If you’ve been following along with my dang ol' derelict ankle, you know the story so far: ligament surgery in October, followed by an infection, a surprise hospital stay, and many hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber watching Hallmark Christmas movies.

The good news: the HBO treatments worked. The wound has filled in significantly. I’m no longer staring into a crater.

The less good news: there’s still a little tendon peeking out, waving hello like it pays rent there. The wound isn’t closing on its own, and we’ve reached the point where my body needs some help.

So. More surgery.

The Plan

On January 5th, I’m going in to have something called Integra applied to the wound.

For those unfamiliar—and I was, until this became my life—Integra is a dermal regeneration template. It’s essentially a scaffold made from bovine collagen and shark cartilage (I am not making this up) that gives your body a framework to rebuild tissue. You apply it to the wound, and over the next few weeks, your own cells migrate into the matrix and create new dermis.

It’s like giving your body a coloring book and saying “fill this in, please.”

The Integra needs time to integrate—about five to six weeks—and then, assuming everything goes well, I’ll have a skin graft on February 12th.

Two days before my birthday.

Happy birthday to me. Here’s some skin.

The Feelings

I’m trying to be optimistic. The doctors seem confident. The wound has come a long way since October. This is the path forward, and there is a path forward, which is more than I could say during those first terrifying days in the hospital.

But I’m also scared.

Not of the anesthesia—I’ve done that enough times now that it’s almost routine. Count backwards from ten, wake up groggy, ask Sarah the same question four times because I won’t remember asking it.

What scares me is infection. Another infection. Another unexpected hospital stay. Another round of IV antibiotics and worried looks from doctors and the particular loneliness of being sick in a place designed for sick people.

The last hospital stay broke something in me. Not dramatically, not permanently, but I felt it happen. The moment when you realize your body isn’t cooperating, that the thing that was supposed to heal is actively getting worse, that you’re not going home today after all.

I don’t want to feel that again.

The Hope

But here’s the thing: the wound has healed. Not all the way, not on its own, but it’s filled in. The HBO worked. My body, with help, did what it needed to do.

So maybe Integra will work too. Maybe the skin graft will take. Maybe by late February I’ll be writing a post about how I have a normal-looking ankle again, or at least an ankle that’s fully covered in skin, which is frankly all I’m asking for at this point.

The bar is low. The bar is “please have skin.” I think we can clear it.

Sarah, as always, is the hero of this story. She’s been driving me to appointments, managing wound care supplies, keeping track of medications, and generally holding down our entire life while I’ve been couch-bound. I don’t know how she does it. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to have someone who shows up like that, every single day, even when “showing up” means looking at my gross ankle and saying “yep, that’s healing.”

What’s Next

January 5th: Integra application. Then weeks of waiting, wound checks, hoping the scaffold does its job.

February 12th: Skin graft. Two days before I turn another year older.

I’ll update when there’s something to update. For now, I’m sitting with the fear and the hope and trying to hold both at once. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also, I think, the only honest way to do this.

If you’re the praying type, or the good-vibes type, or the thinking-positive-thoughts type—I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Send it toward my ankle. Tell that tendon to get back under cover where it belongs.

Stay healthy out there. And if your body is cooperating today, maybe take a moment to appreciate it. That shit is not guaranteed.**