Week 14: Going, Going…

Not quite gone yet, but I do feel like I made a lot of improvement with the limp this week. And I guess, concomitantly, with the pain as well.

I feel like, once again, not much happened this week, but I *don’t* feel blah about this week at all. It feels like I’ve made real progress — things hurt less, I’m limping less, and I’m doing new things at the gym. Even though doing my PT exercises EVERY DAY is hard, I’m in a better psychological place with this thing then I’ve been in the past few weeks. It really feels like it’s on its way out.

So, things that are happening:

• A few mornings this week, I’ve gotten out of bed and made it to the bathroom without noticing my leg. This is not to say that I wasn’t limping, or there wasn’t pain, but it was mild enough that I didn’t notice it. Usually it feels pretty bad first thing in the morning.
• I am doing some jumping at the gym! I’ve done like, four of the most pathetic jumping jacks ever. Jumping my feet out is pretty difficult. But jumping forward is a piece of cake, and I’ve been jumping up onto one of those Reebok step things. The barrier to the latter two kinds of jumping is really psychological, and what I need to work on is landing evenly on two feet rather than putting most of the load on my good leg. I’m also dropping down about 6″ from the pull-up bar now.
• I haven’t ridden the spin bike in a week, but I have been doing some mild ellipticalling, working my way up to 30 minutes, at something like 70% effort. Which I don’t mind because I also get to read a book that way. No pain at all during or after that, which feels great.
• I added one-legged sit downs/stand ups to my routine. I.e. I stand on my bad leg, with the good leg out in front of me, and squat down to sit on a bench, then stand back up. Like a half pistol squat (though probably about 10% of the effort)
• Still at basically the same weight on my leg presses — 37.5 kg on the bad leg, 65 kg on the good one. I don’t expect to go much above 65 on the good one (more than my bodyweight), but clearly, I have a way to go on the bad one. It is crazy to me that I am expending the same amount of effort on both legs (definitely 100% effort on this) to such different ends.
• My walk in the morning and my walk at night are kind of two different things now. I *think* I am able to force myself to walk completely without a limp — though with more pain than if I limp — in the afternoons/evenings now. But it takes effort. Was kind of bummed when this salesperson at the mall saw me walking by and asked “what happened to your leg?” and then said, “oh, so that is why you are limping.” 😦
• The shape of my leg is still very unattractive, with a big bulge of the callus around the fracture site. I think it’s going to be a while until that goes away?
• Considering taking myself climbing this weekend, but I might wait one more week? My upper body is so strong now that I could basically campus up stuff. (That is a gross exaggeration, but I could certainly take up a lot of weight with my arms.) but the last thing I want to do is too much too soon and delay my recovery. We will see. Not worried about the pain because the pain of breaking in my new shoes is going to be much worse. 🙂
• Stopped using weights period on my one-legged deadlifts, and now am extending my back leg all the way up to parallel with the floor, which I hadn’t been doing before. It is hard! But good for me.
• This morning I also decided to stop balancing on my bad leg during my two minute toothbrush timer, which is now way too easy, and to return to holding a squat position for that duration, which is what I used to do before I got injured. Was pleased that I actually could do it!
• Getting into my pants/skirt/whatever I’m wearing with no problems now.
• Walking down stairs much more fluidly, stepping down from curbs without really breaking my stride.

I think that is about it. In summary: a good week — if for no other reason, psychologically, which is basically the most important part of recovery.

Oh! And here is a video of my afternoon “trying” walk from a few days ago:

Week 13: Yet Another Week

Well, here we are at week 13. Tomorrow — February 10 — at 9:20 pm EST not to get specific or anything, will be my three month breakiversary. I basically have the same thing to say as last week. Things are getting better, but slowly, and the only way I can really measure progress is by my exercises at the gym.

