In 2-shoes & walking ever so slowly
The physio appointment went very well and she seems friendly and willing to listen to my goals. Thanks to advice from others here, I made sure to mention that my final goal is to be able to run, play tennis again and generally return to my sport. My physio rehab will thus take 3 months which seems thorough and helpful & which will take me to my goal (or thereabouts).
The boot was ditched for good as the physio thinks wearing it will teach me bad walking habits. I am not strong enough to do any stationary cycling or swimming just yet, but the foot’s range of movement is excellent (almost as good as the good foot, only a few degrees off). However in a few weeks I will join the circuit gym group which will prob have me doing proper exercises.
For now I have an elastic band with which to do strengthening calf exercises (see the exercise blogs for details, very similar stuff), I am told to practice good gait walking and balancing on one leg. I do these twice a day. The aim is to be able to balance on the bad leg for 1-2 minutes and of course to get the muscles which went on holiday for the summer (gluttes, thigh & calf) to engage in walking properly again. Yoga is not yet on the cards, though in principle I can try if I feel like it and see how it goes, stopping when the pain gets too much. To be honest, I have enough on plate with practicing walking for now and I am not hurry to pull a “Forest Gump” anytime soon.
Walking in shoes is easier than barefoot (as others found too). And yes, Bigfoot did manage to get into shoes eventually, pushing through the tingles and pain and using a tubular band to keep the swelling under control. Only downside is tubular bands don’t come in pink. Also, despite my impressive array of shoes which I have thoughtfully brought along, the physio said I should wear “whatever is comfortable”. I gather a bit of heal is helpful, but anything goes pretty much (so long as it fits well and is relatively stable).
Walking (see pict) is not easy as the stiff leg is not happy with the situation. Those crutches are sure going to go for good soon too, I can already take steps without them and have worked out how to furniture-walk all the way to the kitchen (furniture-walk is a technical term for leaning on any piece of furniture available in the hope of not falling over). So I just walk very very slowly (I used to be a notoriously fast walker and hated slow people, arrrh the irony!). Also, various shades of purple are all normal at this stage and to be expected. RICE principle can help with this.
As one of my friends put it, one small step for mankind, one big step for Andreea (thanks Annik!)
Happy healing everyone, I am off to paint my nails!
P.S. A word of caution from my phyiso I’d like to share: beware the evilish stairs! Apparently they are the no.1 cause of re-ruptures as pushing off too fast on them is a sure recipe for disaster (particularly as you get stronger and “forget” that your poor achilles is only “newly reborn”).
August 14th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Hi Andreea, nice to see you walking. Im following your blog cause im pretty much at the same spot as you are, 9w 4days post-op today. I tries to ditch the boot inside the house myself know, and im pretty much walking around in my Adidas. The leg is wery weak and it really takes a lot of consentration, and not stepping on the kids toys :). I think progress is made every day, but as you point out, the stairs is dangerus. I still use my crunches in those, or the boot. Keep up the good work!
August 19th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Hi Ronny, thanks for the comment. It is nice to hear from someone going through the same thng at the same time. First of all, well done on ditching the boot! Yey! The PT said to me to get rid of it and never use it again as it teaches me bad habits. Glad to hear that your Adidas shoes are comfy. I found shoes good too. I have been told the following strategy for stairs: always step down with your bad foot first, and always step up with your good one first - so the bad foot is always “lower” than than the bad one. Apparently, beware of steep inclines too as that is a place where you might be tempted to push off with your bad leg first and it can lead to trouble. Uphill go with good foot first, downhill go with bad foot first. Happy hobbling & best of luck from me!
August 19th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Steep inclines are definitely a hazard and a challenge, but I’m pretty sure I’d keep my healing leg in front in both directions. Going up stairs should be safe, as long as your heel is on the step and you don’t go nuts. (I was never tempted to go nuts on stairs.) I just described my fave way to go down stairs on another page here — it looks just like going down stairs normally, except for where you put your healing foot on the step (Every Single Time, Without Fail!).