Weeks 29/30/31: On the Road Again

Just over seven months out at this point. You would think that not a lot would be changing at this point in my recovery, but in fact, I have updates!

Basically, my leg is finally getting back to normal. I am bouldering indoors four days a week. Falling is much better than it was a month ago: I am no longer afraid to fall, and 90% of the time, it feels the same in both legs. Additionally, while there are still some moves I can’t do because of my leg — high heel hooks that require a lot of strength (muscles surrounding my knee still aren’t fully developed), or big moves that involve pulling with the left toe — they are fewer and further between. 95% of the time, I have no reason to think about my leg anymore while climbing.

I am also starting to run outside! I’ve gone four times now, with the longest distance being 2.25 mi. I can definitely still feel a difference between the two legs while running, but well, it’s getting better. About a week ago, I ran two miles at a 9:23 (avg) pace. My guess is that my more recent run was maybe done around a 9:10 pace?

Finally, and I mean FINALLY, my legs feel exactly the same while walking. I haven’t had a limp or anything I’d call painful for over a month, but it really took until about week 30 to have no difference in sensation at all between the two legs.

 

I also will shamefully admit that I’ve stopped doing PT exercises. I know that my left leg is still weaker than my right — I still can’t skip symmetrically, for example, and of course I can feel it running, etc., but I can tell that it is still getting stronger just through climbing and running themselves. and ellipticalling, which I am still doing. After six months of PT exercises, seriously, I just want to live my life for a bit. I think this is okay.

Week 26: SIX MONTHS

Today is Tuesday, May 10th, and I broke my leg exactly six months ago, on Tuesday, Nov 10th. I cannot believe that it has been a half a year.

While I’ve certainly created a long documentation of my progress, I thought it would be nice to sum up my milestones. Particularly for anyone reading who is wondering how long it takes to recover. So:

• Nov 10: broke my leg
• Nov 11: IM Nail surgery
• Nov 13: discharged from hospital
• One week: got rid of boot
• Nine days: took first steps without crutches
• Two weeks: down to one crutch
• Three weeks: off crutches, going down steps one at a time
• Four weeks: started PT
• Five weeks: walked a mile
• Six weeks: rode the spin bike, alternating feet going down stairs
• Seven weeks: going down stairs without handrails
• Eight weeks: can stand on one toe, started using leg press machine with bad leg
• Eleven weeks: can jump on two legs (landing with 80% of weight on my good leg)
• Sixteen weeks: stopped sleeping with my leg elevated
• Twenty-one weeks: ran about 40′ in running shoes
• Twenty-two weeks: ran on the treadmill for two minutes, went indoor top roping, very little pain, except after climbing. Last traces of limp are mostly gone.
• Twenty-four weeks: switched from spin bike to elliptical machine, went indoor bouldering
• Twenty-five weeks: ran 1 km on treadmill (10.5 min/mi pace), beginning to hop on one leg
• Twenty-six weeks: pain/difference in sensation between two legs while walking is completely gone. Can quasi run down stairs (if I’m in a rush) without pain and without using the handrail. Ran 1 mile in 10.5 minutes. Can side shuffle, do (some) jumping jacks, and run backwards. All of this is new this week. (Note that I can’t do these things at 100%)

Note that weeks 9 – 21 really sucked, both psychologically and physically. I knew that eventually I would get better, but…WHEN?!? Part of the problem was that I was expecting to be where I am now by 12-16 weeks (what my PT had told me). Clearly, this was just a very bad estimate. Which made things worse psychologically.

In any case, this week has been GREAT! On Sunday, I realized that my legs, for the first time, felt the same. I run with a limp, and my legs definitely don’t feel the same when I do that, but I’m pretty excited about having run a mile. It feels as though my leg realized that it had been six months and decided that enough was enough and it was finally going to be officially better. It is hard for me to say if any one thing made a difference. The only thing that I added last week was one set of 50 squats with a 17.5 kg bar on my shoulders (38.5 lbs). I hadn’t really be squatting since the squat bar always has a line at my gym, but this was done with a different weighted bar that no one uses.

Of course, I still have a ways to go. For example, I tried skipping last night and that is a real no go right now. I still have weakness underneath and to the inside of my knee, which I can feel when I do either the leg curl machine, or put one leg up on a Swiss ball — to the point where I don’t get the intended hamstring/glutes workout.

Also, I went bouldering this evening. It was better than last time, but there were still some moves that weren’t going to happen due to pain. And then there were moves that weren’t going to happen because of fear. I was really surprised how afraid I was this time. The gym I went to definitely had higher walls, bigger moves, and I wasn’t working entirely on overhang. There is no reason that I should be scared about falling. Structurally, my leg is A+. I think I am just afraid that I will do something else to something else, if that makes sense. It definitely really inhibited my climbing — I just wouldn’t do any big or not a 100% sure thing move, and strangely, I actually almost cried once. Not due to fear, but just because of overwhelming emotions or something like that, I think. In any case, my static climbing game, which I basically didn’t have before, is about to get a lot better.

Not sure if I’m going to have some pain tomorrow because of the climbing, and not sure how many times a week I’ll be able to climb when I return to my home gym, but fingers crossed that it’s 1. none, and 2. a lot.

Week 10: Not so blah at all

It feels like forever since I last updated about my leg, but that is probably because I travelled for 38 hrs and moved halfway around the world. BUT, not before lots of exciting leg things happened!

First, I saw my doctor on Wednesday. He took another set of X-rays, which I would post a picture of except that they are on a CD and my laptop can’t read a CD. I was kind of nervous about the X-rays, because while I can do all the PT in the world, I can’t control how well my bone comes together. The good news: it is coming together swimmingly. To quote my doctor, “actually, you have much more bone growth than we’d expect in an adult at this stage.” Which probably does have to do with being so active with it.

The doctor also recommended that I start standing up on the spin bike, and start ellipticalling, though “at an easy pace.” I tried to elliptical on Wednesday, but if you know me, you know that I am not going to do things, “at an easy pace,” so I hopped off and rode the bike because I could feel some pain. Standing up on the bike is kind of cool — at first I was terrible at it, but it got much better and easier each time I did it.

In PT, my therapist showed me a lot of progressions that I can do now that I am going to stop going (too expensive to go where I am now). I also waked on my toes, which is exciting since the last time I tried that, I collapsed immediately. He also had me do a one legged deadlift with a 10 lb kettleball, which was nearly impossible, even with terrible form. But not totally impossible. 🙂 All of this was a big boost psychologically, and my leg definitely hurts less. My balance is also getting better — which I judge by how easy it is to get into my pants in the morning. Pants are still hard, but I don’t even notice my leg putting on my underwear. (TMI? Sorry) I can also feel my quad on my bad leg recovering fro the total mush state it was in.

Then I moved, and spent 18 hrs on a plane and 38 in transit. I did my PT during my unforeseen layover when I got put up in a hotel, but have been slacking — I will admit — on it since. I also did some jumping at the hotel, though I was definitely  favoring my good leg on the landing. Despite slacking on PT, I probably about three miles in total yesterday? And it still feels better everyday. But today I am joining a gym so that I can get back on the spin bike, and then the elliptical, and then the treadmill! (Not to mention so that I can save/rebuild my remaining upper body strength.) 

The only picture I have for you this week is one of my lovely flesh colored compression sock that I bought because you can’t really wear a black one in the tropics/with a bare other leg. It is so attractive, I know!

i forget what I predicted before — that I could start climbing by the beginning of March? Or was it the beginning of February? Beginning of March seems really reasonable right now.

Goals:

• start to elliptical
• lose my limp
• do all of my PT exercises