Welcome me to the club

November 10

 

I hate to be late. I think it’s disrespectful to whomever you’re meeting with, and people who are chronically late don’t get a lot of my respect either. In fact, I’ve never tolerated it even with my dates – I don’t care what their rule book says.

 

Anyway, 3 weeks post-op is my first day in Physical Therapy. Their building is a 2-minute walk away from my office, so I gave myself ample time to get there, and left an hour before my scheduled appointment.

 

I could not concentrate on work anyway — I was really worried – is my Achilles still attached after it was sawn back? It did not hurt at all, pre- or post-surgery, so I was wondering if the surgery had made any difference.

 

It was raining, so I was going to get a cab, but by the time I got to the place where I could catch one, I was halfway there. So I decided to walk it all the way, and arrived soaking wet and about 25 minutes early.

 

Some young girl came out, and said that she’s the new therapist and will be working with me. I went, wait a minute, Sue was personally recommended to me, and I could have come in last week to see someone else, but I waited the whole week to be seen by Sue.

 

But really, I did not want someone inexperienced to do my PT, especially the first session. So I insisted on sticking to the original plan and seeing Sue. Turns out the young girl just was not busy, and only wanted to see me because she did not want me to wait another half an hour. My punctuality backfired, but my paranoia saved the day.

 

I was relieved when I realized that the tendon is indeed attached – when I laid down on my stomach, the foot did not drop like before, but stayed pointed out. Any pressure on the ball of my foot caused excruciating pain in the tendon and the calf.

 

The therapist turned out to be very energetic and confident, and truly impressed me with how detailed she was with her questions.

 

She did some calf stretching, then calf massage (which was very painful as well), then taught me how to put the weight on my boot – completely straighten the bad leg, and really load it, starting from the heel, and rolling forward. I was very tentative before with weight bearing, and was only putting enough weight to support the leg.

 

That’s about it for now. My broadband is still out, so I’ll be posting these later.

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