Evaluation - 2/21/01 The day finally arrived. I was going back to see Dr. Marumoto to check on the status of my achilles. I was, of course, hoping that he'd give me the green light to get back in the water at least to swim around and shoot some water shots. I thought the physical therapy had been going well, and I was progressing at a quick rate. My flexibility was pretty much back to normal. However, I knew in my heart that I was far from 100% in strength. Jay did a quick eval and said that it was looking pretty good. A visiting intern marveled at my quick recovery and the light scarring. Of course, the proof of my condition came during the strength test. Jay had me stand on my left (injured) foot and tiptoe up and down as fast as I could. When he told me to do that, I knew that I wasn't ready. During therapy, the closest I got to doing something like that was two-leg tiptoes and an inclined single leg heel raise. To my amazement, I actually could get my heel up and down quickly. However, he wasn't so much looking to see if I could do that--rather, he was looking at my control and whether I could avoid pounding my heel down. The diagnosis was no running or jumping just yet. Also, I had to make sure that I wore padding (good shoes or slippers) whenever I walked around for any extended length of time. I didn't hear what I was waiting for, so I asked the question as to whether I could bodyboard just yet, mentioning that I wasn't thinking about standup board surfing. He said bodyboarding should be no problem, just to be careful about walking in the sand and pushing off of the bottom. Stoked! Got the green light!