Friends, Romans, and Fellow ATR bloggers,
Don’t be fooled by my lack of posting updates because I still regularly visit this website a few times a week. Its great seeing updates from everyone and the progress that everyone is making. It’s also helpful for me to read some old blogs for reference and advice.
After having surgery almost six and a half months ago for a sudden ATR while playing football, my life is finally returning to normal. Although I tried to do everything right (getting surgery within 48 hours of my injury, buying a vacocast on my own since my ortho was not familiar with it, being diligent with PT for almost five months, and careful about being incremental), it has still taken me this long to get my gait almost right. I say almost because it’s still a little off in the morning and as I get tired. And to echo Kellygirl, also when I’m barefoot. I finished up PT a couple of weeks ago and have been doing some powerwalking the treadmill and hitting the exercise bike quite often. Its hard to do it everyday with two little kids in our house and working full time.
I have finally learned that you cannot speed up the body’s way of healing and that we all heal differently and don’t have the exact same injury. I was dejected last month and posted here because I thought that hitting that magical six month mark would mean that I would be back to running, jumping, and back 100% but it really is a yearlong recovery at least in my case. I am thankful to all the advice I got at that time and it kept me motivated to remain patient and diligent with my daily exercises. I take a few more days off from exercise now and the rest has made a difference. My PT pointed out that one of the reasons for my gait being off was a very weakened tibialis posterior and since I have focused on strengthening it, things have become better. In fact, I can finally get my heel 1cm off the ground! I just realized I could do this yesterday and I am just ecstatic about this accomplishment. Once I can get it off the ground a little more, I hope to start a running program.
As many others have pointed out in this community, it’s really hard to rebuild the strength you lose from being immobilized. In retrospect, I do wish I had a more accelerated protocol so that I didn’t have to do the 6-8 weeks of NWB leading to so much atrophy and consequently prolonged recovery but that is what I was told to do at the time. I also wish I had moved a little faster on my own from PWB to FWB and two shoes instead of really taking my time with it but oh well. I also realize that having surgery does not lead to faster recovery…at least in my case.
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