School starts in just two short weeks. I have been busy getting the classroom computers up to snuff, basically refreshing them and reloading the software teachers and student will need.  The halls were quiet for the past couple of weeks, but now there’s a lot of activity as teachers start to get their rooms ready for the new school year. They don’t “officially” come back to school until next week, but I remember being anxious to get back to work myself.

And speaking of getting back to work, my break’s over, and those computers aren’t going to reimage themselves, are they?

Yes, I have finally broken down and gotten a Blackberry. The Curve 8330 from Verizon.

It wasn’t a purchase made lightly. I actually got one for Karon as a mother’s day/anniversary present. She was immediately hooked. Of course, one needs an unlimited data and email plan, but $30.00 a month seems a small price to pay to stay connected.

Karon and I have been in constant communication, as she is currently in Texas helping prepare for my son’s wedding on Satiurday. I will join the fun sometime tomorrow. We have emailed and IM’d like nobody’s business, our phones cheerfully signaling the arrival of each new message.

Oh, plus we get the internet, and I have the ability to convert and watch some of my movies and listen to podcasts.

Oh, I am so hooked.

Away to bed with me now. I have a 6:20 flight in the morning.

Good thing my Curve has a loud alarm.

So I went to physical therapy, even though the orthopedic doctor could not figure out specifically what was wrong with my foot and ankle.

I’ll just say this…Pain. Swelling - more than what I went to the doctor with. Something was definitely up, and it was really getting me down. Seriously. I think I may have been in a mild depression, not knowing what was going on. And so I decided to go to an actual sports medicine doctor.

The practice I chose to visit is one we took our son to many years ago. The doctor there diagnosed him as having stress fractures in his legs, and actually found them with an MRI, when other doctors just attributed his problems to “growing pains.”

Within the first five minutes with Dr. Dave, a P.A. at the practice, my wife and I realized we were finally with someone who knew their stuff.  He did a couple of things with my foot, really spent time on the area of localized pain, and declared that I had an “unhappy foot”. He said he could see a lot of damage to the tendons, but needed to do an MRI to see what else was wrong.

And what did the MRI show?  A trans-lateral break of my fibula which, by most reckoning, I had been walking around with for about two months. The doc said the bone looks like someone sawed straight through it. (I don’t remember that happening, although I did see a horror movie once where a guy had to do that to his own leg in order to escape a room. But I digress.)  Additionally, he said I have peroneal tendon dysfunction, tendonitus, and a chronically torn ligament. But before we could deal with those issues, my fibula had to heal.

That was a month ago. He put me in a knee-length hard cast for a month, but when I returned to his office to remove it, the pain above my ankle was still there, not quite as bad, but enough that I almost raised off the examining table when he touched it.

Apparently, in addition to being broken, my fibula has a “non-union” break, which means the broken edges of the bone are too far apart to heal properly. The result: I am back in a cast for six more weeks, as we wait for a three-month window from  the MRI diagnosis to start an electro-stimulus therapy to encourage the bone edges to grow back together. And again, we cannot even begin the physical therapy for the other problems until the bone is healed.

So that is the saga of My Left Foot so far.  We’ll see what happens next.

Those who know me, know that I am a reasonably patient man. A type A/B personality that leans a little more toward B. I deal with things with a sense of humor.  But something is really testing my patience right now…

My Left Foot.

More specifically, the area of my left foot, just above my ankle on the outside.  It seems that sometime in early part of January, I managed to break my fibula without knowing it. I am told that this a particularly tricky thing to do.

It wasn’t an “Ow, I just broke my fibula” type of thing.  It was more like, “Wow, I am having some difficulty with walking. Boy, is my left leg sore. The more I use it, the more sore it gets.”  I saw my family doctor, who noted some localized swelling, but conceded that it wasn’t just a sprain. He ordered an xray, gave me some pain killers, and said to come back and see him if it did not get any better.

It didn’t get any better.

