Snowboarder vs. Outside

After we got home from Colorado, we immediately realized I needed a wheelchair. I could not stay upright on my crutches. I continue to struggle with it.

The reason: about 86% of my blood flows to and pools in my right foot. My toes turn an amazing color. This is probably due to having a hugely swollen ankle with several metal plates and screws that haven't completely healed yet.

This picture was taken after being upright for about one minute. This started to hurt pretty bad, so we decided to discontinue the picture opportunity. I thought about photoshopping this, but it looks bad enough without any modifications.

Today, Brooke had a great idea to take me to our apartment's third floor terrace in the chair. I mean, I'm inside every day staring at a swollen, painful ankle. Getting outside would be a nice change.

I am definitely way more mobile in the chair, but unfortunately I still run into the same problem. Since my leg sits below my heart in the chair, the blood still finds its way down to my foot -- just much more slowly. So I get about a good 15 minutes in the chair before I need to get back and RICE my ankle.

No problem! I'm enjoying the great outdoors on my cement-covered third floor terrace.

I was able to practice my sweet wheelies. It serves two purposes: looking awesome and keeping the ankle high above the heart.

But soon enough, I needed to get back upstairs. But before we left, check out how sweet my wife and I are.

Look, I know these types of pictures aren't funny. But I've got family that read this blog. You know how it goes, sometimes you have to throw out some "awwww" pictures.

We both got our exercise for the day. I wheelchaired myself upstairs to my apartment. Brooke ran six miles.