Heavy

Two things can be true at the same time. Usually more.

4:30am. Sitting with coffee and fireplace. Thoughts allowed to go wherever they want.

I got home two days ago.

The unpacking. The familiar walls. Jackson losing his mind. All of it exactly as it should be and exactly what I needed and somehow still slightly unreal. Like walking onto a film set of your own life. Everything in the right place. You just haven’t quite caught up with it yet.

The first day was a blur. Settling. Seeing family. And then somewhere in the evening my body just gave up. Not dramatically. It didn’t collapse or announce itself. It just got very very heavy and I slept the way you sleep when something has been holding itself together for a long time and finally decides it doesn’t have to anymore.

Yesterday I got a massage, a haircut, and went to the podiatrist.

The massage and haircut were straightforward. The podiatrist, not so much.

The common plantar digital nerve runs between the third and fourth metatarsal heads. Surrounding it is the perineurium, the connective tissue sheath that protects and insulates the nerve. Thirty days of sustained mechanical load, cold exposure, and reduced circulation caused that sheath to inflame on both feet. Not the nerve itself, not yet. The sheath. The distinction matters because without the fibrous thickening you get in a true Morton’s neuroma, the tissue can still respond and recover. The swollen sheath is what’s putting pressure on the nerve, which regulates movement and blood flow to the foot and toes. That’s why every step still has an opinion about everything.

Heavy inflammation on the heel pads and plantar fascia on top of that. One toe still bruised, possibly carrying some cold damage they can’t fully assess yet.

The plan is anti-inflammatories now to reduce the acute response. Cortisone and steroid injections directly into the nerve sheath once I’m back from Svalbard. And if you know me at all, you’ll know how I feel about injections in general. If the sheath has thickened enough that the injection doesn’t hold, cryotherapy or radiofrequency ablation, freezing or heating the nerve to interrupt the pain signalling and break the inflammatory cycle.

Six days out and the feet are still processing what happened to them. Fair enough. So am I.

I leave for Svalbard in eight days.

I want to be clear about something. That’s not bravado. That’s just life. Every sport has its injuries. Every expedition has its cost. This one has a receipt I’ll be paying for a while and I’m completely okay with that. It won’t stop me. It hasn’t stopped me. The feet hurt and I’m already thinking about what comes next and both of those things are true at the same time.

Which is actually what I keep coming back to.

Since getting home I’ve had a few messages from people asking if I’m okay. Checking in. Wondering if I need anything. And I’m genuinely and truly grateful for every one of them. The answer is yes I’m perfectly okay and also I’m exhausted. Yes I’m home and also I feel strangely disconnected, moving through ordinary life like I’m on a slightly different frequency to everyone around me. Yes the feet are a mess and yes I’m deeply proud of what just happened and yes I’d do it again and yes I’m already planning the next one.

All of those things are true simultaneously.

People want a single answer. Are you okay or are you not. Happy or struggling. Glad you did it or do you regret it. The singular answer is easier. It requires less. But it’s almost never the true one.

The human condition doesn’t work like that. It’s layered and contradictory and most of what you feel at any given moment is several things at once. The exhaustion and the pride. The disconnection and the gratitude. The broken feet and the already planning the next one. That’s not confusion. That’s just honest. That’s life.

I’m taking today and the weekend slow. A little light movement, maybe an easy upper body strength training session. Some time in my own space. In my head. I’ll start reaching out to people today and properly back online Monday.

The processing isn’t done. I don’t think it will be for a while. But I’m home. The feet hurt. I’m proud. I’m tired. I’m grateful. I leave for Svalbard in eight days.

All of it true. All of it at once.

G.