Current list of ailments

Ok, so I went to the Orthopedist for the back and ankle pain on Monday.

First, the back pain. It's on my left side, right above my pelvis. It's a throbbing, achey, radiating pain. Doc thought the back pain might be kidney inflammation, but the test results came back negative, so it's muscular. I was hoping it was a kidney infection because that's easy to fix, whereas a bad back can linger forever. stretching my back by touching my toes doesn't hurt at all, but when I twist to my right (stretching my lower left back) the pain flares up some. Anyway, it still hurts constantly throughout the day, but it's lessening in intensity everyday. I've been reading up on the crossfit message board about back injuries, and there seems to be a point where you should exercise the back to strengthen it, but I don't know if that's what you should do if it's still hurting. Furthermore, the muscle injured doesn't seem to be the type that is worked out when you do good mornings, although I'm not sure. So I'm a little confused as to when I should return to exerises that work my core right now, but I'll go with the conservative approach. If you have any advice please feel free to comment I'd appreciate it. Fortunately, one exercise I can still do that doesn't work the back will also help with my ankle issue. So back to the ankle...

There seems to be some scar tissue in one of the ligiments in my ankle, and it's causing the tearing/bleeding/bruising that shows up on my ankle after I work out. While there is no pain just sitting there, the pain occurs when I really work my calf. The therapist took measurements of my calves, and my right calf is 16.5", and my left calf is... 15.5". My left is a full inch smaller than my right! I know calves take a while to recover, but two years after the break you'd think it would be back to normal. FYI, it is amazing how the body atrophies. My leg was in a hard cast for seven weeks, and when they took it off my calf was non existant. Anyway, the pain seems to stem from a lack of strength, so the thearapy is simply calf exercises. That's something crossfit will definitely help with, but until the back feels better, they reccomend I ride a bike emphasizing my left calf.

So it looks like I'll be in the PTO's gym, riding a bike for 30 min or something. Not really looking forward to it, but it's some type of exercise, and I really need that right now.