sofa: (yeah that was cheesy but you know I’m good for some cheese factor every now and then.)

Notice the still stained iodine toes… I think its rather festive since Halloween is just around the corner

My arsenal of tools to get me through the day.  I try to keep everything at arms length so I’m not having to be up and down too much throughout the day.

Thanks so much to my wonderful friends Kara, Star and Faythe for the goodies they left me to help me get better.  I now have enough candy, magazines and organic bath salts to make me think surgery isn’t so bad.  Also, thanks to all my friends, family and clients for the well wishes and prayers for a speedy recovery.  I’m doing great and Brad is manning the fort like a pro.  I will be back up and running full speed ahead in just a few weeks better than I was before.