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

 

Week 6: Balance and Mobility

I’m learning to measure progress in new ways. As I said at some point, since I’m not sending (finishing) anything in the climbing gym, I have to find other ways to get my dopamine going. Without further ado:

Things that happened this week:

I’ve started going down stairs alternating feet, holding onto a handrail. This has actually gotten significantly better over the course of the week — shallow stairs actually don’t feel that bad, and I’m pretty fast. The limiting factor on this — and it seems like on everything else — is ankle mobility.

As of Sunday: I can put my pants on! That is, I can get my good leg into my pants leg while standing/balancing on my bad foot. It still feels scary, but I’m doing it consistently. I’m doing a lot of balance work in general — still doing 2 minutes 3x/day — but also trying to figure out what kind of dynamic balance stuff — i.e. balancing with the rest of me moving — I can add in. Did this (picture on the right)!

Riding the spin bike for 40 minutes. Actually sweated a lot for the first time since November 9. Considering trying the elliptical too.

Slightly overdid it trying to work on my calf strength so that I could go up on one toe. This caused extra swelling around my fracture site. Backed off, swelling went down to lowest levels yet.

Getting very close to being able to fully lock my knee.

I wore heels! Not for very long, but I did it. (special occasion)

As of today, my bodyweight squats feel totally normal/even on both sides. I can easily go below parallel.

Other things:

Now that the swelling around my fracture site has gone way down, I can feel the callus formation around my bone, which is cool, because callus = bone healing. Here’s a handy diagram of the stages of bone healing. I am somewhere between phase two and three, the latter of which occurs around weeks 6-8, or 8-10, depending on what website you get your information from. Once the bony callus is fully formed, your bone is technically back together, but complete bone remodeling is finished after a year.

Upcoming goals:

I crossed off two of my goals from last week, and I’m carrying one over. So, updated goals are:

• Be able to stand up on just my left toe.
• Going down stairs without a handrail.
• Ride a bike outside

Believe it or not I feel like riding a bike outside might not be that far off!

Pictures:

This week (left) versus last week (right). Not too much difference.

This week (left) versus last week (right). Pretty significant difference. Really pleased with this.