"I am going insane."

The first tweet appeared at 10:25 a.m. Arizona time on March 21. Four words from Kyle Long to his Twitter followers, a group now totaling more than 281,000.

"I'm serious," he wrote four minutes later.

"Is this what they warned me about!???"

Long was ready to pull back the curtain on his recovery from reconstructive right ankle surgery, an arduous journey that has lasted more than 10 months leading to his return Sunday against the Steelers.

The restlessness. The isolation. The frustration. All of it was new to the Bears' three-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman, who before last November never had been seriously injured.

Photos of the Bears offensive lineman Kyle Long, the team's first-round draft pick in 2013. (Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

On that March day, amid another bout of disquiet, Long fired off 226 tweets in a span of 10 hours, 53 minutes. A greater frequency than one tweet every three minutes — for nearly 11 hours.

His stream of consciousness zigged and zagged, topic to topic, sometimes serious but usually not even close.

On Australian rapper Iggy Azalea: "I think she is uniquely gorgeous"

He crowd-sourced questions about how polling data is gathered: "I know there are Gallup polls but nobody galloped up to me and asked me any of this"

His idea about a match-making app for dogs: "YOUR DOG DOESNT HAVE FRIENDS? GET HIM A DOG TINDER, boom."

He updated fans on his recovery. "I can jog now," he wrote, adding a smirking-face emoji.

He sparred with Twitter trolls, taking on all comers, as usual. One self-proclaimed fan of his tweeted "you gotta shut up. My entire news feed is you lol."

Long responded: "It's called being rich and having free time and a brain that works.... you can unfollow me"

As the tweet storm raged with color and volume, it illuminated Long's search for purpose and fulfillment in the absence of the physical abilities that fuel his existence. Each thumb-tap of his phone was an open window to a player burning to get back to helping the Bears.

Throughout the stream of tweets, Long sprinkled introspection. It was, after all, his first time being debilitated for an extended period. As it turned out, that day was almost the exact midpoint of his recovery.

He ultimately couldn't walk for two months. He also had a torn labrum in one of his shoulders. It amounted to his first prolonged separation from the team concept that juices him up.

His challenges were like those faced by every injured player, but to him they were unfamiliar.

"I'm a 28 year old with obligations 3 hours out of the day and no children and an obsession with twitter," he tweeted. "What the hell am I supposed to do"

Good question.

Without football, team pursuits or the physical strength and agility that help define him, what the hell was Kyle Long supposed to do?

The double-edged sword

Kyle Long is supposed to play football. He's built to do it. He's groomed to do it. And do it at the highest level. He's expected back on the offensive line Sunday, his first game since his gruesome injury 45 weeks ago.

It has been obvious over the last 10 days that Long's return is imminent. Of most importance, he is running more smoothly than he was in training camp. In the locker room, the signs have been equally clear.

On Thursday, he razzed rookie quarterback Mitch Trubisky. Two Fridays ago, his voice boomed with an impersonation of Ollie Williams, the weatherman on the animated TV comedy "Family Guy."

The reappearance of energetic Kyle Long admittedly was linked to his physical recovery.

"I was sessile, and it's not good for your brain chemistry," Long said. "You need to have serotonin levels. Your dopamine needs to be going. That stuff makes you feel good. That's why we work out. That's why we have social interaction. And if you don't have that and you're out of your normal swing of things, then you've got to find a way to reel it back in."

Long realized that challenge soon after the injury, as he explained Jan. 2 on locker clean-out day at Halas Hall. At first, he liked the idea of not having to hit anybody. But then the first week passed.

"And then ... you're going stir crazy," he said that day. "And you realize how important the team is to your health, mentally and emotionally."

Long wasn't accustomed to those side effects of being injured: the impatience, loneliness and guilt.

His father, Howie, the Hall of Fame defensive lineman and Fox Sports analyst, explained the shock for a player who has his sense of physical invincibility shattered. That was especially true for Kyle, whose athleticism fueled his rocket ride from junior college to the Pro Bowl.

"When you're used to just flipping a switch physically, which he has always been able to do, when suddenly you flip the switch and the light doesn't go on ... that's a new reality for you," Howie said.

A difficult one for Kyle Long, especially, because his engine always runs hot. His verve and passion, elements that distinguish him as a player and teammate, made his limitations even more frustrating.

"Sometimes my emotions can get the best of me," he said. "But I will say it's a two-edged sword. Because on a Sunday when I strap the helmet on, there's never any doubt."

Finally, that Sunday is here again. But without football or team activity to balance that for much of the last 10 months, Long felt only the sharp edge pointed his direction.

Photos from the Bears-Falcons Week 1 game at Soldier Field on Sept. 10, 2017.

Broken down, built up

The Bears could have run the ball behind Long on that second-and-goal from the Buccaneers' 7-yard line last November. That would have made sense.

Instead, they ran a shovel pass.

To the fullback.

Jay Cutler pitched the ball to Paul Lasike, who bobbled it. He was, ahem, the fullback.

While trying to corral possession, Lasike lost his balance, stumbled forward and fell — all 258 pounds of him — into Long's right ankle.

As Long describes it, he didn't fracture any bones, but he tore everything except his Achilles tendon.

All four ligaments that compose the deltoid ligament — the triangular band stabilizing the inner ankle — were shredded. The peroneal tendon that runs along the outside of the foot was snapped and displaced, he said.

In Long's unwavering openness, he tweeted a picture of his lower leg two weeks after the injury, the day before surgery. There was as much black and blue as skin tone. Even he admits it was nasty.