Putting My Foot Down

Okay, I apologize to those ones of readers who may have stumbled on this blog in the last two weeks. Motivation slumped to a significant low. However, fear not. I am still on crutches--but now only kind of: yesterday I got to put my foot down!

Yesterday was six weeks and one day after my surgery, so I saw my doctor. I thought he'd maybe examine my ankle or something before telling me what I could and could not do, but that's not really what happened. He basically walked in, noted that my foot was not gangrenous, and said I could start walking on it and going to PT.

I cocked my head a little bit, "Uh--that's it? Like, I can just walk now?" He replied that I could, but recommended I take it slow at first. No crap I'll take it slow! My foot is like a limp fish! Let me tell you, 6 weeks of doing absolutely nothing with your leg will make your calf, foot and ankle very weak and groggy. So, when I'm out and about I still crutch cos it's much faster and much less scary than trying to walk, but when I'm moving around my apartment (which takes no more than 3 steps to get from one end to the other) I do a shuffley walk.

I'm still getting used to it. For those of you who have never experienced the joy of a long stint on crutches, when you step on your foot again it's a pretty weird feeling. The nerves of your foot have been re-sensitized by their prolonged rest and the muscles are all knotted up, so you really notice the fact that you basically always stand on a tripod of bones. I actually had to look at the bottoms of both of my feet to see if the non-gimpy one had way more padding or something. Not so. We really do just stomp around on our bones like that. So, I like to put on squishy slippers.

Anyway it was pretty sweet to put my foot down. A little weight bearing gets you a giant leap in quality of life. For example, when I was waiting for the bus, I stood on two legs. Sweet! And right now, as I type, I'm sitting on the floor with my one leg bent so I can put my elbow on my knee. This means I am putting weight on that foot. Which I can do now. Sweet!

So, I have my first physical therapy appointment tomorrow and am looking forward to it. I still have a significantly reduced range of motion, so even if I tried to truly walk, I would be bending my ankle in all kinds of directions that it'd prefer not be bent into. My doc said that I should get a sense of whether the surgery worked or not (it has about a 70-80% sucess rate) in six weeks or so. Until then I'll be doing lots of rehabbing and healing, and I won't be fully operational for about six months, so this blog is here to stay, at least for a bit.