Normal. Normal! NORMAL!!

It was just after Summer Solstice. I was walking across the office and it hit me. Really hard. But in a good way.

I was walking normal. Normal.

NORMAL!!

I had stood and immediately stepped off. No pause to let my foot figure out what was happening. No baby steps. No light taps to ensure I don't upset what my physiology has become.

Normal strides. Not cautionary. Not gingerly. Normal.

It was just a typical journey from my desk at the office to the bathroom. Typical, yet extraordinary.

I wasn't even wearing my special recovery sandals. I was in my Harley boots because I had ridden my Harley to the office. Halfway across the large space, I realized I was walking like a normal person. For the first time in 3 years, nearly to the day.

Swollen ankle after I tore the ligament.

It was June 20, 2023 when I tore the ligament in my left ankle. I wasn't doing anything special, just walking. On One fateful step, my ankle let go and I nearly fell to the ground.

I thought I had sprained it, so I didn't go to urgent care. Nope. I was on my way to officiate a wedding, so I finished my journey, did the wedding, and came home.

I knew what would happen if I went to urgent care. They'd wrap it, tell me to rest, ice, and elevate. That was nothing I didn't already know, and so I took care of myself.

A few days later, I seemed fine. The swelling was going down. I could walk. No big deal.

A month later, I was out riding and wearing my really cool high-heel Harley boots. I was walking around, watching moto racing, when my right foot started to hurt. I thought it was a plantar fasciitis flare-up from walking around in those boots. When I got home, I did the usual icing and elevating, which normally took care of it.

This time, it didn't.

I suffered for two more months. Then my left foot started to hurt too. I finally asked my doctor for a referral to the podiatrist.

The referral came through, but life happens, and it wasn’t until February 2024 that I finally saw her. She ordered an MRI on the right foot, where the pain had started, and it came back normal. She also sent me to physical therapy.

After a few months, my right foot was a little better. My left foot was not.

So then we started the steroid injections. First I got an injection in both feet. Eight weeks later, I got another in just the left foot. A few months later, one more in the left foot.

By then, surgery was becoming inevitable.

It was now April 2025 and we agreed we would wait until the fall when motorcycle riding season was over due to the long recovery.

So I suffered for 7 more months.

In preparation for surgery on my left foot, a procedure to release the plantar fascia, my podiatrist ordered an MRI just to make sure nothing strange was happening in there.

This was September 2025, two years and two months after that first pain showed up in my right foot.

The result: a torn ligament.

"Do you remember turning your ankle?" she asked.

I laughed. "Yes, I know exactly when it happened. I was on my way to officiate a wedding. I thought I sprained it."

It had never occurred to me that the wedding-day ankle roll was the catalyst. The pain had started in the other foot, so I never connected the two. But my right foot had been compensating for the weakness in my left foot, and my left foot had been weakened by the torn ligament all along.

My body had been playing an exhausting game of dominoes, and I didn’t even know who tipped the first tile.

Xray in April 2026. You can see the pin holding the ligament in place in my ankle and the scar tissue in my heel.

Surgery happened on November 5, 2025. My podiatrist released the plantar fascia and reattached the ligament.

Then it was time to heal.

Part of healing was learning how to walk again. Slow and steady won that race, one careful step at a time.

I knew I had made leaps and bounds. I knew I was better. But it wasn’t until that ordinary walk across the office in June that I realized my new normal had become typical normal.

Not just Susan normal.

Actual normal.

I am still dealing with a stubborn knot of scar tissue in my heel. Daily massage with a massage gun, along with alternating nights of retinol and castor oil, is slowly breaking it down.

I can tell because I am walking normal.

Normal.

I have never been so happy to be normal.