I decided a couple of days later to go see an orthopedic specialist (who shall remain nameless). After looking at my foot and the xrays for about 10 minutes, he said 1) that my whole ankle area showed evidence of previous trauma because of calcification and other indicators, and 2) he suspected either gout or a sprained ankle - even though the area where my pain was localized was above the ankle and not in the joint. He also acknowledged that although he didn’t see any typical symptoms to support gout or a sprain, he would just treat it as such and gave me a gout medicine (don’t remember the name).  He put me in an airboot, which I did appreciate. Unfortunately, the medicine made me very ill, and did not help the problem in my leg.  This was mid-January…

I went back to see him after two weeks, and there was no improvement. My wife and I discussed with him the possibility that it was a stress fracture, which he seemed to not even consider before.  (Karon and I had gone to the internet to see if we could figure out what was happening.)  He decided to wait two more weeks to re-xray, and told me to stay in the aircast and continue taking my anti-inflammatories…

Fast forward to two weeks later (mid-February). Still no improvement. Xray showed no apparent healing of any type of fracture. Doctor, although admittedly baffled, decided that it was related to a flair up of old injuries, and prescribed physical therapy for my ankle. Which was not the part of my foot that was hurting.

 Before I go any further, let’s talk about this whole “old injury” thing.  Way back in 1978, when I was still young and stupid, I made the poor choice of getting on a trampoline with 6 other people. Everything was fine until we got out of sync. Make that, I got out of sync. At some point, six went up as one went down. My left foot literally folded against my lower leg and flipped back into place. My ankle immediately swelled to the size of a small melon.  My girlfriend’s (at the time) family rushed me to the nearest emergency room, which was almost an hour away.  I ended up in a cast and on crutches for about 8 weeks.  I almost lost my job as a delivery driver for a local print shop, but was able to find someone to take my place while I healed.

From that point on, I had problems with my left foot. I had difficultly running for any sustained length of time (I managed to push through while I was in the military - running was always my most problematic area). That ankle was always more prone to twisting and other injury. And so it goes….

So that’s the previous trauma that continues to plague me today, and what the doctor thought the physical therapy would help. But. It. Did. Not.  Because the cause of my pain was yet undiscovered.

Now. The final session. This is where Dan, VSTE’s executive director, takes the time thank everyone who came to the conference, and everyone who helped with the conference. The final session is also where everyone else shows up for a chance to win cool stuff (a $2000 Smartboard! A Best Buy gift card! A stuffed dog!)  Rich K. was one of six volunteers honored with a bag full of M&Ms (I still don’t know the story behind this. Someday, someone will tell me.)  Sara M. got a great t-shirt for being one of the handful of presenters who “wowed” people at her breakout session.

But, frankly, I have to admit, the one I was most envious of was Tom K. He was the one Virginia Beach attendee who actually had his ticket number called, and he got a basket loaded with software. Including Adobe Creative Suite CS3.  Yeah, that was my reaction, too. Tom, buddy, if you ever decide to “share the love”, remember, you got a whole basket of stuff. You wouldn’t miss one Adobe suite.

I was AMAZED at how quickly the Crystal Ballroom cleared out after they passed out the last gift.  Everyone made a rush for the doors, then the parking lots. Rich and I pulled out in a decent amount of time, but as we were waiting in a line on the street, we both heard a slight screech and a bang. We turned around in time to see an SUV in the opposite lane that had apparently been clipped, about 10 vehicles behind us.  The SUV had jumped the median, and looked like it might have collided with a semi that was also sitting still in the same line of traffic we were in. Fortunately, there were several people in the immediate area who rushed to see what had happened. We hope everything was okay.

We made it out of Roanoke and on the road in good time, not really running into any problems until we decided to eat dinner. (Hence the elusive Outback comment in the last post).

The only other hitch was the backed up traffic as we approached the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.  I thought backups like that only happened when I was in a hurry to get to Busch Gardens or Williamsburg…

And, as you now gather, the Roanoke Roadcrew is now home, safe, sound, and back at work.

I had a great time, I learned a lot, I laughed a lot, I walked a lot, and I got to spend quality time with my peers, who I consider my friends.  Thanks to Janene and Rich, who helped prod me into going this year, and to George MacKay, my principal, a prince of a pal, who had it possible for me to attend.

Next year, VSTE will be held in Virginia Beach, February 22-24, so make your plans now to attend!

Now, to think of some other things to write about. My current NETS-T Capstone course?

Nah.

Ask Sheila later about what she asked the presenter about using some of these tools with elementary kids :-).

New photos are posted now. Check them out. They may be the last batch before we head out.  Hopefully, I will have at least one more check-in before hitting the road.  See ya!

