I went to my final PT appt today. I worked pretty hard for 30 minutes on the shuttle machine and was doing some two leg jumps on it. The newest batch of exercises consists of balancing on just my injured leg and I have a bungee attached to my good ankle. The other end of the bungee is afixed to something. I balance on the bad leg and pull my good leg against the bungee…i rotate my body 90 degrees each time so that I am pulling the bungee in a different direction with my leg. I have ski poles in hand at first for balance, but ideally after a few reps of this, you can balance on your own. This is really helping build balance and ankle stability.
During my US, massage, and ice/stim…my PT mentioned that over the past 19 years, he has seen any where from 2-10 ATR’s a year, and mine was one of the nicest looking at this point of recovery (3.5 months). That was a super nice comment to hear heading out of there. Now, it’s up to me to continue the strength training. Kind of a strange feeling to be out on your own. I do have one more ortho appt next week..but I think that may be the last too. I did tell the PT office that I’d be back in with a case of beer once I could dunk again! Which is even funnier, because I’ve never been able to dunk anything other than a tennis ball and that was back in high school! (I’m 5′9″). I am suppose to work it pretty hard and take notice of any tendonitis…if that becomes an issue, the PT said we can work some US, massage, ice/stim to help with that.
I’ve got no swelling, the limp is close to being gone, and I’m still doing the handrail walk/jump down the stairs as putting the good foot down to the next step still puts too much strain on the tendon. ROM is almost 100%. Here’s to thousands of calf/heel raises in the next 3 months!
Just as a reminder of where I was just a few months ago:
I can remember that day, it was cold/wintery out and I was worried about getting the vegetable garden in for the year…..well, as my dad said, it’s incredible what a handicapped person is capable of:
Started tomatoes inside while I was laid up after surgery. Got the early season stuff (peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes) etc in by crutching out and laying on the ground. Potatoes went in during first few days of FWB in the boot. Transplanted tomotoes/peppers in a shoe. What a spring!
Happy Heelin’
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