Post #67- Big Limpin' - torn muscle edition

So check this out..... I was sleeping early Thursday morning (~5am), when all of sudden I feel a shooting, excruciating pain in my right calf muscle. It started as a cramp, but quickly felt more like someone was stabbing me in the leg with a red hot pitchfork. I jumped out of bed and did my best to mitigate the pain through stretching. The initial and most painful throbbing subsided after 2 minutes, but more general pain and associated tightness persisted for hours. Immobilized, I called into work sick for the first time in 5 years. My condition did not improve by the middle of the afternoon; I went into urgent care where I was diagnosed with a small tear in my calf muscle. An MRI on Tuesday will confirm, modify, or refute this preliminary diagnosis. Until that time - and likely well beyond - I am relegated to crutches. I have no idea how this happened. It feels like the worst joke ever. How I managed to bike 18,000 miles without any leg injuries only to tear my calf in my sleep is ridiculous! I feel like such a chump - seriously. Oh well, If I can't laugh at myself, I can't laugh at anyone else, right?

Out of commission

Sadly, birding will be curtailed as I heal in the next few weeks. Since I cannot walk, I must find places to bird that require, at least at this time, very minimal crutching. This weekend that meant a quick run to the north side of Los Angeles to chase a lost Glossy Ibis, an eastern species that is very rare in California. I'm certainly not a big CA lister, but as the bird would require only a short crutch it was the most exciting thing I could do considering my current condition.

Hop-a-long at the picturesque LA River

The great outdoors!

Gotta love LA birding :/

Scope kindly carried by Sonia!
We didn't waste any time on the whole "in sickness" thing......

 

Glossy Ibis - I promise. It was closer

when we rolled up.

I am terrible at digiscoping....

I'll have to reach into my bag of tricks to generate content these next few weeks. I have some fun ideas, so please stay tuned for upcoming posts! Until then, please enjoy another puffin photo that I took in Newfoundland....

 Atlantic Puffin - Fratercula artica

Canon 500mm f/4 IS v1 + 1.4x III on EOS 7D (original)
1/1000 at f/8, ISO 400

and a frog, because I'm going to be hopping around for a while!