It was (apparently) a fairly late night last night for many of the Virginia Beach attendees. Rich K. and I finally got back to our hotel just before midnight. I hear that Rich was a horse last night at Casino Night and actually won for the Virginia Beach district during one of the horse races.  WAY TO GO, RICH!

We managed to drag ourselves and our luggage out to the parking lot this morning, just as the bus was pulling up.  We grabbed breakfast (waffles and fruit and, of course, coffee), then headed over to the merchandise booth to hawk t-shirts, stress balls, flash drive wrist bracelet (work as ankle bracelets, too - kin-kay), and the other stuff Dan Arkin, the executive director of VSTE, doesn’t want to store in his basement until next year. I probably have spent more that I should at the booth (OOoooo-a sweatshirt in my size, and isn’t that stress ball ADORABLE?)  Personally, I think I look terrific in volunteer orange. Skinny Rich looks like a carrot. (Rich K. approved that comment.)  Katie and Kristie stopped by, then Janene, who proceeded to question just WHY we weren’t wearing our ETAN buttons. Taking the hint, we both hustled to the ETAN kiosk and let our voices be heard. I already got an email back from Thelma Drake

Wrapping up time served (er), helping to offset the cost of the conference, Rich and I departed ways for our individual sessions. I ran into Hall Davidson and Matt from Discovery Education, who had just wrapped up a session. We had a few laughs about last night’s dinner, exchanged cards, then I finally found my way to the ITRT Road Show session.  It was a very interesting look at the traveling “road show”, where a group of ITRTs go to different schools to assist and document how technology is being used throughout the school.

Today’s VSTE provided lunch consisted of a variety of wraps, salad cups, fruit and dessert.  Rich and I ran into each other at the little lounge area off the Cyber Cafe. And here I sit, blogging and eating my roast beef wrap.

Only a couple of sessions left before the final conference session at 3:45.   I’ll try to check in a little later.  See ya!

After relaxing, twittering, and emailing for an hour or so, I had the privilege of going to dinner with a few of our Virginia Beach group and a few of the folks from Discovery Education. We walked into downtown Roanoke, and enjoyed a meal at the Corned Beef & Co. Just a bunch of educators looking to unwind after a very busy day, over good food, conversation, and a lot of laughs.  Thanks to the Discovery Education crew for their overwhelming generosity!

Most of us went back to the conference center for Casino Night. Participants were given vouchers for a set amount of “play” money which was turned into chips. You could move from game to game with your chips, which were redeemed at the end of the evening for discounts on VSTE merchandise. It was a lot of fun for everyone who decided to play.

My Monday wrap-up pictures, along with my other photos, can be found here.

And that’s it for me for tonight. Things come to a close around 3 or so tomorrow, and Rich K. and I will be heading back to Virginia Beach. However, I will be reporting until the (not so) bitter end tomorrow, so be sure to check back.

Slipped into the Web 2.0 session and saw a few pretty cool free online applications for word processing, photo editing, video editing, etc. Very interesting, and I posted a link to a large bookmark portal on del.icio.us . Now if we can just get the tag searches to work…

Feeling guilty, I stopped by the volunteer booth to see if there was something I could do to help out, and get one of those groovy orange shirts. I was right behind a teacher who was having to change her volunteer time for Tuesday to later in the morning. When I stepped up to the booth, I asked what position she had vacated, and was happy to discover that it was 9 a.m. in the merchandising booth - with Rich K.! Shhhhh. Don’t tell him. I want it to be a surprise.

I got up to the Washington Lecture Hall a little early and ran into Donna S. for ODC. John H. was there, too, and we all had a nice chat for a few minutes before the session on Podcasting for Digital Natives.

The speaker, John Hendron, is a podcasting guru, who has informed us that our students are “neo-millenials.” A study shows that 2/3rds of our students live online, and that 80% feel the web is important to their school work.

Speaking to podcasts, he says the straight audio podcast is not effective as one with visuals, and that they need to be between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. He spoke to having students create podcasts as part of projects, which is in line with something I am working on for my NETS-T exhibit. (Yes, I am one of those…).

Click on John Hendron’s website to find out more about where he’s coming from on podcasting and other digital educational resources.

Still deciding to what to do this evening. Check back in with me later. See ya!