Though I will say that I had a moment on Friday when the thing felt great and I wondered if I was in fact walking without a limp at all (in sturdy sandals), and then Sunday night I walked around a fair amount and it felt pretty good as well, though it might have been that I was distracted. Not sure. Walking around the gym in running shoes without a limp about 70% of the time, though still not at full speed and still with my upper body pretty rigid.

I also can say that there is definitely a pattern in which it is stiff in the morning, and feels better as the day passes and as the blood starts flowing to it.

Today I maybe made a mistake, however, in deciding to try an actual spin class. Which I only did because I wanted to ride the spin bike and unbeknownst to me, the spin studio was occupied. I told the instructor beforehand about my leg, and that I might have to do something different, or maybe even leave the class early. Well, it turns out that one thing that I cannot do for sure is low resistance, high velocity, hovering above the seat spinning. It’s just way too much impact. I’m okay with being off the seat, but I need a lot of resistance to slow me down and take away any actual impact. In any case, I did actually leave the class, which was slightly psychologically deflating.

I do wonder if it delayed my progress a bit — because I pushed through for a few minutes after realizing that the pain wasn’t going to go away like it usually does when I ride the bike. This also made me wonder if maybe I shouldn’t be riding the bike 5x/wk. Or rather, if that is slowing down my recovery, even though it doesn’t hurt while I’m doing it. So I’m thinking of trying an experiment, which is that I’ll ride maybe twice this week, and see how it goes. Of course it’s not like I have a control experiment against which to judge my progress, but I’m going to try anyway.

I think I mentioned last week that I’ve been climbing on this jungle gym piece of equipment that they have at the gym, climbing style. I’ve tried some high steps with my bad leg, and, at least in sneakers, and with something good to hold onto, everything feels fine. I’m thinking that I would be good to top rope at this point, and am seriously considering buying a 10 pack of visits to the only climbing gym here that has autobelays. (Though I need to check out how many routes they have on autobelay — if it is just one station, I might not go for the 10 pack.) Missing my regular gym and climbing people.

I guess the only other thing to say is that I’m up to 35kg (77lbs) on the leg press with my bad leg at the gym, which is 10 kg or 22lbs more than last week. Progress. I’m also doing better on my really difficult balance exercises, and upped my weight from 4kg (8.8lbs) to 5kg (11 lbs) on my single leg deadlifts. My bosu ball lunges are getting too easy on one side, and oh, I can jump my feet apart and back together again jumping jack style, though not in the single motion that you do when you are actually doing jumping jacks. Ugh…it is not fun to think about the fact that being able to do something as simple as a jumping jack is something I aspire to/will be a big moment. Rising up on one toe has also gotten significantly easier.

Well, that is about it for this week. I think that last week I said something about, “if it doesn’t happen this week, I just need to accept that and keep going.” Same goes for this week — though! I have to say that I do hope that maybe I could have some kind of breakthrough this week? 🙂 Though really I really need to think about just being grateful that everything is healing correctly. Things could be way worse.

Week 12: Still Limping, but Less

I cannot believe it’s been twelve weeks since I broke my leg. Unfortunately, I am still limping/having pain walking, despite my PT’s prediction that it would take 12-16 weeks for that to end. I guess I can’t overachieve in all aspects of everything. 🙂

But, my pain and limping have gotten significantly better this week — actually starting last Wednesday after I posted last week’s update. When I wear my running shoes at the gym, my limp is very very close to gone. This feels great. When I wear sturdier sandals with some cushioning, it is okay, and I made the mistake of wearing totally flat shoes (no support, no cushioning) and that was clearly the worst.

I am getting better at my balance exercises, and also learning to be more gentle with myself in terms of completing them. In other words, not getting frustrated if I fall, and just trying again. Lifting more and more weight on my single leg press. I’m at 25 kg (55 lbs) on my bad leg, and 65 kg (143 lbs) on my good leg. I guess both legs are getting stronger, as I think I was at 110 lbs a little more than two weeks ago. Bosu ball lunges are getting easier. (That’s some random person from the internet in the pic, not me, Also, I do them with no shoes, which makes everything way harder.) Stepping over the drainage canal going to work is getting easier for sure, as is walking on my tiptoes. In case you were wondering, I am doing about an hour (!) of rehab exercises a day, not including things like riding the spin bike. Speaking of which, I am pretty much back to normal on that, including when I stand up and ride. Happy about this.

