The Domino Effect: What Normal Means
It starts with a bit of neuropathy in your left toe. It's subtle. So subtle you don't even perceive it.
But your body does.
Your gait changes. Your weight shifts. Your body begins an imperceptible dance of compensation, and extra pressure lands on your right foot.
The First Domino falls.
A few weeks later, you get out of bed. You step down with your right foot and pain shoots through your leg. You look down, wondering who left a marble on the floor.
There is no marble. It's a nerve in your right foot, now inflamed from weeks of carrying a load it was never meant to hold.
The Second Domino falls.
Every step feels like walking on a marble. It's painful, but you find a way to make it tolerable. You move forward. You change your gait again to protect the "marble."
A few weeks later, your left calf tightens. The new gait is straining the muscle. Does it stop you? No. You keep going with yet another adjustment.
The Third Domino falls.
Then you try to walk up the stairs.
The pain in your right quadricep hits like a hammer. A bigger muscle means bigger pain. Walking like a "normal" person, one foot in front of the other, is now impossible.
The Recovery.
Sixteen weeks of physical therapy is all it takes to reset the chain. You spend months unlearning the compensations your body made to protect a toe you couldn't even feel.
You finally get back to "normal."
Normal. Ha. Whatever the Fck means.
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