I am also having fun doing pull-ups, now that my shoulder injury is doing better — though it is still not fully recovered. (Working on it with this Beastie Ball is *really* helping, despite the fact that I have bruises (!) from it.) Fun in the sense that I get to climb up onto the bar, and I can simulate some climbing moves in doing so. I tried doing some kind of sit start (left image) using this jungle gym thing they have at my gym the other night, and it was a disaster. At first I was really discouraged, but then I realized that there are easier starts on gym V0s than a sit start, in which your first move is basically done by pushing up with your legs. (And my legs were in an even worse position than this.) I’m not allowed to use the TRX straps at my gym (“personal training only,” so annoying), but I need to find a way to start doing something that approximates a very very beginner level pistol squat with the bad leg.

But I’m realizing that it is going to take a LONG time until this thing is 100%. Maybe a year? I really wish that I could top rope, but alas, I didn’t bring my harness, or a belay device, nor do I have a partner here, so…Really missing climbing, but I think that is a good way to stay motivated to do all of my rehab.

Did you want to see what this thing looks like these days?

My scars are still pretty prominent, especially, well, everything but the lower two screw incisions. There is a lot of callus around the break sites (both sides), which makes the shape of my leg look weird — in addition to the fact that my calf muscle is small. At the site where the tibia broke through, there is weird, like, indentation, but apparently this is normal. By the end of the evening, my cankle is still there. 😦

Fingers crossed that maybe this is the week that my pain/limp — at least while walking — goes away. But if not, I just need to accept that and keep on working at it.

Week 11: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger…I Think

So, in some ways, this week felt like week 9 when I didn’t really achieve much. I can’t say that there were any milestones reached. On the other hand, what makes me feel like I am actually making progress is that my PT exercises are definitely getting easier, and I am moving onto more challenging things. And again, I think that my limp is getting better.

This week was characterized by a ton of walking. I think that on Saturday, I walked probably three miles in total, 2.1 of which was in one stretch without sitting. I think that could have been too much, and after I backed off the walking on Sunday, my leg definitely felt better on Monday. I also did the elliptical again, and while it didn’t hurt while I was on it, I think that I could feel it the next day. My PT told me that I shouldn’t do it until I had no pain, and I do still have pain while walking, so maybe I will listen to his advice. (Did it because there was a class in the spin studio.)

But I’ve doubled the weight that I began with on the leg press machine (using only by bad leg). Now I only have an 80 lb differential between my two legs, ha. I also have moved onto more advanced balance exercises which I simply could not do two weeks ago. Did I mention that I really hate balance exercises? Strength = bring it on, balance is something I really have to push myself to do. Because it’s hard!!!

Something both terrifying and exciting: on my way to my new office, there is a shortcut that saves a lot of time but that has a drainage canal that you have to step over that is rather treacherous with my leg. The first day I looked at it and was like, “no way,” and walked an extra five minutes to go around it. But then on Monday I decided to try it — and I did it. Going back across it at the end of the day was worse, because there is a fairly steep hill, and it was hard to hold myself back from going down it quickly. But, I’m doing it. Today was even easier, naturally.

In other news, I went to a regional bouldering competition here — to watch! Watching it made me feel like that is soooo far away for me. Not only landing, but leg strength too. It made me wonder if it will take until May, when I can return to my regular climbing gym. But then I realize that that is nearly four months away (May 15) — that’s way more time than the thing has even been broken. Surely I will get to return at least with my shoes broken in, no?

Oh, and I’ve been dreaming about running. Or rather, I’ve had a number of dreams in which I’ve been able to run. Hopefully starting to get back to that — very slowly — soon.